Hearing a hymn shook me to my core and tears began to fall. That was when I realized I had so many tears in me.

Family Background

The impression I have of my early childhood was that I was always home alone. Like most traditional Taiwanese families, my parents were always busy. My father ran a jade jewelry business, and in the 1980s, our family was rather wealthy, owning three to four houses in prime locations in Kaohsiung. Our refrigerator was always filled with plenty of food.

But when I was in Primary Five, my family faced a huge change. My father accepted an invitation to start a diamond mine in the Republic of Sierra Leone in Africa. Investing all his assets, he planned to make a successful business of it. However, things didn’t turn out that way. Not only did my father not earn a single dime from this investment, but he lost his properties and cars as well. As a result, he became an alcoholic and often abused my mother and me when he was drunk. Eventually, my mother had enough and divorced my father. She then started anew with me and my sister.

No Real Home

We stayed with a friend of my mother’s for a few months before moving to a school dormitory. I learned that it was the dormitory of the Holy Light Theological Seminary, where my mother was studying. Whenever someone asked me about my family, I felt inferior as I didn’t even have a home. Back then, in my head, I would blame my mother for giving up on our home just to follow Jesus. At Primary Five, I was starting to develop my own thinking and values, and I wondered what was so good about following Jesus anyway.

My mother often brought my sister and me to different churches where she worked as an intern. We found this situation hard to adjust to. Having a lot of schoolwork and feeling socially inferior, I became reluctant to go to church. Just when I started making friends at one church, my mother would have to leave because of her internship. I detested this lifestyle. For this reason, I hated the church, and by Grade Nine, I stopped attending.

The Beginning of Down

During the last few months of Grade Nine, as I did quite well in my exams, I didn’t have to study as hard for the second test as my classmates did. So, wanting to share the household financial burden and gain some work experience, I found part-time jobs. I deliberately got restaurant jobs to avoid going to church, as I would have to work over the weekends. For the next six years, I didn’t go to church once.

After graduating from junior high, I did not continue my studies at a regular senior high. I had always liked playing computer games and was interested in computers, so I enrolled in an information technology course at an industrial high school. Continuing to work my restaurant jobs, I attended class during the day and studied at night. But by the end of the first academic year, I realized that studying was not a piece of cake. My grades were terrible, and I had to transfer to another vocational school. During my time there, I would fall asleep in class, exhausted from working the night shift at the restaurant. I started smoking, and when caught by a disciplinary teacher for smoking both outside and inside the campus, I was expelled for my bad conduct and failing grades.

Way Down

Through my part-time work I made some “acquaintances” and eventually joined the gang. We raced, got into fights, and did illegal work with our gang bosses. From my “brothers,” I seemed to have found the sense of belonging and recognition that I craved. I felt these brothers were more important to me than my family. I moved out to live with them in a rental, living a muddled life—sleeping during the day, going out at night. During that time, I had countless penalty tickets and was followed by many police officers. I was involved in at least three cases and had to face legal proceedings. Seeing that I had a clear criminal record and was “remorseful,” the prosecutor asked the judge not to impose a custodial sentence, but simply to fine me.

After that, I still arrogantly thought I could easily pay off this fine of NT$ 130,000 by running some errands or doing some jobs for my boss. However, it was not as easy as I thought. According to the court sentence, I had to be detained if I could not pay the whole fine within a specified period. For each NT$ 1,000 of fine, I had to be detained for one day. So, I would have to be detained in the Taiwan High Prosecutor’s Office for 130 days.

Crying in a Foreign Place

By this time, my mother had remarried and had married a preacher. They were worried that if I was detained in the Taiwan High Prosecutor’s Office, I would meet even more gang bosses and would find it even harder to lead a life free of gangster influences. So, one week before the deadline for paying the fine, they managed to locate me and proposed that they would pay the fine for me—if I volunteered at an orphanage in Myanmar.

When I heard that I had to go to Myanmar, I was very reluctant at first. I didn’t even know where Myanmar was, and now I had to stay there for half a year? In face of legal consequences, none of my “brothers” was willing to share even a dime with me. Having been abandoned by those I cherished and valued, I was steep in hatred and loneliness. As the deadline approached, I had to make a decision, and I made the call to go to Myanmar. It was precisely this decision that changed the course of my life.

On November 19, 2013, I went to Yangon, Myanmar. The Dean of the Yangon Evangelical Seminary, Guo Bao-cai, came to pick me up personally. The first night, overwhelmed by the loneliness of being a foreigner in the mugginess of Yangon, I could not sleep at all. When the morning came, the students started doing morning devotions. I heard a hymn that I knew: “Every day, Your grace is sufficient / Even in adversity, I will not run away / There is nothing to fear, when You are with me…” Since leaving the church I had been void of feelings and purpose. But this hymn shook me to my core and tears began to fall. That was when I heard a voice in my head clearly saying, “My child, you are home!” I started crying when they sang the hymns, and I was still crying when their morning prayer session was over. Pastor Guo invited me to join in the 9 a.m. staff prayer meeting. I cried once again when I heard the hymns. That was when I realized I had so many tears in me.

Repenting, Returning to God

Pastor Guo treated me as his own. I was so touched by the preachers, pastors, and students of the seminary who received a visitor like me without reservations. I truly experienced the love of Christ through them.

