July 29-30, 2011
Green Street Mortuary
Wake, 6:00-7:00 PM
Call to Worship
God is gracious. He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Psalm 147:1, 3,5; Matthew 11:28, 29; 5:4)
My name is Don Ng, Pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and on behalf of Sue Chin’s family and especially her children, Thomas, Raymond, Daniel and Mary, Betty and Gordon, and Nancy, we welcome you here tonight to remember and celebrate the long life of Sue Que Gee Chin born into this world on August 30, 1910 and returned to the Lord on June 22, 2011 having lived for over a century.
The focus of our time tonight is to visit with one another particularly as family and friends have traveled great distances and made special arrangements to come together as a beloved community. At the funeral service tomorrow at 12:00 noon, we will have a more formal service of sharing Words of Remembrance and the reading of Scriptures. We invite you to come to tomorrow’s service as well that will be followed by a Committal at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Colma.
Let us pray.
O God, your care is like that of a father who has compassion for his children and a mother who comforts her child. We cast our heavy burdens of grief on you. Deal graciously with us in our anguish. Grant us the comfort of your rest. Assure us the confidence that your faithful servant, Sue Que Gee Chin has been received into the arms of your mercy, in the blessed rest of your eternal care. May our lives hereafter bear witness to the hope that is ours in the crucified and risen Christ, who defeated death for our sake and now reigns victorious in your glory. Through his name we pray. Amen.
Kem Pei
One of the rich Confucian cultural traditions that many practice to symbolize our love and care for our departed loved one is kem pei or blanketing. The blankets keep the spirit warm and help brave the cold. The family will begin with the oldest son and family all the way to the youngest child and family. The first pei is solid white, the color of heaven and is followed by one of solid red, the color of life and happiness. The other blankets full of different colors represent the richness of life across the many years of life. As Sue Chin securely tucked her children in bed to rest and sleep, now her children and family tuck her in for her eternal rest. This is a beautiful ritual of family love.
Practice of Kem Pei/Blanketing
Biography—Nancy Gee
Reflections—Servant
Sue Chin shares the sojourners history of countless Chinese American women who came to America accompanied by their husbands to start a brand new life in a new world with streets that were paved with gold. While growing up in privileged surroundings and inheriting the long and glorious history of ancient China, Sue Chin still looked forward to coming to America even if the new life here would be harder and more challenging than to remain in the security of old China. While she may have been cared for and others serving her if she stayed in China, she became a lifelong “serving” person in America.
We tend to think poorly of those who are labeled as “servants” and definitely “slaves” in our modern context. But when one is an honorable and honest servant, it’s probably one of the greatest things one can do in life. For instance, when we expect “quality service” getting our cars serviced, we compliment the auto mechanics by completing an evaluation form with excellent ratings. When we are attentively served at a nice restaurant with delicious food, we are thankful and show our appreciation with a generous tip. We would give an extra gratuity to those who go the extra mile for us. When one is a true servant, the person shows love and respect toward others.
Throughout Sue Chin’s long life, she was a true servant to the needs of others. She waited on tables even when she couldn’t speak English at that time so that all her customers would be fed. She worked in a laundry sorting out, washing and ironing clothes so others would look clean and good. She worked at a hotel making beds and cleaning rooms so that the guests would sleep comfortably. She ran a grocery store to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to be served on people’s kitchen tables. And she dry cleaned clothes so that people would have fancy clothes to wear. In all of these jobs, Sue Chin served others by working long hours with the goal of having enough in order to serve her own family.
As parents today, we can attest to the reality that we sometimes feel that we are just servants to the needs of our children and grand and great grandchildren—don’t we? They are always expecting us to help them and we get the feeling that we are simply servants. While Sue Chin was serving the needs of many others in her jobs, she never overlooked serving the needs of her own children and family. At home after a long day serving others, she cleaned house, washed clothes, knitted and created new clothes, made meals and prepared special dishes for the holidays. If there’s anything we can learn from Sue Chin is that to be a servant is to have a most honorable profession.
The Apostle Paul writing to the Philippians said this about Jesus Christ.
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:1-11)
Just like Jesus, Sue Chin emptied herself as a servant and was never afraid of hard work to serve others and her family with her love and care. And just like Jesus because of her life long service of sacrifice, we remember her by name today.
