Intimate Strangers We Are: OCM

Dear Oversea Chinese Mission,

As I read of your 45th anniversary/birthday, I am mixed with emotion.

I knew you since birth, I experienced your labor pains. I was an innocent participant of your being. I was loved by you in the beginning, but as I grew older and left home for school, we grew apart year after year.

We had the same parents, they were sacrificial in every way. There was no waking moment when Dad and Mom did not think of you and suffered in love to invest in your growth and needs.
Times were hard, no heat, no hot water, living in a government project, no car, but never a complaint, never a missed meal.

It was difficult for me as I didn't feel a real part in our family. Although from the beginning I worked right along side of Mom and Dad. Folding the newletters, washing communion cups, setting up chairs, playing piano, teaching and babysitting... it was as if I was not given an invitation, just being another sibling tagging along and helping as much as a child can.

I didn't feel accepted by the new members adopted in from overseas.
I didn't feel at home with the older members from the neighborhood.
I was different, never finding a fit in anyone's file.
Now I know that is because there was no one like me. No one but my blood siblings who may have a clue to who I was apart from you. Your existence became my existence.

So much so that at times I resented sharing Mom and Dad with you. It was rare when it would be just them and I. It was the norm to have you in my life. Doors to our 8th floor apartment were literally only closed at night for slumber. Streams of your children would call all hours of the night for help, many would sleep with us.

You also would often dine with us without hesitation, even as we walked to dinner at a nearby restaurant, it would not be unusual for Dad to chance encounter you on our way, give you his jacket to wear, fill your pockets with cash, then invite you to continue conversations over our meal.

You were the only lifestyle I knew. There were no presents or traditions during holidays. Christmas meant gathering for a church potluck and gift exchange. Easter meant waking up 3a.m. in the darkness to hide eggs for your sunrise service in Central Park.
Summers would be filled with conferences, and there were always meetings, all kinds of them, all times of the day.

Mom and Dad tried to make us special in their own way. Dad did take us to Coney Island and I remember staying for Monday night fireworks. I loved sleeping in his arms during the long subway ride home, which climaxed over a bowl of fat rice noodle soup at Mott street's basement restaurant.

When I grew older, Dad would take me shopping, but it never failed that he would invite another girl who needed clothes to come along as well. I was jealous, not of the clothing, but his time. I wanted him to myself.

Being the youngest of four already adds to the demands of attention as it is. Yet, now I understand more and wonder how they did it. Here they were, Mom and Dad, strangers from another country, culture, language, religion, in a mission so seemingly impossible.
Not only did they survive, they accomplished the course, they were truly super heroes. Miracles paved their journey as routine.
If you knew them, you experienced the supernatural.

I am proud of them, I am proud of you.
After 45 years, you have long been weaned and now you must stand strong.
Mom and Dad, and many others who helped to conceive you have gone ahead of us now.
No more whinning like a child, you and I.

Dream, move, plunge forward and continue what God had appointed special for you.
Now is your time, for this you were born, no excuses.
You have been given a solid foundation to build upon, continue one brick at a time.

My prayers are with you, my heart still longs to be in your rooms, hallways, elevator, even roof top.
My memories are painful, but I too must go on with courage and ambition for God's plan.

Such strangers we still are, yet how intimate we have become. I miss you OCM.
I tearfully miss you.

http://ocmchurch.org