I became a Christian in 1989 when the Chinese government crushed the student democratic movement in such a brutal way, as I am Chinese and was also a student at the time, I thought it was the right thing to do. I went to a Chinese Christian summer camp in Sweden in July 1989 and got baptized. One year earlier, in 1988, I also went to the camp and listened to the preach by Pastor Zhou who must be one of the best pastors I have ever met. I decided right there and then to become a Christian.
By that time, I had almost never read the Bible. Then something happened. First was my father's death. The news came that my father died a year ago and my family did not even tell me for one year. All the time they just said father was having some problems with his hands and cannot write. Then in my deepest depression, I wrote a letter to a guy in Sweden, a youth church leader of some sort who talked to me several times during the summer camp in 1987. I expected some emotional support. But I never heard anything from him. And in the next summer camp in 1988, He just avoided speaking to me at all, not to say to make apologies for not responding to my letter.
I was angry. And then some other thing happened, it was also some senior persons in the church who did not want to talk to me. I then felt like being deserted. I soon stopped going to the church altogether. After I received my master's degree at the university in Norway, I went back to China and worked for about one year. I made some great friends, and the salary was high, but I missed my two year old son who was in Norway with his mother who separated with me at the time. My ex-wife and I decided to live together again. So I went back to Norway.
I soon landed myself a great job and got chances to travel some places like China, USA and South America. And I did a great job for the company. We sold offshore drilling rigs which cost anything from several million US dollars to several hundred millions of dollars. For a junior broker, it takes two years in average to sell his first rig. It took me only ten months to get my first contract. Boy, I was happy!
I was in Houston for three weeks with my Chinese client and my boss and the colleagues were so happy that they spend a lot of company's money to entertain me. I lived like a king, or was I living in a beautiful dream, I don't know. All I know was that I was on the top of the world.
Then something happened. The Chinese government had a military exercise near Taiwan, the US government took sanction against the Chinese government and any US company to do business with China. We had this L/C which depends on electronic transfer that had to be terminated due to the sanction. Then the company decided it was time to withdraw from the Asian market. I lost the job. Then for almost four years, I had some small jobs here and there but was basically unemployed.
The racial discrimination is so tough that most of the university students with a minority background go to the USA and other countries when they finish their study because they know there is no hope for them in Scandinavia. During all those four years, I never thought about going to the church.
Boy, life was like living on a hard rock. I had to live basically on social welfare after I spent eight years at the university. I was one of the first students at the university ever to be invited by Philips to attend the world broadcasting convention in 1992.
Life was so miserable and unbearable. My wife and I separated three times. She is a Christian but I think she never really loved me. She has this family inherited problem, being so nervous, and so depressed all the time and never ever want to get any medication. And when she got extremely frustrated, she would scream and shout the dirtiest things to me. And when I was having that kind of hard life, she never ever supported me one bit, emotionally or economically.
One day, I went out to attend a course for the unemployed (which was a typical thing to do for a person with minority background in Norway, you get to attend the courses all the time, as you seem never will get employed). And just when I went out of the door, my wife screamed something to me in the corridor so that all the neighbors can hear it. I guess she said: "you son of a bitch, never come back again!" I didn't say anything as I was getting used to it, and just went out of the door.
It was raining and I had no umbrella with me. I was all wet. When I came across a bridge, I suddenly had the thought to jump off the bridge and finish my own life. But I just couldn't do it. Had I done it, I never had doubt that my wife would not shed one drop of tears for me. She would drop some tears of course, but only for herself, thinking she would have to look after our two kids all by herself. She is that egocentric.
This year, I somehow decided to give it a try to go to the church again. I went there on the Chinese new year. And then two other Sundays. And then, all of sudden, I got a job! It was the first time in almost four years! It was a nice IT company. My office was brand new and I was given big responsibility in the company.
Then I stopped going to the church again. Because I was really not so much interested in being active in the church. I just thought I can meet some very nice people and maybe make some friends there. One month and two weeks later, I lost my job for no reason. Through my lawyer, I got really good compensation. But I had no job anymore.
Then summer came, the Chinese Christian church in Scandinavia organizes summer camp every year, and I have not been there for almost 11 years by now. I thought this year I should go. I really missed that wonderful experience I had there. So I told the people in the church that I want to go. But they told me that it was too late. There are too many people still on the waiting list. And I was so late and there was no chance I can get a place. Then all of sudden, I was told someone cannot go and they decided to give me the place. I was so happy! I thought I should take my ten year old son with me so that he can get close to Jesus from a young age, not like me. (I still think that is the single best thing I have ever done for my son and for myself).
