| Beyond
retirement: A life-long Tzu Cheng member |
 |
Translated by Weishiong Chong
April 16, 2002
Chinese
Version
Master Of All Trades--"Brother Principal"
Lin Wei Chong
Lin Wei Chong unlocks the Tzu Chi office door
at 9 a.m., and volunteers arrive by 10. He tends to various
tasks while the volunteers work until 3. He keeps himself busy
for a while longer before finally closing the office and going
home.
Known affectionately as "Brother Principal,"
Lin is the deputy executive director of the Tzu Chi Northern
California Office. Before immigrating to the United States,
he was an elementary school principal in Taiwan who served 40
years in the education field.
Whether it is cleaning the bathroom, changing
light bulbs, repairing leaky toilets, replacing new toner for
copy machines, setting up activity venues, watering plants in
summer, or raking fallen leaves, one only needs to call on "Brother
Principal" and everything will be taken care of.
Thirty years ago, Lin's elementary school
started a "Kind Parents" volunteer group, which expanded
across southern Taiwan. In three years, the "Kind Parents"
membership went from 8 to 80. He once led 49 teachers on a visit
to the Abode of Still Thoughts and the Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien.
After returning to Tainan, 45 of the teachers became Tzu Chi
members. Subsequently, Lin became the first principal from Tainan
to join the Tzu Chi Teachers Association.
Because of his interest in education, when
Lin found out that the Tzu Cheng Spirit Seminar included school
visits and landscaping work for Project Hope, he decided to
participate. He scrubbed stone walls with his hands, learned
about school facilities and space planning of classrooms, planted
grass and set pavement blocks. After these experiences, he couldn't
help but praise Master Cheng Yen as a very skilled architect.
Besides distributing blankets during the winter,
handling individual care cases, providing support for the homeless
and engaging in emergency relief, Lin also reach out beyond
Northern California to take part in international disaster relief
in Honduras and Peru. After seeing the proactive strength of
the Tzu Cheng Faith Corps in its mobilization during the Tzu
Cheng Spirit Seminar, he hopes to bring this volunteer spirit
back to Northern California.
