From the heart of a father

Celebration of Life – Kerk Zi On
Tribute Service held on 22 June 2008, at Teluk Intan Wesley Methodist Church, Malaysia

From the heart of a father –
Sharing by Kerk Choon Keng, Zi On’s dad, at the Service


1. Welcome and thank you.
President of Trac Rev. Ong Hwai Teik, all our dear friends and relatives,

Cho Tan, Zi Lu and I are deeply touched by all of you leaving everything just to be with us today. Many of you have to travel long distances from North, South and East of the Malay Peninsula and from Singapore. Some of you have to take special leave and cancel other appointments to travel from Australia, Canada and Mongolia in order to be with us today.

One author beautifully describes what friendship is. He said, “friends are just like stars. You will not see them during your bright day light. However, they will appear when your day turns into dark night.” My dear friends thank you for being the Stars of my life and my family’s lives. Your presence brighten our darken soul.


2. Our feelings
It was a traumatic time for me and my family when the Brisbane Marine Police broke the news about our son Zi On on 5-12- 2007. It was just like the blood stained robe of Joseph brought home to his father Jacob. Ah, like Jacob, it would be better for me the father to go ahead to “sheol” instead of my son.
All of you are saddened and in grief with us over what had happened to our son Zi On. The following words forwarded to us by two of our dear friends would precisely describe the inner feeling for most of us here.

Koay Chee Hoe from Bangladesh wrote:
“I’m sorry it has taken me this long to write to you… not that I have forgotten you… the simple reason is, I didn’t know what to write, where to begin, how to make sense of all this……
“I wept the first time I read your letter, and I still weep every time I read it or the blogs dedicated to Zi On. If for me the tears cannot stop flowing, I can’t imagine how much you’ve already shed.”

Adrian Ding wrote:
“ I sat in silence and share your deep sorrow and pray the Father will cover you with His grace for a time such as this.”

3. Our comfort
In our grief, we found comfort when we discovered Zi On’s devotional diary-through which we are assured of his faith and devotion to God. This also helps us to have a deeper understanding of his inner man.

This Tribute Service is carried out with three purposes:
a. To bring to all our dear friends and relatives first hand information about Zi On’s life, his beliefs and his journey to glory.
b. We have received more than 150 tributes written on Zi On’s life from our friends and Zi On’s friends and relatives. These words of encouragement we want to share with you and hopefully they will bring you comfort as they have brought to us. We know it is difficult for you to go through all of them today; we have recorded the two power-point presentations and most of the tributes into a CD for you to take home. Pastors and various Ministry leaders, if the content of the CD can be an encouragement to the people you are ministering to, you are welcome to use them.
c. That the name of God be glorified through the act of His servant Zi On.
We are just like Mary and Joseph, after Jesus was crucified, nothing else could be done except to return to Galilee. The rest, we leave it to the hand of the almighty God. Only He alone can glorify His holy name.

Lastly, I want to share with you fifty four sentences I have written for Zi On. It took me a long time to complete them as each thought brought grief and pain and I had to stop until I could pick up again. (See below)