Around two weeks after I arrived in Myanmar, Pastor Guo started encouraging me to teach Chinese classes at the orphanage. I asked him: “Can I really do it?” He simply answered: “If you are willing, you will see God work.” So, I said yes and started teaching in the orphanage. That was when I saw the extent of Pastor Guo’s ministry: seminary, missionary center, orphanage, and the Chinese church ministry. He also led mission trips to different parts of Myanmar. I was not allowed to join them since I had just arrived, and Myanmar was politically unstable back then. But I envied those who got to go and promised myself that one day I would go on a mission trip with them.

Come April the following year, a mission team from Taiwan came to Myanmar. Pastor Guo’s team was working together with them, and I was involved in the design of screen projection. On the last night of the revival conference, the pastor of the mission team invited the congregation: “If you are willing to surrender your life to Jesus now, please raise your hand and let me pray for you!” So, I raised my hand, officially admitting that I was a sinner and willing to repent and return to Jesus Christ.

Street-sweeping Days

Half a year passed by quickly. My stepfather, Pastor Ye Ji-fa, came to Myanmar by invitation to teach and delivered a piece of bad news: my case had been retried. As I did not pay the fine before the deadline, and I did not behave within bounds before coming to Myanmar, the prosecutor thought that I was not remorseful. He decided to revoke the decision to impose a fine in place of imprisonment and sentenced me to 130 days of imprisonment. And I had to appear in court to clarify the matter! So, after half a year in Myanmar, I returned to Taiwan with my stepfather to take responsibility for myself.

When the court was in session, God worked in amazing ways. The judge who considered my case only had my case for the day, whereas the other courts had four to five cases that morning. I had never been in court before, and I answered the questions poorly. But thanks be to God, the judge was patient and willing to teach me how to answer the questions. He analyzed my case in detail. Together with my parents’ petition for me and my experience of volunteering in Myanmar the previous six months, the judge sentenced me to 730 hours of community service to make up for the fine I should have paid. That’s how I started half a year of street- sweeping. During that period, I continued attending church services, persisted in reading the Bible, and contemplated the Christian faith. I kept experiencing God as I lived a life of repentance.

Studying Theology

During my street-sweeping days, I did not forget my aspiration to return to Myanmar. Towards the end of 2014, after the conclusion of my case, I returned to Yangon. This time, my father encouraged me to undertake theology studies there. After praying about the matter, I officially enrolled in the seminary.

Being a child with little confidence, when I was asked by a teacher to go onstage, I would get very nervous and would even have a stomachache and dizziness. Thus, speaking publically was a huge challenge for me. After I started studying in the seminary, I prayed to God for courage to share onstage. God granted me my wish, and I started sharing and singing hymns publically. I even started practicing preaching. Through serving God, I continued to experience the grace of God: from knowing nothing about music to becoming a member of the worship team and serving God with music; from knowing nothing about sound controls to being the chief sound controller in church; from knowing nothing about electronic appliances to designing the sound wiring for the entire church. Time and again, I experienced the presence of God so fully that I completely believed in the encouragement from Pastor Guo and my father: “If you are willing, God will use you.”

After the Epidemic

When I was studying theology, I first thought God had called me to serve Him while working. Therefore, I applied for leave of absence two years after I started my bachelor studies at the Yangon Evangelical Seminary (2015-2017). I joined a medical team established by a group of Christian shareholders. The headquarters was in Yangon, and I worked as an assistant to help them with medical missions and projects to combat poverty.

In 2021, Myanmar was affected by the COVID epidemic that plagued the globe. More than 10,000 died from COVID in July alone. Government crematoriums were overcrowded, and society was filled with fear and dread. The church could not hold services as usual. All of my work was suspended. I returned to help Pastor Guo with the orphanage ministry and taught some classes. One night at dinner, Pastor Guo asked me to survey the land behind the orphanage with him, as he was making plans for a future campus, including a basketball court. During that period of time, I was often touched by how Pastor Guo surrendered his life to serve God and others. I made a promise to myself that I would do my best to assist Pastor Guo—to live up to Jesus’ calling to me. However, just when I had this thought, something major happened!

In July 2021, half of the preschool students became sick with COVID. Pastor Guo was no exception. Just as everyone started to get better, Pastor Guo did not, but got worse. His blood oxygen level started to drop. Everyone from our church was in search of a hospital for Pastor Guo. Yet, medical resources were scarce in Myanmar, a lot of doctors were sick with COVID, and hospitals were not equipped with medical ventilators. Having no other option, we could only send Pastor Guo to a nursing home in a barracks. However, after battling the virus for seven days, on August 1, 2021, Pastor Guo left us, to be with our Lord.

Undertaking the Vision

After handling Pastor Guo’s funeral matters, I was deeply lost. Looking at the expanse of his ministry, I wondered: how can this ministry go on? And almost at the same time, I saw in my mind the verse Isaiah 6:8, and it was as if it were a calling from God: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”

After praying for three weeks and affirming the call was indeed from God, I decided to once again equip myself to become a full- time preacher. Presently, I am a full-time student of the Master of Divinity course at Logos Theological Seminary. In the future, I hope to further equip myself with a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Missiology degree. I want to give the rest of my life to the ministry in Myanmar—in particular, the orphanage, Chinese school, and the training of preachers at the seminary. I am willing to devote the rest of my life to impact the lives of others. And I know that Jesus Christ our Lord shall always be with me!

*This story was first published in Chinese Today, Issue No. 730 (February 2023) and was translated into English by Kiara Ngai.