Consecrating Oneself to Serve Others
The Riches of the Ministry to Build Up the Body
In 1987 I was assigned to migrate to Hall Sixteen in Taipei. At that time eight sisters, together with the family of Brother Lin Hong (林鴻), lived together in Hall Sixteen. Brother Wu was then an elder of Hall Sixteen. I remember that my first conversation with Brother Wu was this: "Brother Wu, it is so late, and you still have not gone home—won't your wife be worried?" He answered, "If I were not serving the Lord, then she would have cause to worry. When I am out and she does not even know where I am, that would be different. But because I am serving the Lord, at least she knows I am at the meeting hall."
More than ten years ago, a conference for the young working saints of all Taiwan was held in the gymnasium of National Taiwan University. I was hosted in Hall One and rode there in the same car as Sister Wu. In the car at that time, Sister Wu said that she had already consecrated Brother Wu to the Lord. Here we truly must thank Sister Wu, because it was through her offering up of Brother Wu wholly to Christ and the church that so many saints and so many churches could be blessed through Brother Wu. Sister Wu, thank you.
While learning to coordinate in Hall Sixteen, the brothers came to make home visits. My home was in a very remote village in Tainan, yet the brothers were willing to come and visit us without sparing any labor, preaching the gospel to my family, who were still opposing my attending the training. To recall it even now still moves me.
In the Lord's sovereignty, in 2012 we came to serve in Taipei, in the same large district as Brother Wu. In order to encourage more responsible brothers and saints to enter together into the speaking of the ministry, every winter and summer training, at the 6:30 morning pray-reading, studying, memorizing, and speaking, he would drag his weary body and be seated in the meeting place early in the morning. In April 2018, I had just undergone an operation and my strength had not fully returned, so I thought that watching online would be just the same. To my surprise, in that week's service fellowship, he called my name, saying that he had not seen me in the exercise. The very next morning, early, I went. Thanks be to the Lord that He has given us such a pattern.