"From Atheist to Follower of Jesus" by Shihua Zhu

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Strength to Strength, and a special welcome to all of you who are joining us live here this early morning. So the purpose of Strength to Strength is to advance Jesus' kingdom by tackling thought-provoking topics, by stimulating candid discussions, and by sharing faith-building testimonies. And today we're going to be hearing a faith-building testimony. This is coming to us from Chewachu. Chewach lives in Malden, Massachusetts, and he will be sharing with us today, so looking forward to that. We're going to begin here with a word of prayer, and then we will give the time to him.

He'll introduce himself and take it from there. So let us pray. Father, we thank you for this time together here. We thank you for the ability to come together in this way. We pray that you would bless each one of us as we hear this testimony, and may it be not only a good story, but also faith-building, and may it instruct us in our lives and help us as we are your disciples, help us to become better disciples, and to follow you faithfully. May this be a time of blessing to us and all who hear this testimony. Pray that you bless our brother and his family from this time and forward, and be near to them, keep them in your care.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, the time is yours. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you so much. And yeah, thank you for Brother Brand and the plan to make it happen and for all of you for this morning.

Yeah, I'm going to share my screen. Yeah, first, yeah, I think a couple of months ago, Brand talked to me about sharing my testimony. I was a little bit intimidating because this is the first time I shared my testimony online and also public. Yeah.

And I prepared this PowerPoint to help everyone to understand me more because, yeah, my English is still not well, so I think I hope this will help you understand me. And also, yeah, please correct me if I use a wrong word or describe something improperly.

Yeah, first I'll get started with James 4:14. It says, "We are asked you to know what will happen tomorrow for what is your life. It is even a whisper that appears for a little time and then vanishes away." When I was preparing my testimony, especially this week, I was so touched by looking at the pictures I took almost four years ago when the time I landed at America and met people at Malden, and also the time I knew God and I got surrendered.

Yeah, it was like yesterday. Time is so fast.

Yeah, it's unbelievable. And yeah, I'll get started with a self-introduction. My name is Shehua Zhu. Shehua is my first name, and Zhu is my family name. But since we came to America, I have an English name, Eric. Most people call me Eric.

Yeah, I'm from China, south part of China, southeast part of China. And now I am at Follows the Way Boston Church. And also, last semester, I was a student at a Saturn College.

And this is my family. Yeah, I have a son. He is one and a half years old. And my wife, Yuan Su, her English name is Sunny.

And this is the agenda for today. I have three parts: Before I Knew God, and the second part is The Journey of Knowing God. The third part is Experience the Love of God and Surrender to God. I'll get started with the first part. Before I Knew God, I want to talk a little bit about my history before coming to America.

Yeah, like I said, I was born in the northeastern part of China in a village. My parents, they are farmers, and they are atheists. Yeah, I think when I grew up, no one around me was Christian or believing anything. But now, thinking back, I think some of them are still believing something, but they don't know they're believing something. Like, for example, in Chinese New Year, lots of people will worship whatever the God in kitchen or all kinds of God. Or when people die, they burn paper and incense and want to worship something.

Yeah, so I believe, yeah, some of them still have a God in their mind, in their world, but they don't know. And I grew up with my parents and grandparents. They loved me so much. And then when I was around 11 and 12, I left my parents. I went to a boarding school. Maybe some of you know that in Chinese culture, we value education a lot. So they sent me away to study because they believe that knowledge can change your life.

And it's still happening for lots and lots of Chinese families. Lots of children left their parents when they were very young. So I went to boarding school. I started maybe, yeah, I started, as far as I can think, lots of things in my life, like drinking and smoking, fighting, skip class, and watch pornography, and also disobey my parents and disrespect my parents and grandparents.

That is kind of my teenager. And then I graduated from college, and I went to work in Beijing, which is a big city. The reason I wanted to go to Beijing to work is because I want to make more money. I was pursuing my career there. Yeah, absolutely. It was a really, really big idol in my life at that time.

And also, I want to, yeah, prove that I can be successful, and I want to do good performance in front of people. So at that time, a lot of fear in my heart. And also, I really want to control my life by working really, really hard. I think I can control my work, control my life, and definitely there's a pride and inferiority in my heart.

