Pauline - In Memoriam

---By Diane Jen, 2022/09/07

While Pauline and I were not personally close - we did not spend much time together one on one or exchange many significant conversations about our personal lives - her presence in my life was very impactful and important. Our families grew up together, my brother grew up with her children, my mother has traveled with her just for fun and my father labored with her in our church congregation for over 30 years. She was present in my life from infancy to today, and will continue to be.

Not all but the vast majority of my life, Pauline and I would be in the same room at least once weekly, each on our own path to seek God and seek to love Him and His people better. I have learned a lot about Pauline through others and through seeing her and hearing her across that room. Being able to love the Lord alongside her and other older sisters at our church is a great privilege. Being a Christian and serving God with other humans is not easy, it is not without doubts, without failures, without challenges - yet, she ran the race and held true to her convictions until the end, sharing her faith with joy to literal thousands along the way. I truly cannot think of anything that is more impressive.

To be prayed for by her, to have been led by example by her love for people, her strength to face her moments of doubt, to forgive others in the face of unfairness and misconduct even towards her, her assurance of her faith and the eternal value of the life of Christ in her - will forever be an inspiration to how I hope to live before God and influence the community around me through the gospel. She was a badass, bold and so assured yet kind and tender in her "mei mei ... how are you?". We will miss her dearly.

I can only pray that I will be able to honor her life by continuing to seek God and live by His calling to all believers to love our neighbors and disciple the nations. So thankful that God placed me in the same room as her every week. What a legacy, what a life - so full of worth and value. Living for Jesus, a life that is true.