There is a little song that goes like this:
Make me a servant, humble and meek, Lord, let me lift up those who are weak;
And may the prayer of my heart always be: make me a servant, make me a servant, make me a servant today.
If there’s anything that we can learn from the faithful life of Sue Chin is for us to imitate her as a servant. Serve each other in love as a legacy that you will continue in her memory. Go out of your way as she did to make sure that you are caring and serving your loved ones. Provide excellent and quality service to all you meet as a testimony to Sue Chin’s 100 years of life.
And just like Jesus Christ our Lord who emptied himself, took the form of a slave, being born in human form just like us, served God in full obedience, even death on the cross, let us also be servants to one another and in the world in the memory of God’s humble servant, Sue Que Gee Chin.
Let us pray.
Creator and Provider God, at this time of all times, we thank you for the precious gift of life. 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 the loved ones who make that roof and that bed 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 last, when all hope seems lost, except for the one shining hope set before us in your raising our Lord Jesus from death. Amen.
Announcements
After you have come forward to offer your last respects and to greet the family, you will be given two small envelopes when you exit. The white envelope contains a piece of candy to symbolize sweetness in a bittersweet situation. The red envelope contains a coin for you to buy something on your way home to suggest that you will continue to prosper and to have a healthy life.
The Chin Family invites you to dinner tonight at the Lichee Restaurant just around the corner on Powell Street. They look forward to greeting and meeting you there.
Tomorrow here at Green Street, there will be a funeral Service beginning at 12:00 Noon, followed by the Committal Service at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Colma. Following that, you are invited to the Memorial Meal at the Grand Palace Seafood Restaurant in South SF where there’s plenty of parking.
Benediction
May the awesome power of God the Father, the gracious love of the incarnate Son and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, bless us and sustain us from this day, and forevermore. Amen.
Funeral Service, 12:00-1:00 PM
Call to Worship
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…So we are ambassadors for Christ. (2 Cor. 5:17-18, 20)
My name is Don Ng, Pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and on behalf of Sue Chin’s family and especially her children, Thomas, Raymond, Daniel and Mary, Betty and Gordon, and Nancy, we welcome you here today to remember and celebrate the long life of Sue Que Gee Chin born into this world on August 30, 1910 and returned to the Lord on June 22, 2011 having lived for over a century.
We hope and pray that your presence here to remember a dear loved one and to lend comfort and support to Sue Chin’s family will be a blessing to you. Taking time from our busy lives to be here recognizes the value of family life and good friends. We start off in life thinking that there’s plenty of time to do everything we want and then to discover that regardless of how long we live, even over 100 years, there’s always more living that we wish we can do. We thank God for every day and especially this day that we can remember and celebrate Sue Que Gee Chin, a long and faithful life.
Let us pray.
Creator and Redeemer God, at a time of deeply felt loss, we turn to you for comfort. We glorify you for creating the universe out of nothing and each one of us in your image. We acknowledge your sovereign wisdom in setting limits to our life on Earth and for setting before us, through Jesus, our crucified and risen Savior, a limitless life. Being reconciled to you through him, we hail him as the divine leader in that ministry of reconciliation in which he expects us to serve as his ambassadors. To him, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all glory and praise. Amen.
Biography—Nancy Gee
Scriptures
Words of Remembrance
Phillip
David
Melanie
Robert
Reflections—Life-long Student
When we were parents of babies, we would tell someone the age of our child by the number of months, weeks, and days. When we are just a few years old, we are always saying that we are almost to the next birthday. We just can’t wait to grow older! In our adolescent years, we want to be 18 to drive or 21 to have a drink or old enough to go to college or get a job so that we’ll have more money to go to the mall. And then through a long stretch of years, we are quieter about how old we are—we like to be seen as younger than we really are. And then when you reach 62 like I have recently, I get to buy a “senior pass” for $10 to get into all of the National Parks for the rest of my life free. And if we are very blessed, some people get to grow much older attaining the centenarian status of being 100 years old like Sue Chin! When one reaches such milestones, every day is a birthday party when one gets to eat all the cake and ice cream one wants!