At that time, I didn't have a really good relationship with my parents, with my at that time, my girlfriend, and later my wife because I focused too much on my work. I didn't really have even a small conversation with them. And yeah.

Yeah, and especially with my girlfriend at that time and now my wife. So my heart was so hard, and I didn't have a really compassionate heart to her. Sometimes, because of some small things, we had a fight, and she was crying.

But I didn't understand why she was crying. We can talk. Yeah, we can talk. You can talk. This is right or wrong. I was always thinking about things must be right or wrong, but I didn't really care about her feelings. So I heard her so much at that time, and we didn't really had a good conversation.

I was always wanting to prove that I'm right. I'm right. You are wrong. And also because I spent a lot of time on my work, and the relationship between us was terrible. But I still can't find excuses to her because I thought, "Oh, if I work so hard, it's good for both of us. We can buy the house. We can buy this, buy that for the house." I can still find a lot of excuses.

But I was ignoring her spiritual life or her feeling. Yeah.

And during that time, a lot of selfishness and cold-hearted and sometimes angry, resisting, and immaturity in my life. About religion, at that time, my wife, she believed in Buddhism, and I believed nothing. I think I believed in myself. I want to make more money. I want to control my life.

And yeah, yeah, at that time, kind of anti-any religions, whatever Buddhism or Christianity, because I think, "Oh, you can believe whatever you believe, not me." Yeah, I have my own belief. At that time, also, I had kind of a bad impression on religion, including Christianity. I thought Christianity also is kind of superstitious and self-comforting.

Yeah, lots of people said, "Yeah, because we're believing science."

And

especially after working, because when I was working, I spent a lot of time at my work. Yeah, I think I felt good. But after work, especially on the weekend, in the evening, I was so empty in my heart. I didn't know what's happening. Yeah, so I watched TV and, yeah, maybe drinking, and I didn't know what to do. I wanted to change. I know it was healthy. It was unhealthy. I wanted to change. But I tried so many, many times. It didn't work. I think, "Oh, I cannot change myself." There's a saying in Chinese, "You can easily move a mountain. You cannot change a man's heart." That is something I believed when I grew up, especially when I had a really bad relationship with both my parents and my girlfriend at that time.

So because with all of this, I got married in 2017 in February. I thought after getting married, maybe I will become more mature and my life is getting our life is getting better. But the fact is not. It's getting even worse because I was born in a one-child family. Also, my wife, she was a one-child, only child in the family. So we had a lot of conflict. We have a lot of tension and fighting because of small things in our lives.

And even, yeah, a few months later, we talk about divorce because of, yeah, there are some family issues getting involved into our relationships and also misunderstanding. Also, yeah, the fights. And then we started thinking about our future, our next step. Are we getting divorced or are we getting or are we finding something to fix it? And then we got a solution. And the solution is that because we think, "Oh, maybe we didn't have enough money. We didn't have a good career." So we decided to come to America to pursue a degree.

Actually, it's my wife. So she applied to a university at Boston. Yeah, that is something we believe the knowledge or a degree can change people's life. So that is why we came to America in 2017, August 23rd. We came here to pursue our American dream.

So this is the first picture I took the day we, yeah, we came to the US, yeah, where we were on the airplane.

And that is the first part. Now I'm going to the second part, the journey of knowing God.

Since we came to the US, I think the first couple of weeks was good because everything for us was new and refreshing for us. But a couple of weeks later, I got into, yeah, the deepest of valleys, one of the deepest valleys in my life.

Because at that time, my wife, she was a student at a school. She was so busy and overwhelmed in the new English environment and new culture. And I stayed at home because my visa, I cannot work legally in the US. I have to stay at home. And I have no friend. I have no family members to talk. So even one day, I don't have people to talk.

And when my wife got back from school, she was so tired. And I tried to talk to her, but most of the time, there were conflicts or tension between us. And also, I got lost. When I was in China, I worked very hard. I wanted to prove myself. I can find my value from the work. But since I came here, I cannot work. I cannot find my value. All of a sudden, I lost. I don't know what's the purpose I'm staying here. What's the purpose I'm coming here?

