My dad, Ricky Ong, passed away on 7 May 2024 after a near 2-year battle with cancer. For those who have asked for it, here is a recording of the memorial service.
My family and I are grateful for the support, care and prayers of Pastor Phil Matich and Kingdomcity Wangara, where Dad fellowshipped for the past 10 years. Even when he was physically weak, he would try to make his way to church on Sunday. Often, in the middle of worship, Ps Phil would come down to where Dad was seated to pray for him.
Ps Phil and his team did an amazing job organising and hosting Dad’s memorial service, including putting together the video tribute.
My thanks also to my sister, Cheryl, and her husband Nambin for storyboarding the video tribute. It was such a moving testament of Dad’s life.
Below is the text of my tribute to Dad, which I read during his memorial service.
Dad was in many ways a typical Asian parent. Whilst you will hear today of what an outgoing, fun person he was amongst his friends and at work, at home he was actually pretty quiet and sombre. It took me a while to really understand, however, in typical Asian-parent fashion, how he showed his love with grunts and nods. It wasn’t in what he said, but in what he did.
One of the things I admire about Dad is his courage.
He showed courage when, without any business background, he started a printing business in Penang. Who would have known that, just around that time, manufacturing was booming in mainland Penang, with factories like Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer opening up? His business ended up printing instruction manuals for TVs and video players. For a long time, whenever I unboxed a new electronics item, I would hold up the instruction manual and say to myself – “Wow, Dad printed this”. My wife is often perplexed by why I read through entire instruction manuals but I think this had something to do with it.
Dad showed a lot of courage too in bringing us to Australia. Back in Penang, he had a business that was going well. He had friends and family. But Dad cared more about our future than his own comfort, and he took the leap into the unknown by migrating to a new country with an unfamiliar culture – and where fresh durian was hard to find. A lot of Asian businesspeople might have left their family in Australia whilst they travelled back and forth to look after their business interests, but Dad stayed in Australia the whole time. Instead, he took up a job as an accounts clerk to be with us and to support us. Through it all, he was there!
By the way, he never saw his job as a lesser vocation compared to his being Penang’s printing mogul. In fact, he was really proud of his work at the Police Department. He had a swipe card with his picture on it that said “Police Department” which he used to love showing off. He liked to hold it up (like you see the police do on TV) as if he was making an arrest or executing a search warrant. I used to tell him that he worked in the Police, but he wasn’t actually the Police.
Dad’s biggest act of courage was when he brought the entire family into faith in Jesus.
You have to understand that Dad came from a deeply religious Buddhist household.
I remember growing up in the family home in Penang. There were altars to Buddha in virtually every room in the house. Grandma would burn joss sticks and incense regularly.
In 1990, after my sister was born 9-weeks premature, Mum and Dad’s Christian friends came to the hospital to pray for Mum and Cheryl’s health. When they were discharged from hospital, Dad thought it’d be nice to return the favour and to visit the church.
Well, after the service, we were all converted to Christianity. But my prevailing thought at the time was that grandma was going to kill us.
Dad took his new-found faith seriously. Every Sunday, Dad wanted to make sure we all got to church on time before the music started. He would rush us out of the house, making sure we all got ready quickly. If we were late, he would be in a foul mood throughout the car ride, which instantly dissipated as soon as got out of the car and started walking towards the church auditorium.
Dad was instrumental in nurturing my calling as a worship leader in church.
When I started to learn the acoustic guitar at church at the age of 15, most of my friends’ dads bought them cheap beginner $99 guitars. Dad didn’t skimp. Both Louis and I each got a more upmarket $300 Yamaha guitar. Of course, Dad subsequently became obsessed with guitars, and bought some real fancy guitars for himself. These were guitars that would have made professional guitarists froth at the mouth.
There were a couple of times, I’d be watching TV and Dad would come into the house after work and ask if Mum was around. When the coast was clear, he would sneak a new guitar from his car into the back room. Of course, he couldn’t keep his collection secret forever, because eventually Mum cleaned the backroom and discovered several expensive surprises!
As I began to take interest in music ministry in the church, Dad went out of his way to make sure that I could pursue my passion. Even as a teenager, when I used to lead worship at the church’s Saturday prayer meetings (which by the way, started at 7 am), Dad would drive me there. He never once complained it was too early. He would simply be ready at the door to leave the house at 6.30 am.
When I had music rehearsal at 9 am on other Saturday mornings, Dad would drive me there; drop me off, and then come and pick me up again in a couple of hours’ time.
Even though he never told me that he was proud of me when I became a worship leader in the church, I knew he was boasting to his friends about me. I would often meet one of his friends for the first time, and the first thing they would say to me was: “oh, you’re the worship leader”.
I just imagine his talking with his friends about something mundane, like food or holidays or his last durian haul, and then out of the blue, inserting an unrelated thought like “hey, you know my son is a worship leader in the church?” Even though it wasn’t relevant to the conversation, he just had to let people know!
I knew Dad was really proud of my being a lawyer too. Again, not because he told me, but because I’ve overheard him telling random people, “oh, my son can help you with that legal problem”. He would text my contact details to all sorts of people. In the end, I had to ask him to only let people have my office number so I wouldn’t have to solve his friends’ legal problems when I was trying to unwind in the evenings.
Pastor Kar Meng, who has known our family for a long time, told me the other day that I was Dad’s legacy. I knew, on a philosophical level, that children are their parents’ legacy – of course, they were. But when he told me this, it dawned on me it was more than just the passing down of genetic material. It was how Dad had influenced who I was as a person – my character, my pursuits, my faith.
And of course, Dad was a worshipper through and through. He loved telling me about the new songs he heard at church. He would say, “eh, what’s that song; the one that goes something, something Jesus….” And we would have to find it on Youtube for him so he could listen to it again.
I remember when Ling and I got married, we decided to do an extended worship set which we led together. We had invited our favourite musician friends to be on the band. Dad wanted to record everything on his camcorder. When I finally watched the video, it became apparent that, as the videographer, Dad couldn’t restrain himself from singing. So there was this beautiful music – but all you could hear on the video was Dad’s loud and out-of-tune singing. In old church circles, we called this “making a joyful noise”. Still, he enjoyed himself!
A couple of weeks before Dad passed, I had the honour of just sitting down with him and the family to worship and pray together. We worshipped until my fingers were sore from playing the guitar, but that moment will stay with me for a very long time. I knew it was something that brought joy, peace and hope to Dad’s heart, even in the midst of the pain and even though by then, he had very little strength to sing.
So, thanks Dad, for the legacy you have left.
I am glad that you are free from your suffering and pain and that you are now in the place of God’s infinite presence, singing loudly and making a joyful noise as usual. And in between songs, of course, taking your place in the line at Heaven’s all-you-can-eat durian buffet.
The Worship Revolution 