MARY (WONG YEN) YEUNG: THE ORDINARY LIFE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY AUSTRALIAN CHINESE PENTECOSTAL

With ever-increasing notoriety, owing to her successful missionary activities and charismatic preaching style, Mary Wong Yen’s public ministry in Australia blossomed. Ignoring the conventional restraints of society, religion, race and gender, she became a household name in Pentecostal circles. However, 1930s China was suffering from horrific violence through external attack and internal turmoil. So, rather than stay in the peace and security of Australia, Mary chose to risk everything and return to the mission field, where she met and married Chinese minister, Jack Yeung. Complimenting each others ’ giftings, the Yeungs further consolidated their effective missions and social welfare work in China. Even when forced to escape, then ultimately widowed for a third time, Mary (Wong Yen) Yeung’s passion for missions remained unabated. Unlike many others, who willingly retired into obscurity in later years, Mary sustained her zealous work with social service endeavors in Hong Kong, leaving a legacy for generations to come. Public Ministry Just when it seemed like Mary had broken all cultural rules of propriety, the next phase of life took her further into public ministry in ‘White Australia. ’ Despite the unwritten rule that “no Chinese wife, no Chinese woman, ever traveled to Australia unattended,”1 the twice-widowed Mary returned to Australia unaccompanied in 1932 to settle her children into school. William Wing Young helped her establish