Testimony

BEFORE

Many people’s actions spring out of their unsatisfied deep inner needs. What were one or two of your unsatisfied deep inner needs before you came to know Jesus Christ?

I grew up at a big Chinese/Taiwanese church where my Dad was an elder.

I attended church 2-3 times a week. Friday Night fellowship, Saturday fellowship, and I spent all day at church since my Dad had to stay for elder board meetings. I was like Olli—always running around and playing while my Dad was doing work for the church. I was a very silly kid.

But between the age of 8 and 11, I attended three funerals: my grandpa, grandma, and my older cousin who committed suicide as a 21 year old UCLA student. This led me to ask existential questions a child shouldn’t be pondering at that age. I researched the problem of evil, nihilism, questioned the meaning of life, and where we go when we die. This wasn’t for intellectual purposes. I just couldn’t comprehend the grief I was experiencing.

I’ve been sad before. But it was the first time I experienced sadness that hurt deeply.

And being that young, I didn’t know how to address that hurt nor did I have the peers to walk through that with. So I became growingly disillusioned to how hypocritical and powerless Christianity was since it wasn’t the most pressing questions/issues to me at that moment.

And I definitely didn’t sense God had any care in the world for all the pain I was experiencing.

With my dad being an elder, I unfortunately learned early on that the leaders purported to set an example to the flock were also sinners too. The elders fired the senior pastor due to internal disagreements and lied to the congregation that it was a peaceful split. This led my parents to leave the church we grew up at. My brother and I remained since we were in the youth group and were under a youth pastor my father heavily supported.

If the church already caused so much pain in addition to my existential struggles, then why should I trust God?

So, I became quite depressed and suicidal by my freshman year in high school. Felt abandoned by God.

I was a very cynical, distrustful, and emotionally distraught.

I was so hurt and I tried filling it with pornography, YouTube, and video games.

HOW

It came to a point I stopped attending church because of how cynical and disappointed I was with everyone. I felt like everyone failed me so I let my heart slowly grow cold. Told it to stop loving people and stop caring. Don’t cry. Don’t smile. No emotions.

Andy frequently took out groups of youth kids for fun outings to make wholesome memories. He reached out to me and took several of us to Griffith Observatory. And my heart began to beat again.

My heart began to hope again that there was true freedom in the gospel. My faith had become my own. I knew I trusted God without obligation from my parents, pastors, or friends.

And that was really tested. Later, the same lack of transparency from the elder board would lead them to fire this youth pastor as well. The split was quite volatile and disappointed many youth kids along with their parents.

Though this was tragic, it led me to join my parents in their new church where I radically encountered God at a small conference.

I felt so deeply pressed on my heart the promises that “God would never leave me or forsake me.” I could feel His compassion towards me: He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief who could understand the deep pains I experienced that I felt like no one else could. He was the answer to evil. The evil in my heart and the evil that boggled my mind.

AFTER

Brought together my brother and I to serve a youth group together even though we didn’t have a youth pastor. I gave my whole heart to the middle school students I led.