In Remembrance: Yeung E

A lot was lost in 2019/2020.

Yeung E was amongst them.

Years ago in USA I didn’t know him.
But was referred to him when I was looking for a camp speaker.
The only requirement was that the speaker must be good with the Bible.

Yeung E came.

He wasn’t the eloquent rhetorician with charisma.
Even his physique didn’t impress.
His sermons demanded attention which not all could give.
But they had substance.
And honesty.
A breath of fresh air.

That was years ago.

Recently YouTube for unknown reasons popped up Yeung E’s sharing in 2020 about his fight with pancreatic cancer. (Note)
It was on “my grace being sufficient” as per 2 Cor.
Touching.
More so for it’s now known that several months later after his sharing, he would lose that battle.
So it’s pointless arguing against a silent interlocutor on hermeneutics.

There must be plenty of accolades about Yeung E.
That he gave up his MD career.
That he gave up emigrating to Canada.
That he never got a Ph D.
But that he ended up writing text books for Greek and Hebrew for seminarians.
That…

There’s little point to rehearse here.

What needs to be said here instead is this.

That was years ago in HK.

Back then once, Yeung E was speaking in an annual summer seminar on Biblical books.
His was the rare exception: it wasn’t on the whole book, but just the first few chapters of Genesis.
I thought he had earned his exemption, like Tiger Woods and similar greats.

There was another first.
Yeung E offered to host an additional Q&A session on the Saturday the following week, free to those who attended his Thursday lecture on Genesis.

Another breath of fresh air.

What’s perhaps really refreshing was this concern about young people in our churches.

He didn’t say it.
But no need for words.

By then he must have already known about his cancer, if not test results but the ominous possibilities, given his training.

But still he agreed without much convincing to do a few Q&A sessions with young people, admission free, sole requirements being youthfulness and registration.
He wanted to let the truth residing in Scriptures speak to and challenge unimpeded the young men and women, on one occasion over 150 of them.

He was so at ease.
Admitted when he didn’t have things all figured out.
There the breath of fresh air caught young minds.
He hoped.
It must have.
God does not work in vain.

Several months later he was in his apparent remission, though visibly thinned and weakened.
Again he braved all his conditions, likely known to himself fully, met with a smaller group of youngsters with whom he had stopped seeing since his cancer treatment.

That was the last time they met.

There’s no guarantee that the time Yeung E had spent with many of these youngsters had deepened their knowledge of the Bible.

No one gave guarantee.

But believe in human impact.
And Yeung E had such impacts.

I am sure those young people in a small group with Yeung E during his waning years.
Those group leaders Yeung E talked to once several weeks to take Q&A.
They must have something in the back of their mind that would one day resurface to move them. (May those young ones remember.)
When Yeung E was long gone by then.

That’s how true humanity speaks.
How truth speaks.
How spirit works.
How breath of fresh air breathed into our souls.

There are many ways to deal with why good lives are cut short.
There’s the one about God needing a beautiful flower in His garden.
There’s also this other that says God needs to replace one of His retiring angels.

Perhaps this time, in Yeung E’s case it is just a simple realisation on God’s part that someone should come in and enjoy his rest, “good and faithful servant”!


Note: Jude for YeungE YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@judeforyeunge)