And also, because of financial burden, yeah, we have to pay insurance, tuition, rent, and life expenses, and also the pressure from the family. Yeah, I think another part of the valley is language and the culture. At that time, we knew nothing about America, but we don't even know how to go to shopping, how to buy food because we didn't know what's the name, what's that food, and how to buy food, and yeah, and how to pay our phone or gas or everything.

For me, it was so dumb, so stupid, so foolish. Yeah, in China, I can talk to people. I can work. I can almost do everything. I can control my life. Since I came here, all of a sudden, I lost all ability to leave. So at that time, I think one of the deepest valleys in my life. And I'm trying to find a solution for that. So a couple of weeks later, I talked to my wife. I want to go back to China. I don't want to stay here. I don't like here.

Yeah, I'm so lonely. But I don't want to leave her out here at that moment. I decided to stay here for a few months till she was comfortable with everything around her. And I'll go back to China to work and send money to support her school.

Yeah. So I really appreciate this deepest valley in my life. God gave it to me to make me humble, to make me to seek His kingdom and to think about His kingdom. So one of the solutions I want to get started to learn English. I want to survive. I want to, yeah, make friends.

So I want to, oh, this is the first place we lived since we landed in the US in modern, yeah, we rent a room there. And then I want to, because my landlady, she was a Chinese, and she knows some resources to learn English. So she recommended me to go to modern library to learn English. I went there to learn English once a week and one hour a week, which is good. But still, no relationship. Just I came to school and learn English and come back to home do the same thing every day.

Yeah, no relationship and very lonely. And also, at that time, in my mind, I heard when I was in China, people I did some research talking about how to build a relationship with Americans, with people out there. Lots of people said it's really hard to make a relationship with Americans because, yeah, it's easy to have a small talk, social talk. But if you want to make a deep relationship and friendship, it's really hard. So that is something in my mind, even when I was learning English at a modern public library. I said, "Oh, this is the way. It's really hard to make friends or make a relationship with people."

And then I think one month later, yeah, for me, I think it's a divine appointment. I tried to find something to do to help with the library. There are some Chinese books. There were some Chinese books in the library. They didn't know what's that. So I volunteered to help them to organize the book.

And one day, I went there early, and I have nothing to do. I just walk around in the library. In the corner, I found a brochure about the bridge, which is an English learning center. Now it's a fishing pond for folks that way.

So I got a brochure that day. I was so excited to talk to my wife, "Oh, maybe I can try to give them a call to learn English, to find another English opportunity to learn out there." And before that, I was so disappointed or desperate. I went to immigration learning center twice, wanted to learn English out there because they have a systematic English learning class. But I'm not immigrants, so I cannot take any classes out there.

And I was so desperate. And I still remember that day my wife told me, even though she was not a believer at that time, she told me, "If God closes a door for you, He will be opening another window for you." I didn't pay attention or agree with her. But later on, I think a few weeks later, I found a brochure of the bridge at the modern library.

So I call it a divine appointment. And the next morning, I gave a call to the bridge. So I successfully learned English at the bridge.

I think that is the start, the journey to encounter amazing witness of Jesus Christ at that time with the bridge. I met Brother Marlon Weaver at that time. He is the director, and also he was a teacher out there. And I met Finney Cruella. He also, yeah, got involved into the culture night and Zach Johnson and also another brother, Ashton Greenbow.

Yeah. I think on this journey, I gradually started Jesus Christ, Christianity, because I heard a lot of people talking about Him. When I was in China, I heard just Jesus Christ and the cross. I knew nothing about Christianity because of these people. So I started knowing Christianity.

So this is the classes I had when I was at the bridge. Yeah, I had many friends and classmates out there. They're from Saudi Arabia and Morocco, Thailand, Turkey, Russia. Yeah. And we had a really, really good relationship with each other. Kind of I found myself, "Oh, this is the community. I really enjoy it."

And yeah. And first, I started knowing Marlon Weaver, which is in the middle. He's in the middle in the picture. And he was my English teacher. I started knowing him. Yeah.

