My Second Brother, Michael
主要索引標籤
My Second Brother, Michael
In my dreams, there has never been a scene where I bid you farewell first.
At the end of August 2025, Andrew told me, “Uncle, if you want to say goodbye to Dad, the time has come.”
In early September, I accompanied Andrew to send you into the intensive care unit.
In those few days in America, I stayed with you constantly — watching you sleep and wake. Each time you opened your eyes and saw me by your bedside, you would grasp my hand, look at me closely, and then smile — a smile just like Father’s — and with a faint, weak voice, you whispered, “Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!”
By your ear, I poured out my lifelong gratitude and the countless ways I could never repay your brotherly love. You listened kindly, tightened your grip on my hand, and softly repeated, “Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!” Then, with a fatherly, tender smile that shone with peace, you looked at me. Unable to hold back my tears, I turned to wipe them away, then leaned forward to kiss your forehead — our final farewell face to face in this life.
On September 12, I returned to France. Through the whole flight, your grateful smile and gentle expression stayed before my eyes, accompanying me across deserts, icey lands, mountains, and seas — just as it has been for all these decades. The thought of that you were about to depart ahead of me, made my heart so painful .
In 1977, we, as brothers, boarded the same flight leaving Taiwan. We parted in Hong Kong, each pursuing his own calling. You, after completing graduate studies at National Taiwan University, received a scholarship to study in the U.S. I, filled with a childlike zeal to spread the gospel to unreached lands, traveled alone to France with only a few hundred U.S. dollars — money that was either borrowed or all our family could spare.
Though we were separated by oceans for forty-eight years, no matter how demanding your studies or busy your work became, you always kept me in your heart — caring for and helping me as both brother and father until your final days under hospice care, without ever ceasing.
On December 9, you peacefully returned to the Lord’s embrace and were reunited with our parents.
Never again will I see the face I have known since childhood, nor hear your familiar invitation during every video call: “Come visit me with Yuanfen anytime — stay as long as you like!”
On December 28, a memorial service was held at the Irvine Chapel in the United States.
Messages of condolence poured in from friends and loved ones, most echoing the same sentiments:
* “Your second brother was a model for us all; we cherish his memory.”
* “Whenever I went to Irvine Church, Brother Michael was always so warm and devoted — unforgettable.”
***
Everyone knew of your remarkable achievements and wholehearted devotion to the Lord’s work. What they did not know was how deeply you had worried over me, your younger brother — so much that your hair turned white.
- You have served in the executive board of the U.S. General Assembly for many years, well-versed in decision making and execution of church administration.
- Desiring to understand the first hand situation of the English-speaking churches in Africa, you set aside your professional career and personally traveled there.
- I once saw a letter on your desk from the U.S. General Assembly, inviting you to be ordained as a deacon. You declined and did not sign. Humble, gentle, quietly caring, and generous in secret — that was how everyone described you to me.
From childhood, I constantly heard neighbors and fellow church members praise you, our elder brother, and our sister. Being the youngest and closest in age to you, I always followed your lead and never disagreed — except once.
After completing your Ph.D., you joined a major international corporation in America as the head of Environmental Affairs. Prominent leaders admired your expertise, ability, and humility, urging you repeatedly to establish your own environmental company — a pioneering idea at the time.
In 1995, you founded Integrated Environmental Service, undertaking national-level projects. You traveled tirelessly across the country. Even near the end of your life, my sister-in-law told me with concern that during your twenty-one years before retirement, you worked without rest — for the family’s well-being, for relatives and friends in need, and for the church’s ministry. Often, she said, you were still drafting plans under the lamp when dawn arrived, usually sleeping fewer than four hours a night.
You and my sister-in-law were true models of filial piety, caring for both sets of parents and constantly thinking of your siblings and friends. Each time you helped me financially, you would say, “Whatever abundance God has given me, it’s also to support you in your missionary work — so you can serve without worry.” You would remind me, “If you need anything more for your work, just tell me.”
You always cared deeply for the development of the Lord’s ministry, especially the International Assembly that our father’s generation had built with prayer and hardship to spread the gospel worldwide.
I still remember a colleague once pulling me aside and whispering, “Your second brother, Michael, just donated four hundred thousand U.S. dollars to the International Assembly — did you know?”
No, I didn’t know. But I did know this — you never even allowed yourself a cup of Starbucks coffee.
Around 2009, when you learned of my situation with the International Assembly, you immediately flew to see me, full of concern. You thought I was no longer the fervent, faithful brother you had bid farewell to in Hong Kong decades ago. You urged me to step back. You could not believe what I told you — the things I had witnessed with my own eyes and endured within the leadership of the Assembly — nor could you accept that the church our father’s generation once built in faith could have fallen into such ruin.
You wept and pleaded, but I, with tears, could not agree.
You left heartbroken, taking with you the documents I gave, while I stayed behind in grief. Even now, more than a decade later, that pain still remains unbearable. That was the first and only time I ever disobeyed you.
People may not understand — the crisis of 2012 did not bring me the shock of Joseph being sold, but rather the calm of Daniel in the lions’ den, at peace with God’s will. If there was pain, it was only from knowing that “they” had deceived you with lies and half-truths, causing you such sorrow.
***
During that time, the International Assembly chairperson, Lin, *voluntarily* gave you all the internal documents about me. You handled them as thoroughly as the major corporate projects you used to manage — compiling dozens of pages of analysis. When you flew to see me around 2009, you showed them to me. My heart ached. Then I showed you the other half of the records — the ones they had *hidden* from you. You fell silent.
