This precious story was sent to us from a Chinese brother:

I remember receiving the Vision Forum email shortly before Father’s Day which had The Patriarch poem in it. Having just returned from a trip to visit my parents in Durham, North Carolina where I had tried to convey the essence of our multi-generation vision for our family to them and explain to them the basis for many of our family decisions and directions, I thought that The Patriarch was a good summary of what I wanted to accomplish. So I sent the following email with The Patriarch attached to my father.

Dear Dad —- This is a poem about being a Patriarch (a father) by Doug Phillips. It is a good description of what my vision is for me and my family. While you are still he Patriarch of our family, our season where you take care of us is passing and we now are in a position of taking care of you. However, this is God’s vision for fathers, to be a reflection of Him on this earth and being the Father, Priest, and King of the family, and this is seldom known and even less lived out by those fathers who are Christians. It is perhaps one of God’s most saddest realities that He sees, disobedience to His call. One thing you can do is to encourage those young fathers in your Church to first hear the truth and the call, and then to turn their hearts back to their wives and their children. Their families will respond and turn their hearts back to the fathers. Much love on this Father’s Day this weekend.

My father was touched by my email and thanked me for my kind heart. He was so challenged by it that he translated the poem into Chinese (since their Church is conducted only in Chinese) and asked for time during their Father’s Day service so he could share this. The following is from my journal entry on June 20th, 2005.

Perhaps the highlight of my Father’s Day was calling Dad late last night and hearing that he transcribed the email I sent him with The Patriarch poem and read it to his Church with tears in his eyes. He followed my urging to share the vision with the fathers in his Church. How proud I am of him. He was willing to give testimony for the benefit of others. He’s my father. And I thank you, Lord, for Him

Little did I know what kind of work God would do in his Church through this. I had no idea that there were families in their congregation who had come from mainland China but had chosen to leave their children behind with grandparents in order to find work and establish themselves here in the United States. While life in the U.S. represented their hope for a better life, they felt that they had to leave their children behind until they could be on firmer ground financially. My father’s words touched the hearts of 3 families in this situation. With tears from touched hearts, they committed to reuniting with their children as soon as they could.

When we recently visited my parents at Christmas in December 2005, 2 of the 3 families had already been reunited with their children. God even arranged for us to meet one of the families when we bumped into them while out at a restaurant. I’ll never forget the beaming smile of that little boy. His heart was turned back to his father.