One week went by, I did not see any miracle happen to me. In the last day of the summer camp, all the Pastors stood in the front, and Pastor Anthony Shen asked us to hold each other hand-in-hand as he prayed. All of sudden, tears run out of my eyes like a fountain, and I cannot describe the feeling. But it was so emotional and so great and it was sheer joyfulness. I thought about everything I experienced in the last nine years: I stayed outside of the Kingdom of the God, I had no family, no love, no job, nothing, life was like a hell. But here in the church, it was love, so strong that I have never experienced.
Then Pastor Shen said everyone who wants to receive pray and blessing from the pastors can go to them. I was the first one to go to a Mr. T.Y. Lee, who really looked amazingly like my father. He asked what I want him to pray for me. I mentioned that I lost my job and I want to have a job and I also want him to pray for my sons and
their mother.
Then brother Lee hold my head with his hand and prayed for me for about ten minutes. During that time I almost cried. Nobody ever showed that much love and care to me ever. But it is the Lord showed His love through brother T.Y. Lee's prayers.
I came back to Oslo from the summer camp on July 22, 2001. On the second day, Monday, the 23rd, it was a day I will never forget. I sat on the train alone reading the New Testament. I started to pray. I thought about the tremendous experience I had in the summer camp. And tears just run down my face and can't stop. I sat alone in the car and I said to the Lord: "Dear Lord, from now on, I am yours and I will do whatever you tell me."
I came home to Oslo and everyday I prayed to the Lord asking Him to give me a job, and within three weeks, I got a job! It was the best job I ever had! I remember Pastor Zhou said in a summer camp in 1988, "As long as you trust the Lord, He will make miracles for you. So just trust the Lord."
Although I got baptized many years ago, I never got reborn and never really accepted Jesus as my Savior. So how could He make miracle for me in those nine years? In the past years, I spent lots of money buying self-motivational books, cassettes, etc. I have read all kinds of such books, while life went from bad to worse. I also tried Fengshui and astrology, but nothing changed for me for the better. Only the Lord can and has changed my life for the better. And not only that, He has given me a new life! Now I almost never experience any frustration or worries, or depression which have always accompanied me. Now I pray to the Lord every day. I also started to write for the newsletters in our church. I want to share with everyone I know or I don't know the great experience I had since I opened my heart and accepted the Lord.
I also prayed to the Lord to give me a loving girl with whom I can start a new family. I know He will give me anything I asked for and more. Now I have a better relationship with my two kids, and I am so thrilled everyday about writing a book on my testimony and life experience so that more people can have their belief in our Lord. I know that the Lord will be pleased.
The tragic event 9/11 to me is like a nightmare and one of the greatest shocks I have ever experienced for a long time. But I guess it was an act of God. In the Muslim countries, more than 90% of the population practice Islamic religion, but in the Western Christian countries, there are less than 10% of the population practice our religion. Less than 10% of the population worship God. Most of the people only worship in money, power, sex, or devil, you name it.
We damage the environment without a second thought, we kill the animals for their fur or skin, burn or cut the forests, pollute rivers and water resources. Very soon there will not be enough forests left for the oxygen which our lives depend on. Do you think the Lord is happy about this? Of course not. Why should we damage the world He created for us? How dare we?
In the Bible, God has punished his own people by using their worst enemies. The 9-11 incident is a warning from the God that we have to get rid of the devil from controlling our society. Ever thought about 9-1-1 as being a bit strange? Isn't 911 a phone number you dial to alarm the police?
Don't get me wrong. It is not the God who killed those 7,000 people in the world trade towers! Of course not. I believe it is because we have been living in the shadows of the devil for so long and we refused to worship the Lord and let the devil to have control of our lives. It is the devil who took the lives of those 7,000 innocent people and the best brains of American finance.
Did you see the picture on the newspaper that while everything in the World Trade tower were crushed, the only thing that stand vertically is a huge cross of metal frame formed by the force of millions of tons of concrete and stuff. This metal cross is the only thing standing on the ground zero in the world trade towers. Do you think this is coincidence? Think again. Now it may be the God's warning that we should rethink all we have done in this world and if we are going to follow the Lord or the devil before it is too late!
This is the beginning of the Judgment Day if we still don't wake up and start following the Lord.
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