A Good Shepherd
Whom the Sheep Are Willing to Press Upon and Lean Against
One day in mid-June 2015, my wife had just returned home after finishing chemotherapy when a brother telephoned to say that Brother Paul Wu was coming to Qingdao by express train, making a special trip to see Sister Chen Jing (陳靜) and her family. I stood at the station exit watching the passengers come out; wave after wave passed before my eyes, but I did not see Brother Wu. The people coming out grew fewer and fewer, until at last there were no more passengers, and still I had not seen Brother Wu. A few more minutes passed, and at the far end of the corridor there was a person in a white short-sleeved T-shirt, one hand bracing a piece of luggage, swaying as he made his way toward the exit. He walked very slowly, with faltering steps, as though he might collapse at any moment. O Lord! It was the dear Brother Wu; I went forward at once to receive him.
When we reached home and he saw my sister Chen Jing and my father- and mother-in-law, he sat down and immediately began to fellowship. Brother Wu seemed to know what was on my wife's mind, and he spoke of his own experience of battling his illness by relying on God's grace. He had no words of teaching, no preaching of regulations, no concealing of the frequent weakness of his own body. Knowing his physical condition, we urged him to rest a while first, but he said it was no problem—sitting and talking was itself a rest! His words were full of encouragement and comfort. The fear and hopelessness that my wife and I had felt toward the illness were thus lightened, and within our spirits the warm fire of a new hope was kindled.
He was as steady as a mountain, like a father, broad in heart; and tender and loving like a nursing mother, attentive to the smallest detail. He was a shepherd, a good shepherd whom the sheep are willing to press upon and lean against. In truth, Brother Wu's coming—even without his saying anything—was already a great comfort to us. To think that he was dragging along such a diseased body, watching him swallow handful after handful of medicine, the unspeakable suffering brought on by the side effects of the drugs tormenting him at every moment—yet from his expression and his speech you could not see or hear the slightest trace of it. He said: he lived by God.
Only later did we learn that on this trip Brother Wu had first accompanied a saint to Tianjin to look into the matter of a kidney transplant, then come to Qingdao to see us, then returned to Tianjin, then on to Hong Kong to attend a blending gathering, and then back to Taiwan from Hong Kong. It was on this very trip back from Hong Kong to Taiwan that, as he came out at Taoyuan Airport, he fell to the ground and suffered a fracture.