When I took my class, I found this man is different with some other people. He's very lovely, caring, and humble, and also very compassionate. And yeah, he wants to build a relationship with all of us. Even in the classes, we ask so many, many questions, simple questions, even a word. He will spend 10 minutes to explain what that English word is.

And all of the classmates like him. So at the beginning, I found this man's different. Later on, I heard his simple testimony after class. Yeah. I think, "Wow, this is amazing." So I started to have a question in my mind, "Who is God? And why is God so powerful to change his life?" But I didn't think too much. That is the beginning. There was a seed in my heart.

And later on, I met more people at the bridge. For example, there are some culture nights, Chinese culture night, and some other events like Brother Finney and Zach Johnson. And this is the culture night we had at that time.

And Brother Charlton, yeah, we did barbecue together. Yeah. So when I walked with them together, I found they are Christians. They said they are Christians. And they are different. Like I said, they're humble, loving, caring, patient, compassionate, tolerant, hospitable, hopeful, faithful.

And it makes me wonder why they are so different. And then I started—yeah. At that time, I think, "Oh, maybe because they are Christians, they won't behave well in the public setting." I know it is easy to do well in public setting. Yeah. But still, I have doubts in my heart.

Is it true? Or was this true? Or was this real? Because I know lots of people in public setting, they do this. But in the private setting, they do another thing. I started witnessing more things about their family life. This is during the culture night. Yeah.

Brother Marlon brought his whole family into the class. At that time, I was shocked. We had 10 children at that time. Now they have 11. Because I grew up in a one-child family, one child or two children are very, very common.

I never see more than two children around my, yeah, when I grew up. So when I got to know he has 10 children, I was so shocked. Yeah. I have so many questions popped up in my mind. How can you support your family? How can you do parenting? And how can you love them? How can you afford their education or your life? I have so many, many questions.

But whenever he introduced his family, his wife, his eyes are shining. So I found, "Wow, this man is so interesting. Yeah, he's so different." Yeah. This is another question in my mind at that time, why he is like that.

And third witness is about an amazing church community. Later on, I think in 2017, November 12, because during the class time, he mentioned about his church, his family. Yeah. So he invited me to go to the church. At that time, I think, "Oh, first, I want to learn English. Second, I think Christianity is American culture. I want to know more American culture." Yeah. So I think, "Yeah, I would love to go to visit your church." So he sent me the message about the address of the church that came to the church.

Yeah. All of a sudden, out there, I felt the love, the relationship with the brothers and sisters, with all the families. I was so touched. And yeah, after leaving the church, I felt my heart was purified. And they are so caring, ask a lot of questions about us. So I think at that moment, I think, "Oh, I want to be in this community."

And then we built more close and intimate personal relationship. So I have some pictures. Yeah. Marlon Weaver, they invited us to his family for many, many times. And we feel we are one of family members of his family. And this is a picture one of his son, Christopher, his birthday party. So he invited us. So we got together. And also, we invited them to our room. Yeah. Because our room is so tiny, they cannot fit.

They didn't have a place to sit. So they stand and lay down on the bed. And this is the first time they went to Chinatown, hot pot with us. And also, he invited us to go to his house to make American food. And we teach them how to make Chinese food, dumpling.

Yeah. And also, whenever his family members or his friends come over, he will give me a call, send me a message, "Hey, Eric, and Sonny, do you want to come over to meet my mom, to meet my friend? They are really, really nice, good people. You want to meet them? Also, they want to meet you to hear your story." So at that time, my heart was so touched. There was no one invited us and also treated us so well and also treated us like family members.

Yeah. And also, he gave me a haircut. So we built a really, really deep relationship with each other. And also, his family started learning Chinese and with another Chinese. Yeah, he invited us to join them. And this is another family telling us we had them over. Yeah. All the church, all the brothers and sisters from our church, they really, really want to build a relationship with us. They really want to carry us. So that is very, very touchful when we hung out with them. We thought, "Wow, from the church community, from the personal relationship, I think that is something we really, really want."

And later on, I know some of Christianity. And I met Brother Ashton and his wife, Hyeon, at the bridge because of the culture night. And we got together. And also, we built a really, really good relationship. He invited us so many, many times.

