Tam Hue Ping: From China to Colombia: A Journey in Faith, Vocation, and Service

by Kelvin Christilius Hue Ping Tam, Andrew Lue-Shue (Contribution by)

Overview

FATHER KELVIN CHRISTILIUS TAM was born in Trinidad and has lived in Cali, Colombia since the 1980s. He entered the priesthood in the 1950s after studying in Quebec, Canada and Dublin, Ireland. He served in a variety of locales, focusing on ministr...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781039197626
Publisher:	FriesenPress
Publication date:	05/01/2024
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

THE FASCINATING TIMES AND MINISTRY of Father Kelvin Christilius Tam, aka Hue Ping, is told in this riveting autobiography, Tam Hue Ping: From China to Colombia: A Journey in Faith, Vocation, and Service, which spans ninety-five years of a life well-lived. Tracing his family's story from China to Trinidad, where he was born on a cocoa estate, Father Tam describes his conversion to Catholicism when he chose a missionary vocation in the priesthood with the Holy Ghost Fathers (now Spiritans).

After completing his studies and being ordained, Father Tam travelled to southern Nigeria in the 1960s, on the cusp of the outbreak of the Nigeria-Biafran Civil War. Once hostilities erupted, he found himself consumed with survival and humanitarian service until his expulsion in the 1970s. His subsequent travels took him back to Trinidad and to Colombia, where he founded homes for girls that equipped them to achieve academically and professionally, allowing them to escape the poverty of their childhoods.

Filled with exciting locales, personalities, and even exotic animals, Tam Hue Ping: From China to Columbia reminds readers that the greatest gift of all is love-God's love for us, and our love for others. His life of sacrifice epitomizes this love and will inspire and challenge readers to fulfill their own personal calling to love both God and neighbour.

Editorial Reviews

2024-07-10
Tam’s memoir offers a detailed, contemplative journey through his decades of work as a Catholic priest around the world.

The narrative spans the entirety of the author’s life up from his birth in Trinidad in 1927—into one of the three Chinese families in his village at that time—to his current semiretirement in his 90s. Tam is judicious about how much space he devotes to each era in his career, so the book is well under 200 pages in length. Still, he allows himself enough space to give readers a strong sense of the environment and culture of each place he lived; readers learn about his childhood in Trinidad, his time spent at a seminary in Quebec, his missionary assignment in Owerri, Nigeria, and his work with orphans in Cali, Colombia, to name but a few. Throughout his accounts of his time as a missionary and at various educational facilities (both as pupil and teacher), he details the connections he made with many friends and students over the course of his life, some of whom went on to impressive achievements in a wide range of fields, including athletics, medicine, and education. However, the author tends to mention every notable person he encountered, as well as each accolade they received. These mentions are sometimes quite impressive: “Another student started his musical career, taking part in the college’s well-known Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Later, he founded a musical band, Boomtown Rats, that became world famous, planning the concerts, Band Aid and Live Aid….His name: Bob Geldof.” That said, it’s a narrative device that becomes repetitive, as most of these people are not recurring figures in the text, and not all are very well known. Nonetheless, Tam’s recollections proceed effectively despite this, and his overall message of care and his focus on helping others are worthy and important.

A meditative, if sometimes overcrowded, remembrance with an appealing emphasis on compassion.

Kirkus Reviews