We actually decided on Caleb's chinese name, 永義 (Yong Yi), before he was conceived. We watched this Christian movie in church called "Source of Love". It's an excellent award winning Hong Kong production. The movie centers around a traditional Chinese family that finds itself in crisis and in desperate need of peace and forgiveness. The story is intertwined with a demonstration of how ancient Chinese writing characters may be rooted in Biblical history. This is a movie that I highly recommend. If anybody is interested in watching the movie, we've got the VCD at home. Anyway, in this movie, they explored the Chinese characters, 永 and 義.
The word 永(yong) means eternal. The ancient Chinese character of this word is actually written with a 羊(yang/ lamb) and 3 strokes that look like streams of water. The streams of water represents the living water that comes from God, eternal life. In the Christian context, 羊 is referred to as Jesus, the sacrificial lamb. And because Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins, we have eternal life.
The word 義 means righteousness. And if you look at the composition of the word 義, the top part is made up of 羊(yang/ lamb). And the bottom part of the word 義 is actually the word 我 (wo/ me). So when you put the 2 characters together to form the word 義, in the Christian context, it's Jesus, the sacrificed lamb above me.
So the good news of it all is that Jesus, the sacrificed lamb, came to die on the cross to wash away our sins so that we can be righteous.
And on the whole, 永義 literally means with Christ eternally above me, I'll be eternally righteous.
Both me and ND found both words very meaningful so when we conceived Caleb, we knew instantly that we'll name him 永義 if he was a boy.
As for the name Caleb, we were searching the bible for a suitable name and liked the name and the qualities of the bible character.
Caleb was a man of great faith. He was one of the 12 spies sent by Moses to survey the land of Canaan. 10 of the spies came back saying that it was beyond their ability to take the promised land but Caleb and Joshua had the faith to believe that God can give the Israelites the land He had promised, and Caleb boldly stood up for his faith. And because of their faith in God, Caleb and Joshua were the only ones in his generation that God allowed to enter into the promised land. Even in his old age, he continued to live in faith and courage.
"But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."
~ Numbers 14:24~
And that's one of our hopes for Caleb, that he will grow up to know God, love God and follow Him wholeheartedly, till old age.