And we started doing Bible study with them for almost more than half a year. Yeah. We went through four gospels. And we also got started learning from Genesis.

Yeah. This is kind of the relationship I built with the brothers and sisters. And also, I got started to know Christianity. And I'm going to move to the third part, experience the love of God and surrender to God.

After building a relationship with them, I said, "I found these people are different." Yeah. I started serious thinking and seeking God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. And yeah. And till I surrendered to the Lord. At that time, in my heart, I was wondering, "Who is God? Who is Jesus? And who is Holy Spirit?"

When we did Bible study, they talk about the creation of the world. I think for me, it very makes sense because when I look at the world, the perfect world I can live and compare it to some other planet, I think, yeah, the earth has to be created by a creator. So at that time, I didn't have any doubts about God. But I still have doubts about Jesus. Is Jesus a real person? Is he God or someone made it up? Yeah. So I started doing some research and reading some books and watching some documentary. I still remember the documentary we watched together with Brother Finney Cruella. And he invited us to watch the documentary. The name is The Star of Bethlehem.

So they talk about the star of Bethlehem in Matthew. So there's a documentary from the scientific perspective to look at it. And another one is The Case for Christ. Yeah. I read that book and also watched a movie, yeah, how a person from the 80s to become a Christian.

And the third book I read is The Heavenly Man. Talking of Brother Ying, he's a Chinese. And yeah, he's an amazing journey to see God and serve God. And also, I had some other resources. And then after doing some research, I had no doubt about Jesus if they're a real person and the doubt he died and resurrected.

And till to the last point, Holy Spirit. At that time, we did Bible study with Brother Grimballs. And I believed God exists and Jesus died and resurrected at that time. I think it's around May 2018. And we talk about the love and the sin in my life, which I didn't really understand. I cannot feel love at that moment. And I didn't know the sins in my life.

Talking about in terms of love, I still remember one of the teachings from Brother Finney. He mentioned about he experienced love from God when he was in high school, kind of like electricity going through his body. When I heard of that, I was so yeah, I was so I want that. But I cannot feel love from God. And also talk about the sin.

At that moment, when I think about my sin, I think, "Oh, I did this thing wrong. I did that thing wrong, like a lie or maybe disobey my parents." Yeah. But I didn't like idol. But I didn't think I'm so sinful.

I didn't kill a person. I didn't rob a bank like that. I cannot feel my sin at that time. And also, I didn't feel I have a really close personal relationship with God because I thought God is so big. We are so small. God don't even like to build a relationship with a small tiny creature.

And we keep doing Bible study. And also, we pray for the love and the sin in my life. And God can show me my sin in my life. And two weeks later, God amazingly answered my prayer about love and the sin in my life with a big fight between my wife and I. Yeah.

Since I know Christianity, I imagine so many, many times I think, "Oh, God will show me a sign or a magical thing to tell me, 'Yeah, I'm God.'" There's a sign telling me, "I'm God. You should believe in me." But I never thought God will use a big fight in our life and make me to the point of confession and repentance.

And I can get into a little bit detail about the fight. I think that fight went on for a couple of days. And because of some small things, I did it up. So on that Sunday, on that day, I did not go into visiting a church. I left the home. And I went to downtown Boston without bringing my phone with me.

When my wife came back and he was so worried and anxious, he thought I came back to China because of the fight. But I went to downtown. And he was so yeah, she tries to find me anywhere around the modern area. And he gave a call to Brother Marlon and his wife, Darla, to look for me. But they cannot still find me from anywhere modern. And they said, "Maybe I went to the airport." So they want to go to the airport to find me. Yeah. Also, it was a raining day. And almost at 11:00 in the evening, so I came back. My wife talked to me about this thing. And they are trying to find me.

And at that time, my heart was still hard. I said, "I don't care. Yeah. Why are you looking for me? I don't care." I was still angry at that time. And my wife didn't talk too much. And we went to bed. The next morning, Brother Marlon gave me a call, asked me, "Oh, do you want to grab a breakfast with me?"