Later, you asked Lin whether any materials had been withheld. Realizing he’d been exposed, Lin’s face hardened: “You’ve got everything!” You then showed him the other half documents I had given you and asked, “So these records — which by right should also exist in the International Assembly archives — were they destroyed, leaving behind only what you wished future generations to see? And as the person in charge, how can you mislead others about my brother like this?”
After that, Lin, who once actively sought your favor, stopped contacting you. You wrote several letters urging the International Assembly, since they had already involved you, to provide the full documentation. Lin delayed repeatedly, eventually sending Zhao, the General Affair officer, to reply: *You may request internal files, but you must follow procedure — first local church approval, then regional, then national, then hemispheric office, and finally the International Assembly board.
You asked Zhao, “When Lin first gave me those materials, did he follow this procedure? Was it approved by the International Assembly board ? Did it pass through the Western Hemisphere office? Did you follow your own rules?”
Then you added, “But when the International Assembly wishes to condemn someone, false documents and misleading notices spread across the globe instantly — don’t they?”
You could not accept that the leaders of the church you loved so deeply would not only ignore truth before their eyes but continue to lie with hardened faces.
On March 22, 2011, you compiled a forty-page report and sorrowfully shared it with the International Assembly’s leadership. You summarized, among other points:
1. “If I had not personally experienced these events over the past year (April 2010–March 2011), I would not have believed such things could occur in God’s house.” (Note: Manipulating meeting materials, influencing meeting outcomes, issuing false official documents, and controlling public perception.)
2. “During eighty-eight days of intensive communication, the International Assembly gave *six contradictory versions* of the same issue.”
3. “In my thirty years of professional career, I have never encountered an organization as disordered and functionally deficient as the International Assembly’s current administration.”
Besides these, with deep disappointment, one day you asked me, “Does no one oversee the International Assembly’s finances?”
You found out that your four-hundred-thousand-dollar donation had been almost entirely spent by those in authority under the pretext of ‘preparation,’ with endless travels and meetings across nations.
From then on, your concern for me turned into even deeper empathy and protection. You became my strongest pillar.
***
At the 2012 meeting, I told the International Assembly leaders, “The helpless eyes of Elder Zhang Barnabas’s son in 1989 have never left my mind. I will not let today’s injustice and deceit be left for my own son to clear up.”
I therefore decided to go to California, where the International Assembly is registered, taking all documentation to file a legal case for its wrongdoing.
You consulted several American lawyers. They said there was no reason we would lose — yet:
1. The General Assemblies (international and U.S.) would lose their religious organization status and face heavy fines for years of labor law violations.
2. Those responsible for falsifying documents could escape punishment only by never setting foot in the U.S. again.
You told me gently, “If judgment comes, those whom are truly punished will be the church in America and the innocent brethren. For their sake — so they may still have a lawful place of worship — please let go. Trust that God will reveal the truth in His time, God will not leave this burden to your descendants.” Seeing me remain silent, you laid your hand on my shoulder and said softly, “I think our father would want that too.”
The U.S. General Assembly, realizing the seriousness of what surfaced, quickly corrected years of improper practices — reclassifying ‘temporary staff’ as official employees to comply with labor law and restore workers’ rights.
From 2013 onward, U.S. church staff finally had legal protection. Friends joked that the workers of U.S. General Assembly been the “only beneficiary” of an unjust suspension — for it improved conditions for them !
In 2015, when donations intended for Congo went missing, confusion and finger-pointing erupted. A respected deacon — much like you, successful in both business and church — stepped in to investigate. He thought that simply by showing the transaction records would resolve it. But to his shock, *no records existed at all* — hundreds of thousands of NT dollars had vanished.
The finance team tried to mislead him, not realizing that he had approved countless corporate budgets in his career. The more they explained, the more questions he raised. Finally, in tears, he wrote to the donors: “What I thought would be easily clarified has only revealed more troubling signs — something I’ve never experienced in over thirty years in the corporate world.”
The decan’s disappointment in 2015 over the administrative chaos within the international Assembly coincided with yours in 2011. His deep sorrow mirrored what you felt four years earlier. Both of you expressed, through words, the same sentiment of having “done your best, hurt to the point of no longer wanting to care.” In 2015, the overall person in charge of the International Assembly was Che, while in 2011 it was Lin, and the treasurer was also Che.
***
Perhaps you never imagined that the institution you labored for and loved so deeply — the International Assembly — would one day use *your* unwavering trust in the church (in God Himself) to weaponize false information and turn you into a pawn to harm your own brother.
But by the Lord’s mercy, truth was revealed before harm was done. Otherwise, I cannot imagine the pain of seeing you meet our parents in heaven burdened by misunderstanding me.
Thus, when I held your hand before leaving for France, you summoned your final strength, looked at me, and with a faint voice said, “Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!”
That gentle, radiant, fatherly smile you gave me became my greatest comfort — our final, sacred moment of love. I bent down, kissed your forehead, and sealed there the lifelong bond between us, which no distance or time can sever.
I am eternally grateful to have shared life’s branch with you — to have had you as my second brother, filling my life with incomparable sweetness. Your memory now lives within me as gentle warmth, accompanying me as I await the time when I shall see you again.
My dear second brother, wait just a little longer — I will come soon.
Final words, placed at your memorial service:
**Beloved Michael**
Thankful for having you as our brother.
Proud and honored to be your family.
With deepest sympathy and loving remembrance,
Sister Mei-Hui, Brother Shyh-Kuang, Brother Yuh-Ming, and their families.