I was born into a single-parent family in Shanghai, China. My mom took care of me when I was growing up, and my family had a hard time. Some people preached the “gospel” to us, saying that God would help us. So when I was seven, my mom took me to church, which was a Three-Self Church (a government-controlled church), not a real church.

Looking back on that time, I admit that I was not a Christian but a religious person who went to church. I wasn’t going to church because I believed the Lord Jesus was the Savior and that I was a sinner who needed to be saved. Rather, I simply wanted to receive God’s material blessings (the prosperity gospel). A relationship with God is a trade, I thought. I spend my time every Sunday—that is what I give. God is supposed to give material blessings to me in return.

I became a professional soccer player. At that time, being a soccer player was an honorable thing, meaning that you would have wealth and fame. I went to church just to ask God to bless my career. However, during a training session, I injured my knee so badly that I couldn’t play soccer anymore. After this incident, I complained to God, “Why did this happen to me? I go to church every week on time, and I worship you every week. Why? Why?” Then I left the church and stopped going to worship.

Thanks to God’s grace, He did not give up on me. There was an older sister in the church who was the same age as my mother. Because she also had a son, when I was in the Three-Self Church she had cared for me from time to time. Seeing that I hadn’t been to church for a long time, she contacted me and encouraged me to go back to church, so I went.

One thing I began thinking after returning to church was, “What exactly is my faith?” So I looked up sermons on the internet and listened to them. In those sermons, I heard the words repentance and confession, which I had never heard in the Three-Self government churches. I began to be interested in this, so I searched for information about Christianity on the internet. Thanks to God’s providence, all I found was advice on Reformed theology.

I also had an opportunity to attend an online Bible school, where I learned about church history and realized the difference between the Protestant church and Catholicism. More and more, I felt that the Three-Self government church was without the gospel, and I realized the importance of the gospel. In particular, I saw that God used the Reformation movement to bless and guide His people in church history. Even more, I saw that I was a sinner and that I needed to repent because I used to just want to use God to fulfill my own desires. I saw God’s grace in letting me hear the gospel through the information on the internet.

I wrote an email to contact the professor who taught church history and told him about my situation because, at that time, I wished I could teach the Bible to help more young people like me know the Bible. Growing up in the Three-Self Church, I knew I was a disobedient person; but if I had had a good church to teach me, I could have gone a lot further in my knowledge of the gospel. This professor of church history replied to me and told me that first I had to leave the Three-Self Church. I went to a house church he recommended. At the same time, I met a brother online who was a graduate of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (RPTS) and was pastoring a PCA church in Shanghai. The house church I was attending did not have a pastor and was very far from my home, so after going there for a while, I switched to the PCA house church.

After three years of worshiping there, I was committed to the church and served as a children’s Sunday school teacher. I wanted to know and learn more about Reformed theology, so I continued to contact my previous professor of church history, and he suggested that I go to the China Reformed Theological Seminary (CRTS) in Taipei, Taiwan, which is the only seminary in Asia that confesses Reformed theology.

In 2015, I went to CRTS. During this time, I did an internship at a church that confesses Reformed theology. When I was about to finish my MDiv program, I contacted my church history professor because I always wanted to learn more about Reformed theology. He recommended RPTS. I applied to RPTS for another master of divinity program so that I could strengthen my theological knowledge and improve my English.

Regarding my family, I thank God for the gift of marriage, which allowed us to learn about Christ’s relationship with the church. I met my wife while studying in Taiwan. My wife is Malaysian. Although her parents were not Christians, she was brought to church by her aunt as a child. She and I studied together at the seminary in Taipei and interned together at the same church. This gave us more opportunities to get to know each other, and our relationship was able to deepen.

We started dating in 2018, and we were scheduled to get married Dec. 12, 2020. But it was not to be. Because of the pandemic, I was in Shanghai and she was in Malaysia. We were forced to be apart for almost two years. It was a big challenge, but, thanks be to God, “What God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:6). God has been gracious and merciful, and during the time I was stuck in Shanghai, I served in a house church, and everything I learned at CRTS I put into practice. The church was also blessed by God’s Word. However, there was always a concern in my heart for my fiancée.

I had really wondered if we would never see each other again and have to always maintain our relationship at a distance. By God’s grace, I came to the United States in Aug. 2021. She applied for a US visa in November of the same year, but was unsuccessful. At that time, the church and RPTS teachers and classmates prayed together for her visa application. She applied again in December of the same year. The day she applied was a Sunday night in the eastern part of the United States, and the church was finishing up the evening service and starting the prayer meeting. I shared that she was in the middle of her visa interview, and we prayed for her. Thank God, He answered our prayers, and her visa was approved. Two weeks later, she came to the United States. We were married in Jan. 2022 at Grace (Gibsonia, Pa.) RPC. In Oct. 2023 we welcomed our little one.

I would like to close with the words of Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:10).