Brief History of YumFook

Story of the YumFook Fellowship

Milestone 0 - Core Group Formation

The idea of YumFook was initiated by Mr. Tse Wing Kai (謝永佳). He showed up on one of the Wednesday evening's prayer meetings at CBC and shared his burden to reach out to his fellow workers in the restaurant. He expressed his desire to bring them all to Christ and he had 7 to 10 people in mind. The year was 1995.

After several rounds of sharing with Daniel Lai (黎承業), Kai did not come to the prayer meeting any more due his wife's working schedule required him to stay home to take care of his children. Daniel continue to share this vision during the Wednesday evening prayer meeting throughout that year.

Later on, Amy Wong (黃周素潔) and Elsie Lee (勞愛慈) also came forth to express their burden in their hearts. In the beginning of 1996, a couple from Hong Kong, Mr & Mrs. Wang Sai Cheong (汪世昌、郭韶芳), came to CBC for Sunday services. They were the core group members of the YumFook in Hong Kong. They had openly shared how they reached out to their coworkers from 1:30am on and driving them home in the early mornings. Therefore, they were recruited to join the YumFook ministry in CBC.

Milestone 1 - Once A Month

A core group of 6 in size, we spent a year in prayer to prepare for the ministry. We had monthly meetings and prayers together to sort out the priorities and our target group. With the support and the blessing of the Deacons' board, Yum Fook was officially launched on February 13th, 1997. Exactly one week after the Chinese New Year, we had our first meeting at CBC, it was a Thursday evening 7:30pm. Dr. Esther Su (蘇緋雲博士) was the speaker on the topic "Interpersonal Relationship", and had an attendance of 16 showed up, including Kai's elder brother and his wife.

Milestone 1.5 - Chinatown Location

We showed the evangelistic film "The Demi-god of Kitchen" 地茂廚神 on 2 consecutive evenings of September 27th and 28th, 1999. That event was a joint effort between Seattle Gospel Center and YumFook. On Monday 27th, the show started at 7:30pm, we had 200+ attendance. The following night on 28th, the show began at 10:30pm and we had a headcount of 75 people, most of them were food service professionals.

After a brief evaluation, we decided to move our venue to Seattle Gospel Center at Chinatown to take advantage of the location on outreaching to our target group.

Milestone 2 - Twice A Month

Beginning on November 1st, 1999, we took up one further step to increase our meeting frequencies to twice a month. We kept our regular program on the first Monday of the month, and the third Monday of the month, we intended to have more casual fellowship time among the restaurant workers, let them speak out their needs and get to know each other better.

Milestone 3 - Once A Week

No longer a vision. Since after Mr. Steve Chung (鍾應鴻) coming to CBC, the attendance of YumFook has been stablized. We have 20 people showing up on average and a core group of 10 people who are coming on a regular basis.

Starting from April 1st, 2002, YumFook meets regularly on every Monday to support the food service professionals to come together. We also introduced a simplified worship program with singspiration and communion on a monthly basis from October 6th 2003 on. Some of the hymns we sing are composed and written by our own YumFook members.

Milestone 4 - Short Term Mission

Our first short term mission trip to Costa Rica took place in April, 2006 (4/11/06 - 4/20/06). Strategically, over 90% of the Chinese population in Costa Rica are Cantonese, they are either in restaurant business or owners of grocery stores. The Lord of the Harvest had opened our eyes to the needs and the beauty of a mission field.

Joining the local missions of CCM and the local churches at San Jose and Alajuela, we had our first taste on missionary work.

Our next mission trip is schuedled to go to Amsterdam, Holland to join the Europe Federation of Chinese Christian Restaurant Evangelism Fellowship 歐洲華人基督徒餐館福音事工使團聯會 during the Easter time 2009.