Yeah. So I said, "Okay. We can grab a breakfast together." And his wife, Darla, gave my wife, Sonny, a call, "Oh, do you want to come over to have a coffee time? My wife went to her house." Yeah.

And we spent almost four or five hours to talk about the studying at the bridge, the life in America. We didn't talk about anything about our fight. After four or five hours, and we went back to the bridge. And at that time, my heart was soft. Yeah. In the beginning, he asked me, "Yeah, what was happening with your relationship? Why did you have a fight?" Yeah. I will say it's none of your business because my heart was still hard. But after four or five hours conversation, my heart was soft. And he started asking about the question, "Why do you have a fight? What's happening in your relationship?" Yeah. At that time, yeah, my heart was soft.

I was crying. And he was crying too with me together because I thought, "Oh, this is something in our life. Yeah. I don't satisfied. And I have a question about our relationship." And he prayed for me. And he asked me, "Do you want to reconcile with each other?"

Yeah. I said, "Yes, I want." So yeah. Sorry.

And later on, we went back to his house. And I had a really good conversation with my wife. And also, four of us, we got together. We prayed. And we shared hearts with each other. We cried together again. And yeah, my heart was so moved at the moment.

And that evening, so I started to have a conversation with my wife after we coming back from his house to our room. Yeah. Till midnight, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, we talk about, "Why was this happening? What's wrong with our relationship?" At that moment, all of a sudden, I felt the love from God. And also, I can feel my sins in my life. So at that moment, I seriously apologized to my wife. And then my wife said to me, "That is the most sincere apologies to her because I heard her so much, yeah, verbally."

And yeah. And we prayed together that evening. And so that is this amazing journey, God using a big fight to answer my prayer, "What is love? What is my sins in my life?" Yeah.

So yeah. So the next morning, I cannot wait to share this good news. "Oh, I feel love from God. I know my sins." Yeah. I can't wait to share my amazing journey with the brothers. And then that evening, we went to the Medford Church of Follows the Way. I shared kind of my journey. And at that point, I wanted to give my life to Jesus and give my life to Jesus, surrender to Him. But I still had some struggles about myself at that point, not about Christianity.

For example,

at that time, I thought, "I have so many sins. I need to be good enough. I can become a Christian." Also, do I at least finish reading the whole Bible, understand it well before becoming a Christian? I think also there are some other questions. For the first questions, I talked to some brothers. And they told me, "You don't need to be good enough because you have sins. That is because you have so many sins.

You will be never perfect till you die." And that is why the reason the blood of Jesus washed us and yeah, for us. I think that is really makes sense. Another question, I always want to, even though at that time, I started reading the Bible, some of the books of the Bible. But I didn't finish all of them. So I think I will finish all of them.

And some other brothers told me, "Yeah, kind of like use a very good analogy. Like a driver doesn't need to go to any places of the world and he can drive. He can drive. And he can use the map to go to any places he wants. He doesn't need to practice it with going anywhere of the world." So I think at the moment, I think I didn't have this question, these struggles.

And later on, in a few months, I still have some struggle at that time, some struggles about myself. And a brother, Chuck Pike, came to our church, gave a teaching. After the teaching, he asked me the question, "Where are you right now?" I shared my struggles with him. He said, "Yeah."

He asked me three questions. The first question, "Do you believe in God?" Exist. The second question, "Do you believe in Jesus died and resurrected in three days?" And the last question, "Do you want to follow him?" After asking me this question at the evening, I cannot go to bed. I was walking around on the street with my wife till midnight. I asked myself about these questions. And the answer is always yes.

So yeah. So I decided to give my life to Jesus. So the next day, I talked to the brothers in the church. So I got baptized in 2018, August 30. Yeah. So this is the picture. I got baptized in the evening on Halloween Day.

Yeah. So I think this is my sharing a little bit over time. And lastly, I really want to share one of my favorite songs, "Thank You for the Valley." Yeah. "Thank You for the Valley I walked through today. The darker the valley, the more I learned to pray." For me, it's so true because I'm so thankful God gave me so many values in my life and to make me humble, to make me trust on Him and rely on Him, not myself.

Yeah. So I think this is my sharing. Thank you so much for, yeah, your listening and bear with me.

