60 Years Ago
by Peter Y. Woo, 2000
Sixty years ago, I was born. My parents were excited. For a few years they told me I was their only son, and when God gave His only son to the world, it was a very painful thing.
World War II started a year later. Only by God's grace were we preserved from starvation in Hong Kong. Sometimes Mother would take me to market, when she would buy a tael of beef (about 1.3 ounce weight). The butcher would cut off something like one cubic inch from a big piece of beaf hanging by the hook. I always wished he would make a mistake, cutting off a bigger piece. Mother would chop it up and steam it on a little plate, all for me. For herself and Father, they would buy some small fish, and cook a little vegetables. Sometimes we were out of sugar, and I would fret. I understood why oil is such a precious commodity in the Bible. Sometimes they would eat some yams. I love yams, but people eat yams only when they cannot afford to have rice.
Growing up ain't easy. I started school only after my 6th birthday, into Second grade, spring semester. I covet the chance to play with the wooden horse in the kindergarten room, but they won't let me. I was happily cutting my finger nails with scissors, in class, when the teacher pulled my ears and got me to stand facing the class. I found out that was a form of punishment.
Fifty one years ago, I was in fifth grade. The teacher, Mr Chan, was too kind and too softhearted to be one. He never rebuked us. So the boys soon bullied him. He taught us some samples of great literature, such as "Father's Back Shadow" and "Moonlight by Lotus Pond" by Zhu ZiQing. Some girls were moved to tears by these prose. One day we were especially rowdy. At last the school bell rang. The boys yelled "yay" for joy. The teacher took a long last gaze at us, with tears (I believe) in his eyes, before walking out. That was the last time I saw him. He quit. Afterwards another teacher Miss Lee came. She was firm, stern, stared us at the eye, and chided us severely for our lack of respect that drove Mr Chan away. Some girls were in tears. Over a few months, even the worst boy learned to fear her.
Forty years ago, I was a junior in University of Hong Kong. One day I went with a few Christians who gave testimonies at some church meeting. Gloria felt special message from the Lord when she gave her testimony, and I felt special attraction to the quality of life of hers. "Wow, what a girl." I had my eyes on her ever since, but I was too shy. After graduation in 1962, we wrote letters, prayed for 9 months, till we both had peace of heart, before we had our first date. Then I came to Los Angeles to study math at USC [Univ. of Southern Calif.]. She came in 1965, and we got married, poor, but happy. My first car was a second hand Renault, which I bought for $150. My monthly income as a Teaching Assistant was $300, but half of it went to tuition, at $40 a unit, and lived in an apartment for $55 a month, including utilities. Two sacks for food for the week cost $10, which would fill up my bicycle basket. Gloria contributed all her savings on a new secondhand car, a VW bug.
Thirty years ago, I was the father of 2 girls, age 3 and 1. We lived in an apartment. [I got my Ph.D. in math 1968, but worked afterwards as a software systems programmer, for $9000 a year.] Besides my daytime job as a computer programmer, God gave me an evening job, teaching one course at USC. It took us a whole year to save $1500, with which we could buy our first house at San Diego, for $13000. Together with a few friends at NCR Inc., where I worked, we started a home fellowship, where we invited nonChristian friends to come. I played the piano, Rev. Ben Chow would play violin, and some would sing Chinese folk songs. Some friend came to the Lord through it all.
From 1973 to 77 we were at Santa Barbara [working for Burroughs Computer Co.], where I enjoyed helping the youth group at a Chinese church to develop Bible study leaders. We also learned from some valuable spiritual resources to help our marriage go through some rough waters.
Twenty years ago, I came to Biola Univ. to teach full time for one year. Helped Dr Thurber to buy two sets of Z80 computers with 64K memory and no hard disks. I helped him to negotiate the purchase of a Digital Equipment VAX 780 computer. We taught Biola students Basic, Pascal, compiler theory, all upon such DOS machines, or upon Apple IIe's. Some students such as Billy Brown and Phil Sallee would write game programs with character graphics, in a frenzy, for 3 days and nights, producing code of 4000 lines or so. One of my students was Mark Shimazono, who scored 31 points in Putnam Competition Exam, ranked 69th in the whole nation, or something. I also built 8000 character graphics Chinese font, plus a word processing system, with which some churches produced bilingual Sunday Service bulletins.
I had some marvelous experiences of God answering prayers: 1982, He delivered us from a law suit that could potentially rob me of all my financial savings. At the day when the last things are settled, Gloria got news she need to have surgery. God was gracious not to let two trials getting upon us at the same time. God encouraged us with some vital verses from His word, and Gloria's experience was full of grace.
Then a client using my software was losing data from his database. If they sued us, I would go bankrupt, and my boss would be affected too. After spending several days and nights, with little sleep, trying to produce a similar phenomenon on our computers, Gloria suggested us to ask the prayer chain of the church to pray. In 2 days time, I found the bug. It was 3 a.m. or so, my project leader woke up from sleep on the sofa, while I was plodding along on the computer. He said, "Peter, did you spell xyzabc as XyzAbc ...?" That's it. I had two pieces of software simultaneously running, but that misspelling caused one piece to invoke the wrong paragraph. It was a piece of software that gets executed rarely, only when files are filled with data to almost overflowing. Afterwards I had to rescue the file at Wyoming, via teletype connexion by telephone. Thank God all the data were not lost, and I could rebuild the index files there.
1985. The doctor said I was having cancer metastasized into my lungs. Orignal cancer was possibly from kidneys or other places. I was ready to die, thinking of what books or music I should write during my last 6 months of life. The church wanted to pray for me. Before that the Pastor asked me whether we have sins in our life such as criticisms of xxx and yyy. Gloria was eager to confess it, but I said "Wait, I really think we did not..." Anyway they laid hands on me and prayed for me. I felt like being ordained for some ministry. Afterwards, the Xray images got better and better until I was totally well after one year. Now I know I am living on borrowed time ----- God's time. So we got involved with missions prayer meetings. I still wrote no books.
Ten years ago, after TianAnMen incident, God gave me opportunities to speak at some Chinese churches on Sundays, sometimes twice a month. It was great training. My virtual cancer experience helped me to appreciate things that have real lasting values in life. These ten years were more fruitful and fulfilling than ever before. We went to Beijing in 1997 where Gloria taught English to high school teachres, and stayed in Hong Kong for one semester in 1998, learning to live happily in a 400 square feet apartment, without no need for medical insurance or car insurance or fire insurance, a surprising freedom that life in US does not offer. I was touched by a newspaper article that got my heart on the poor. We went to China several times to visit a school where we helped to raise scholarships for some lovely poor students. Now they write heart moving letters to us.