Sunday, February 23, 2025, 12:30 PM
Green Street Mortuary, San Francisco, CA
Call to Worship
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
Welcome
On behalf of the family of Dorothy Ann Yee Wong, I welcome you here for this celebration of life service. My name is Don Ng, retired pastor of First Chinese Baptist Church, here in San Francisco Chinatown. I have been asked to preside today because this Wong family is blessed with many members of which some are members of our church. While I did not know Dorothy Wong when she was alive, I know her today from the wonderful stories and memories shared about her by members of her family. To that, I am grateful and blessed.
Dorothy Wong lived to the amazing age of 99! Born on December 19, 1925 and returned to the Lord on January 30, 2025.
Opening Prayer
Let us pray. Most patient God, we humbly pray for you to make your presence felt among us and within us. We need courage to control our fears, and they are many. We are afraid of failure and of success. We are afraid to love and to be unloved. We are afraid of life and even more of death.
Help us during this time of worship to build up fresh resources of faith and assurance. Let the spirit of Dorothy Wong who is now beyond fear, safely at home with you, inspire us to live more bravely, trusting in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and in his victory over fear, sin, and death. We pray in his powerful name. Amen.
Scriptures
Proverbs 31:10-31
Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies.
11 Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life.
12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
13 She finds wool and flax and busily spins it.
14 She is like a merchant’s ship, bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.
16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it; with her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She is energetic and strong, a hard worker.
18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable; her lamp burns late into the night.
19 Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber.
20 She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy.
21 She has no fear of winter for her household, for everyone has warm clothes.
22 She makes her own bedspreads. She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns.
23 Her husband is well known at the city gates, where he sits with the other civic leaders.
24 She makes belted linen garments and sashes to sell to the merchants.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.
26 When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.
27 She carefully watches everything in her household and suffers nothing from laziness.
28 Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her:
29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised.
31 Reward her for all she has done. Let her deeds publicly declare her praise.
Romans 8: 31-35, 37-39
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.
34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
3637 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eulogy/Biography
Sharing Stories
Freed to Fly Away
Living responsibly includes obligations to complete and expectations to meet. There are chores on our lists and deadlines on our calendars because our loved ones are counting on us. So, it is with Dorothy Wong.
A hundred years ago, life was not as easy or comfortable as it is today. Contained in Chinatown meant fewer opportunities even if one is US-born. Helping to add to the family income was everyone’s job. Relocating to faraway places to make a living rarely was a choice but rather an obligation. So, hearing a song like, “You are My Sunshine” provided hope for a better tomorrow or enjoying a game of Bingo may give anyone an instant rush of sunshine.
Being an American-born Chinese-American woman but the oldest of 6 children, Dorothy worked hard and created a modest lifestyle. She took jobs that were left over from the ones that most men didn’t want such as being a maid or a nanny for other families. But in so doing, she brought loving care and stability to all the households and families where she worked. And we all know that the oldest child usually becomes as much as another parental model for the younger siblings. Dorothy had many responsibilities that she was able to manage well.
While life’s hardships can never be avoided, Dorothy was known to be a fun person. She had an innocence that disarmed people and they loved to be in her presence. That’s an amazing gift that she had to bring harmony to relationships and peace in the community. I heard that she became the unofficial “mayor” in her San Rafael nursing home where she told people what to do. Insisting that she had a ground floor residence, she was able to welcome who was coming into and leaving her building. She was quite a character!
One of the stories that Dorothy’s daughter Audrey shared with me is that Dorothy thought being in any assisted nursing home was like being in a jail. We can understand such a feeling when she was living in Ukiah raising her children in wide open spaces or living in San Rafael where she owned the keys to her front door. Having the freedom to come and go whenever we feel we want is something that we too often take for granted.
When Jesus was preaching to the people, he was telling them to not worry about life, not to worry about what to eat and drink, what to wear and where to live. He said, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Mt. 6:26)
As we are all God’s children, Dorothy reminds us that she is like one of the birds that Jesus talked about. God cared for her for 99 years from Commercial Street where she was born to where she returned to heaven in Sunnyvale. She loved dogs and birds and we believe that she is freed, freed to fly away from this life to another, graced by God.
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.
We praise you for all the right choices we made in our early maturity and beg your 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 as many sunset years as you may have in store for us: for fragments of wisdom, for 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, Dorothy Wong, ended here, resumed with the Lord.
Benediction
Remember, beloved brothers and sisters, God has promised to bless us and keep us in this life and in our new life with the Lord.
The same God whose face now shines on our loved one, Dorothy Wong, has promised, through our Lord, to forgive us and to shelter us throughout eternity.
May you find comfort and peace in these gracious promises of a loving God
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.
Announcements
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)
Do not be afraid: I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead and see, I am alive forever and ever. (Rev. 1:17-18)
And from John, “God so loved 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, Dorothy Wong; and we commit her remains to this 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.” (Revelations 14:13)
Let us pray.
God our Maker, you made our sister, Dorothy Wong, in your own image; you set her feet on a sojourner adventure; 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 Dorothy Wong in the communion of saints—forgiven, transformed, and fit for our new life with the Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Put items in the vault.
Benediction
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you always. Go in peace.