Tee Wah Ong Memorial Service
July 24, 2010
Bridging Worlds
The Bay Area of Northern California is best known for its bridges. You can’t see the major tourist attractions in the Bay Area without sometime crossing one of the area’s 8 bridges. When the Bay Bridge needed to be retrofitted and the eastern span completely replaced, Jerry Brown, the mayor of Oakland at the time, wanted a bridge design that would make it stand out for both tourists and residents to take notice. Perhaps the area’s best-known bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, is recognized as one of the modern-day wonders of the world. People from all over the world want to walk across this bridge. Early Chinese immigrants who came by boat to America once sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge knew they have arrived at Gold Mountain.
If you live in the Bay Area, you almost have to cross a bridge to get around, to work, to sightsee, and maybe to come to church. If it weren’t for bridges, we would be cut off, disconnected, and immobilized from being together in one place. If it weren’t for the footbridge that connects the Hilton to Portsmouth Square, hotel guests would not easily be able to cross over busy Kearney Street to come to worship at the Chinese Congregational Church.
When Sebastian shared his thoughts about his father, Tee Wah Ong, his father was like a bridge all his life. His home was on Hainan Island in China that required him to cross a bridge to come to the mainland with his elder brother for school. He crossed bridges to go to Malaysia with his father and to Singapore to attend Nanyang University where he studied hard and was a good student. He was bridging a life back in China where education was hard to come by with a new and modern life of being educated and well-trained to succeed in a new day.
Eventually he crossed more bridges to study at Durham University in England where he received his master’s degree. Tee Wah Ong successfully crossed over from being a hard working and good person to becoming a well-educated hard working good person. Like many Chinese in those days, Tee Wah Ong did all kinds of menial work such as laboring in restaurant kitchens or delivering mail in wintry days just to get by and pay his tuition. Sebastian remembers how his father studied into the late hours of the night, teaching classes during the day, and taking care of the children in the evening. They were very proud when he received his degree. Tee Wah Ong accomplished his life-long goal of achieving academic excellence when he became the first among his peers to be conferred the Doctorate Degree in 1976. He crossed over the bridge of education to lead the way for his children to do the same.
As people of the Christian faith, we have Jesus Christ as our ultimate bridge. Christ is the Word who became flesh and lived among us and because of that revelation; we have seen God’s glory. Christ, the Son of God is full of grace and truth. When we couldn’t figure out for ourselves on how to be in covenant with God, God took the initiative to connect with us. If it weren’t for God’s undeniable love and grace, we would be disconnected from him. Jesus Christ serves as the bridge for us to come to God. In Christ, we know the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7).
Tee Wah Ong was baptized when he was studying in England. He brought Sebastian and his brother to church. After a time of not attending church, he started attending again and became quite active such as serving as a deacon in a Presbyterian church. Sebastian suspects that he returned to church to pray for him and his brother when they were overseas.
Like most Chinese parents, Tee Wah Ong wanted Sebastian to pursue a career that would bring home lots of money. Going into church work is never going to make one rich. In retrospect, Sebastian believes that it was about the same time when his father became active in the church again is the time when he decided to enter the ministry and attend seminary. God created a bridge in his father’s heart to understand how important it was to answer God’s calling. When Sebastian returned home from the States, both his parents approved of his decision. God miraculously enabled his father to bridge between traditional thinking with the value of enabling and nurturing his sons and daughter to pursue what God intended them to be from the very beginning of creation.
Tee Wah Ong was a bridge between cultures. He would bring his sons to see martial arts movies made in Hong Kong and then go out for a western style meal. In those early days, Sebastian’s stomach was still more Chinese than American. When he first ate salads, the idea of eating raw vegetables didn’t sit well for him. Tee Wah Ong’s children adored and worshiped their father because from their eyes, he knew so much about life. Through their father’s eyes, they were able to see the whole world. He bridged his children’s world with the rest of the world that God created.
When a loved one leaves us from this world, we are saddened and we grieve over our loss. The one who has served as a bridge for us for a lifetime is no longer connecting us and bringing us together like before. But even in our time of sadness, we believe that because of Jesus Christ, we are no longer separated between heaven and earth. When Christ died and was raised and is now at the right hand of God, Christ now intercedes for us. Christ is the bridge that keeps us connected and unified as a family here on earth as we know it is in heaven.
The Apostle Paul said, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39). Although Tee Wah Ong is now with God, Jesus Christ, the bridge who connected heaven and earth will not let even death separate us from the love of God as well as the love that you have for one another as a family.
There’s an old folk song sung by Joan Baez that best describes Tee Wah Ong. While he was born on an island, he crossed over to other countries and eventually to California. He transformed the meaning of success by bridging his humble beginnings with receiving a PhD. He paved the way like a bridge in his own Christian journey to understand Sebastian’s call to the Christian ministry. He left a wonderful legacy to all of you that regardless of how challenging your life circumstances might be, you can succeed in reaching your goals. The song is:
No man is an island,
No man stands alone,
Each man’s joy is joy to me,
Each man’s grief is my own.
We need one another,
So I will defend,
Each man as my brother,
Each man as my friend.
I saw the people gather,
I heard the music start,
The song that they were singing,
Is ringing in my heart.
No man is an island,
Way out in the blue,
We all look to the one above,
For our strength to renew.
When I help my brother,
Then I know that I,
Plant the seed of friendship,
That will never die.
No man is an island,
No man stands alone,
Each man’s joy is joy to me,
Each man’s grief is my own.
You as a family will stay connected together because Tee Wah Ong has taught you that no person is an island that stands alone. We need one another in joyous days as well as sad ones. While Tee Wah Ong is no longer with us, in Christ who has bridged all of us together into one Christian family will continue to do so until that day comes when we are together again in heaven.
The life of Tee Wah Ong like the world famous Golden Gate Bridge or the soon to be built spectacular Bay Bridge— is a reminder of a beautiful legacy and how he connected and unified your family when he was here in person and when he is with you in spirit. Today we have taken noticed of a spectacular life for the world to see.
Let us pray.
Creator God, at this time of all times, we thank you for the precious gift of the life of Tee Wah Ong who served as the bridge that connected his family together in love and grace.
We thank you for health—and for the skill and compassion of those who care for us when our health falters and fails.
We thank you for home: for the roof over our heads and the bed where we stretch out to renew our strength in sleep; and for loved ones who make that roof and that house and all the rest into a true home.
And we thank you for hope: hope for the pursuit of the next goal when one goal has been reached; hope for recovery and a fresh start when a goal has eluded us; hope at the last, when all hope seems lost, except for the one shining hope set before us in your raising our Lord Jesus from death.
In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.