08年第一篇

The three-week trip to Asia was pretty tiring but exciting and rewarding. I'll try my best to recap what had happened.

12.16.2007
I planned to arrive HK on 12/15, and then visit my uncle and have dinner with a friend who is leaving HK soon. Unfortunately I messed up with the schedule and had to leave HK the same day. As soon as I got off the plane, my sister told me the news that uncle passed away the day before I arrived...

After 18 months of fighting against cancer, "little uncle" finally left this world in peace, surrounded by loved ones singing hymns and prayers.

As far as I could remember, "little uncle" was pretty funny--although he looked serious. Sometimes he looked too serious that you didn't even know he had just cracked a joke. I guess that's what most pastors do? Little uncle used to live in Yeun Long, which is pretty far away from where we lived so I didn't get a lot of chances seeing him. Every time when I needed to go to his house it was like a whole day trip. He used to live by his church, and had a few scary doggies. I remember I was left alone in his office and there was a huge, barking German Shepherd right outside waiting for me. At that time I needed to pee but I was so scared that I didn't even dare to make a single move.... and guess what? I peed right in his office :-)

"Haaa... oh well, I could blame that it was the dog who made the mess" that's my excuse I thought in case I got caught afterwards...

Little uncle loved eating hot peppers. He used to put several 指天椒 in his mouth at once and chewed on them as if they were bubble gum. May be that's why I love spicy food as well?

Little uncle liked collecting inexpensive "古玩" and was willing to share some of them with my mom :) Too bad I wasn't able to appreciate his collections at that time, or else I could had owned some of his treasures.

Little uncle also spent a lot of his time doing missionary work in China. I missed much of the details but I could imagine running around China in his 60's building up churches wasn't easy. The last phone call I had with him was when I came back from a short term missionary trip from Mongolia back in 2002. He sounded excited about what I had done and encouraged me...

I'm sure there are a lot of other pieces that little uncle had left in my life, and I'm sure I'll meet him again in the better place soon.