Yesterday we buried Oom Henry Tjioe.  Most of you did not know him; I, too, did not know him too well. In fact, I only met him several times.  It was Tante Yvonne and Oom Peter who tried to introduce him to Christ by inviting him and his wife, Tante Florence, to the Orange County’s Fellowship’s New Year’s Eve’s celebration.  Before the celebration we usually had a service where we asked the Lord to bless us in the coming year.  Oom Henry came to the service but instead of sitting with the rest, he sat in the back.

However, as time went by, he began to soften his heart.  Oom Peter told me that once at his birthday dinner, he suddenly asked Oom Peter to say a prayer.  And when Tante Florence passed away, he agreed to have a Christian funeral service.  In fact, it was his idea to have a bagpiper play “Amazing Grace” at the graveside service.

A couple of months before he passed on, Oom Peter and Tante Yvonne asked me to visit Oom Henry in a nursing facility.  They felt burdened for Oom Henry’s salvation.  So, we came.  And I shared the Gospel with him, but when I asked him whether he wanted to pray and ask Jesus to come into his life, he said, “No.”  But when I asked him whether it would be OK for us to sing Christian songs, he said, “Yes.”  And when I told him that I’d like to pray for him, he let me do that.  He then quietly closed his eyes and prayed with us. 

The night before he passed, Oom Peter and Tante Yvonne, Santy and me, and Bonnie, his niece visited him.  He was weak and almost unresponsive.  Once again, I shared the Gospel with him and gave him the opportunity to ask Jesus to come into his life.  I didn’t know whether he did, but what I saw was that he, who was restless just moments before, became peaceful.  What happened then was between him and God, between him and the Amazing Grace.

Pastor Paul