Family Remembrance and a Brief Account of His Service
My eldest brother's departure fulfilled the consecration made at the New Jersey training for the intellectuals and scholars: our future is either rapture or martyrdom.
In March 2015, the heavy snow in the northeastern United States lay several feet deep, yet my eldest brother and Brother Yu Jielin (余潔麟), both bearing sick bodies, came to visit Brother Zhu Yongyi (朱永毅) in New York. Through the fellowship over the purchase of the Penuel campground, the sweet fellowship between Brother Zhu and the church in New York and the churches and co-workers everywhere was restored. That evening my eldest brother returned with me to our home in New Jersey to rest, and only then did I learn that, because of the large amounts of medication he had taken for years after his kidney transplant, the flesh around his gums had grown inward, so that it was often bitten and bled without stopping. That night his gums bled without ceasing and he could scarcely sleep peacefully; yet the next day he served as usual, as though nothing at all had happened. This made me grieve for him deeply.
I still recall that in his youth my eldest brother was as strong as an ox, a rare athletic talent; but in these years he pressed on in shepherding while bearing sickness, visiting the churches everywhere without ever stopping. His hands were no longer nimble, and his feet would not obey him; he could neither sleep well nor eat well. Yet what was hard to believe was that his mind was especially sharp, his will strong, and his spirit flourishing in strength. Of course, in the matter of coordination there were setbacks, and the bitter and the sweet were a constant; but he still strove to press straight ahead. In my eldest brother was fulfilled Second Corinthians four, verses seven through ten: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us; we are pressed on every side but not constricted; unable to find a way out but not utterly without a way out; ... cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body."
At the same time, through that life of the Lord which adapts itself to all things, my eldest brother worked together with God, as testified in Second Corinthians six, verses four through ten: "In everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much endurance, ... in labors, in watchings, in fastings; in pureness, ... in long-suffering, in kindness, in a holy spirit, in unfeigned love, in the word of truth, ... through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report; ... as dying, and behold we live; as being disciplined, yet not being put to death; as made sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things."
On the spiritual pathway my eldest brother set a pattern for us brothers, and in the service of the church he took the lead all the more, leading us to follow the New Testament ministry and to go forward without turning back on the path God has ordained. Yet even more, he was our dear eldest brother who loved us, supported us all his life, and stood in a father's place to us—our dear eldest brother both spiritually and in the flesh.