Living to 100 years old gives a new meaning to the word, “life-long.” You have a longer view about life. You have the fortune to see things begin and come to an end. You can learn something new and begin building on that foundation with new discoveries every day and every year until one amasses so much learning that we grant that person the name, a sage. One who has wisdom.
Sue Chin grew up in a home that valued the importance of education. Her father in China allowed Sue Chin to attend a village school and rose to the head of the class. Even when she was detained on Angel Island, she seized the opportunity to learn the alphabet to get a head start in her new life in America.
Along with her husband, Sue Chin learned new skills and developed new abilities to run a restaurant, a laundry, a hotel, a grocery store and a dry cleaning business. She learned how to make homemade soup and special dishes for the holidays. She learned how to knit, crochet, and sew clothes so that she and her children would never be cold.
Learning new things in her new country became her lifelong passion. She learned English at night school. She learned English to become a US citizen by passing the naturalization test. She even mastered the CA driver manual and passed her driving test to be able to drive for one third of her long life. She attended the senior center where she learned how to live gracefully old. Sue Chin is a symbol of a life-long student!
Sue Chin and her husband saw the importance of a good American education that they moved from San Francisco to Berkeley so that their children would be able to attend the University of California. I heard that many of her family members caught this passion of learning and education from Sue Chin that they have become well-educated and respected members of their respective communities. She is very proud of what you have accomplished by following in her footsteps.
In Romans 5:1-6, we read:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
When someone like Sue Chin who has lived a mighty long life, she would have experienced her portion of sufferings. But those times of suffering taught her endurance to persevere and not despair. By enduring challenging and difficult situations, she must have developed quite a character of strength and fortitude. But every time she faced difficulties, she knows with her many years of life that in the end, there’s yet a new day dawning—a hope for tomorrow.
Someone once said that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But we know that as old as Sue Chin became, she was always learning and discovering something new and interesting to do. She traveled throughout the United States and in Asia. She was a life-long student who modeled for us that God is making this world and your life new again, every day.
Regardless of how old you might be, let’s all be like Sue Chin who lived all the days of her life learning and discovering wonderful things that this world has to offer and the gift of wisdom and salvation that has come from God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
Eternal and loving God, Giver of Life, we thank you for all the stages of our lives, from birth to death and beyond death.
We praise you for the freshness, the innocence, the wide-eyed curiosity of childhood.
We thank you for the wildly exciting trials of adolescence: for youthful dreams and touching arkwardness.
We praise you for all the right choices we made in our early maturity and beg for forgiveness for making so many wrong ones.
We thank you for the satisfaction of our later maturity: for teaching us, sometimes painfully, how to give more and expect less in return.
And we praise you for the as many sunset years as you may have in store for us: for fragments of wisdom, for grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren, and for the courage to face our mortality strengthened by the promise of a more perfect life, thanks to the love and willing sacrifice of your blessed Son.
Thank you, Father, for the life of your child, Sue Que Gee Chin, ended here, resumed with the Lord. Amen.
Video—100th Birthday Celebration
Hymn—Blest Be the Tie that Binds
Announcements—Tom
After you have come forward to offer your last respects and to greet the family, you will be given two small envelopes when you exit. The white envelope contains a piece of candy to symbolize sweetness in a bittersweet situation. The red envelope contains a coin for you to buy something on your way home to suggest that you will continue to prosper and to have a healthy life.
Memorial Meal at the Grand Palace Seafood Restaurant, 359 Grand Avenue, South SF. following the Committal Service at Woodlawn Memorial Park.
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Committal Service
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)
“God so love the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, we commend to God’s merciful care our sister, Sue Que Gee Chin; and we commit her body to this final resting place: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“Blessed are the dead who…die in the Lord…they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” (Rev. 14:13)
Let us pray.
God, our Maker, you have made our sister, Sue Que Gee Chin, in your own image; you set her feet on a sojourner’s experience; you watched over her along the way. As you lovingly received and welcomed her to the ranks of the redeemed, we pray that you would continue to guide our sojourner steps so that, at the appointed time, we might join Sue Que Gee Chin in the communion of saints—forgiven, transformed, and fit for our new life with the Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Benediction
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Amen.