For most of the songs we just do hand motions—pointing to Heaven, hand over the heart, arms spread toward the audience to welcome them to Jesus—but there are a couple like this one where we rock out.
I spot my father in between the tables, facing us. He has his camera raised and is giving us the gimlet eye, with his mouth stretched into a grin so wide he looks like a grimacing skeleton. That is how he reminds us to smile bigger, bigger, wider, more! Otherwise, we know what will happen when we get home. I stretch my smile until my cheeks hurt and twist lower and more forcefully until I’m out of breath.
After “Sai Zhong Liang Tai” (“Cool Suit, Beautiful Tie”), we roll straight into “Do, Re, Mi.” We are lined up in order of our ages. I’m the youngest, at the end of the line. For the chorus, we each sing a line. Nehi starts low with “Doe, a deer, a female deer.” Until it gets to me at the end with “Tea, a drink with jam and bread!” It is my only solo line, and it’s super high. My voice sounds like a mouse squeak in my ears.
We sing popular songs like “Twist” and “Yellow Submarine” in English and “It’s a Small World” in Cantonese, mixed with some religious songs. But we always end every performance by inviting the audience to be Saved by singing with us, “Come into my heart, come into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jeeeesus. Come in today, come in to stay, come into my heart, Lord Jeeesus.” We repeat the song over and over in Cantonese and English, sometimes in Portuguese, depending on the audience, until we can get the crowd singing with us.
I look meaningfully into the eyes of individuals in the audience, so they know I am singing directly to them and that Jesus wants to be in their heart. From the stage, we try to count how many people are singing it with us, so the adults can put in their witnessing report the number of souls we saved for Jesus. After our final song, we join hands, swing them, and take a bow, then file offstage very proud of ourselves.
After we finish our repertoire, we walk around to the tables in teams of two, shaking the diners’ hands and collecting the money they give us. I am the youngest and the cutest, so people always want to shake my hand and give me money. I always remember to say, “Doh geh” (“Thank you”) and “Yesu oi lei” (“Jesus loves you”). We also have our own album, The Ho Family Singers, as a cassette tape we sell at the tables for 30 patacas, or $5.
My velvet dress has big pockets, so I can usually make it around the restaurant without having to take the cash from my pockets and give it to Daddy. If we do have to empty our pockets midway, that is a very good night. Mary and I try to sneak to the bathroom after our rounds so we can count how much money we made before the adults take it. Then we compare our take. I usually win. I would never keep even a single coin, though. I would be dead scared. All money belongs to God . . . but only the adults can use it. The adults check our pockets before we go home, and if any of us are caught with money, we get spanked.
When it comes to money, we are to rely on God for His provision, not on man. “If we do God’s work, He will provide for us,” Grandpa says. We cannot have jobs or anything that might take priority over our service for God or draw our loyalty away from the Family. Performing is a way God can provide through donations.
Without financial security or consistency, the ability to feel safe or plan for the future, we have to stay completely dependent on God for everything. Any doubts or mistakes that might keep us from God also threaten our livelihood and ability to survive. We must follow the Word of the prophet closely so that God will continue to provide for us physically. Any thought of relying on ourselves or income we control is rebellion against God.
Ten percent of any money we receive we must send to Grandpa to help support his Home and all the people who work on the Mo Letters, since they must stay Selah and can’t go out witnessing. All Family Homes are required to send their tithe with a mandatory monthly report called the Tither’s Report Form (or TRF) to the head office. These offices are called World Services (WS), the administrative homes of the Family where finances, publications, and special projects are handled.
Each country or region has a WS Home, but the locations are a closely guarded secret. When people go to WS, they can disappear for years. They cannot leave or even call their own children to protect the secret. Macau is too small for a WS Home (it would be nearly impossible to operate one without detection), so we send our TRFs to the WS Home in Japan. TRFs must include detailed accounting of all income, expenses, members’ personal information, and outreach statistics. A Home that fails to submit a TRF will be excommunicated, cut off from the source of God’s Word and fellowship. No one wants to be labeled a “Backslider,” a person who has turned their back on God and slid back into the cesspit of the System.
After our regular singing spots, we try to get into a few other restaurants around town. Sometimes they let us sing, but often as not we are turned away by a brusque manager. The adults always perkily say, “Oh well, let’s try the next place. They have missed God’s blessing.” But I look down at the floor, embarrassed, as we are ushered out. I know that we are here to give them a special blessing from God, but when we are turned away, I feel like a beggar.
No matter how upset I feel, I forget about it when I am singing. Then there is only the audience and bringing them into the songs.
Tonight has been a good one, and after four hours of singing, my father gets us each an ice-cream bar as a reward. “Ice cream! Ice cream!” Our tired voices revive for one last push.
“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,” Hobo says, and soon we are all chanting it.
“Quiet!” my father yells. “The next person who talks won’t get any!” We all get quiet waiting as he gives us each a chocolate-covered vanilla-ice-cream bar on a stick.
As we clamber over each other back into the van, we are silent and exhausted, our voices dry from shouting out the songs in noisy restaurants. “You kids did great tonight. Praise the Lord. He really provided,” our father’s deep voice intones, as he executes a series of sharp turns down dark alleys to ensure no one is following us before heading home.
“Yes, and I counted at least a hundred people who received Jesus by singing along with you!” Mommy Esther cheers us on. “I know it was a long night. You kids were real soldiers. Even little Faithy. It was good we came tonight.”
When the media remains quiet after our busking foray into Macau, we relax slightly, glad we can return to witnessing, although we know the threat of negative publicity is never truly gone.
5
Train Up a Child