Take a read of this month’s Testament Issue as Cecilia Yeung shares with us on the topic of A Culture of Caring.

Cecilia Yeung has a vision for our church. She doesn’t know how we are going to get there, but that hasn’t stopped her from making a start.

A Culture of Caring

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35

Cecilia is a member of our English Congregation Prayer, Care, and Social Concern Ministry, a care advocate in her Cantonese Congregation fellowship, a family caregiver, founder & director of a charity organization for youth with mental health challenges, and also a mental health clinician. When she first approached me, she had an idea of sharing people’s stories (with appropriate privacy considerations) of receiving care and also giving care to others, so that somehow, authentic experiences of laying aside pride and independence, and also fear and apathy might be taken out of the shadows.  She wants to see our church boldly embrace a culture of caring for one another. I’m immediately drawn in, so we make a date to go for a walk together.

Cecilia is so amazed by God’s love for her, that it is hard for her to imagine how everyone that has the honour of being called God’s child, isn’t just overflowing in that love for one another. We talked about the reasons behind our very human reticence to show care. All people can have a fear and avoidance of others because of past hurts and disappointments. There is also a fear of what God will ask of us, and if it will be too much, if we entertain opening our hearts in the first place. Sometimes it’s just because we feel too small, too unskilled, and too inexperienced to think we can make any difference. Maybe we haven’t had examples or mentors to show us how.  

Cecilia tells me that VCBC’s Cantonese Congregation used to have a Care Ministry. Members of the Care Ministry organized training for people interested in caring to learn how to listen, and how to support without necessarily providing all the answers. All fellowships had one care ministry member each. This Ministry was dissolved, and it hasn’t been a focus of our church since. Cecilia tells me care for one another is far more basic than discipleship, and care can be done in very creative ways. What can be more simple than to love! And yet, what can be more difficult than to love. I counter that practicing care for one another is where discipleship (aka spiritual transformation) actually develops.  Cecilia thinks that caring seems to be a choice but it involves a commitment and she hopes we can commit to care to experience the fruit of caring. 

To understand Cecilia’s passion for a culture of caring, I felt I needed to understand a little more about her. So, Cecilia shared with me her testimony.

Her brother was the first Christian in their family. He had moved to Canada for his studies and this is where he learned about God. When he visited family back home in Hong Kong, he wanted to tell all of them about what he had experienced.  At the time, Cecilia was not impressed. She made her response even more emphatic, when later, she shut her dorm room door on the Christian sisters he had sent to speak further with her. But at Christmas, being unable to afford a flight home, she agreed to attend a Christian camp with her brother. She heard the good news of Jesus again, and didn’t even realize she was being led to pray a prayer of acceptance, when something powerful broke through in her heart. She may have not understood it with her intellect, but her heart was unleashed and she cried for hours amongst the Christians she had just met.

Cecilia knew she needed to know more about God, so she read through the bible in 3 months. She helped start a Christian Fellowship at her university. She began to lead bible studies even though she knew very little herself. She read many Christian books. The concept of one book still stays with her now. “Reaching Out” by Henri Nouwen, impressed on her that there needs to be a balance of looking inward to understand and grow ourselves, with also reaching out to care for others.  Cecilia made me laugh at how she and her fellow Christian students found creative ways to support and care for one another.  In one such story, she credits those classmates, with helping her pass her classes. She said her typing skills were so bad, she would never have been able to finish a paper for a 5pm deadline, without their help to put her handwriting to text. This makes me think of the times others have really sacrificed or reached far into my carefully curated exterior self, to reach the raw me. These moments of true care stay with us, and cement us in lasting friendships.

Cecilia was soon asking God what he wanted from her life, and all she heard was the single word, “students”.  “Students?” “What does students mean?” she thought. As an international student herself, she was not supposed to be allowed to enter the Faculty of Education, because it was felt that she would likely leave and take that skill away with her. But by God ‘s grace, Cecilia was accepted as the only international student in the program.

After graduation, Cecilia returned to work in Hong Kong as a high school teacher.  She witnessed the struggle of her students and the stress in their family life.  She had the desire to do more for her students. She wanted to be able to care for their whole selves.  This led her to a desire to seek theological studies, but her parents did not support this idea. She felt God was telling her to wait, so she took training in counselling and volunteered at a Christian counselling centre instead. Eventually she did get to pursue her theological studies and was hired as a pastor with a focus on counselling at a church. She knew she did not want to be the kind of pastor that prepared sermons, but one that could care deeply for the needs of the congregation with her background in counselling. For two and half wonderful years she got to do exactly that. It was with much heartache that she left her church in Hong Kong to come to Vancouver to be with her family. But God has given her more freedom and new opportunities here. And she sees how He has guided her all along in just the way she should go.

How does someone who cares for children with serious mental health challenges and risks to themselves, come home to be a caregiver, and still reach out to coordinate the practicalities of meals and transport for those that need it, connect with others by attending Renewal, and spend time to counsel others in the art of caring and sharing openly? Cecilia tells me and I agree, that God does not ask us to help everyone. She asks Him if she should be the one to help a particular person. Sometimes she is not. Cecilia accepts sometimes she will play a small role, for others a larger one, and for some no overtly direct role at all except to pray. Whatever the role, and whether she gets to see the outcome or not, she accepts the task with the joy of God’s provision, and the joy of others’ and her own growth. And for her physical well-being, you can ask her about her participation in Pilates

Cecilia and I share a laugh because we both personally know the humor of God in our lives. We both know what it is like to have grown up very timid and to have been utterly changed by God. We know that it is God’s brilliant design to have us be mentored and mentor others, and to care for one another in spiritual interdependent community. For it is in community that we grow. We learn how to give Him a courageous “yes”, even as we more deeply comprehend our very humble state before our Lord.

If you are on board, to be the caring community for Cecilia and for others, introduce yourself, and we will see what God will do.