Thank you very much. Obviously, wow, that was very, very touching and, yeah, very interesting to see how God can take us where we are and just keep drawing us in and drawing us in. Yeah. So we'd like to open it up to some questions here from all of you. So you're welcome to be thinking about questions. And just to get started here, you had mentioned about in your story how you came from atheism to where you are today as a follower of Jesus.

Do you have any thoughts about how we can help people in that journey to come to a place of relationship with Jesus, people who maybe are atheists or unbelievers or something?

For me, I think this is my personal experience. I cannot say for all of people. For me, building a relationship is a very important way to, yeah,

to share the gospel with them. Yeah. Even though I was in China, I built a relationship with friends, family members. But the relationship is very, very shallow. We never get into the deep conversation, talk about eternal life. No, never.

Yeah. We just talk about a house, work, yeah, some superficial thing. Yeah. And after building a relationship with unbeliever, atheist like me, I think my heart was soft. My heart was open. I would love to talk. Yeah. I think everyone, for me, I think everyone's heart, God gave a heart conscience in everyone's heart. They want to seek some deeper relationship with God, with people. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for that. So you had also mentioned how you started by building a relationship with Brother Marlon as an individual, and then it expanded to family, and then it expanded to the church community. Do you see that as being an important sequence in coming to faith?

As far as for me, it's important. At the beginning, I didn't trust people because at the beginning, "Oh, maybe these people have some purpose." But in China, if you treat people so well, they will think, "Oh, what do you want? What do you want to get from me?" Yeah. So first, I know him, know his family, know his life, know his church. "Oh, I am a person who wants to find evidence from their life. Are they really doing what they believe?" Sometimes they said, "Oh, they are Christian.

I believe in this. I believe in that." But in their real life, they never do that. Or maybe they do something opposite. But with observing their life, I was so convinced. And this is a good witness in my life. "Oh, these people are really serious about what they believe." Yeah.

Can I ask a question? Go ahead, Patrick. So what you're saying is sometimes words—I'm trying to think how to say this real quick because it's one of my big things. We overwhelm people with words. If you shut up and just live your life, people get to know you as a Christian by your behaviors. Is that what you're saying? Yes. For me, seeing what you're believing. Thank you. Thank you. You just shut up 75% of these people who want to overtalk everything. I'm sorry. I'm back.

But can I add something? Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I think different people have different journeys. For me, I think building a relationship is really working for me. Maybe for some people, they really want to. No, no, no. Don't put the disclaimer in there. You said it. It's out. Accept it and love it. Because I was just talking to a gentleman last night. And the big thing was we can tell people. But if they have a learning disability because they don't know who Christ is, they still watch you. And if you shut up and sometimes just live your life, you have a better witness by what you do than what you say. Amen.

Thank you.

Interesting conversation. Anybody else have some questions that you would like to share?

Didn't think he knew he was stepping into that trap.

So just another thing here that I thought I'd bring up. You had talked about the deep valleys of your life, that it was at that deep time, that deep valley in your life where God was able to reach you.

Maybe two questions with that. First is, do you think that that is important for us to come to a place of a deep valley in our life for God to touch us? And secondly, how can we reach people who are at those deep valleys in their life?

Yeah. The first question, I'm not seeing everyone need a valley in their life to know God. As far as me, because I was so proud. I was so controlling of my life when I was in China because I can work. I can do kind of everything I want.

Yeah. So I don't need a—I didn't need a God. I needed myself. I trust myself. But since I came to America, it's a big valley. All of a sudden, I come like a stupid person. I cannot communicate. I cannot work. I lost my value. I think that is a big valley to make me humble. You are nothing. You are tiny. Yeah. So you need seeking who is God. Yeah. I cannot control my life. And for the second question, I think everyone has a need in their life to need Jesus.

Yeah. But it needs investment, your time to find that need. When I was in China, my job was kind of sales. Yeah. We have to know the people's need, and then we sell products to them. The same thing in Christianity. Everyone's heart, they have a need for love, for relationship with God, with a brother, sister, with their family members.

Yeah. But lots of time, as far as I know, because people do not really spend that much of time to invest in people's lives, they cannot find that need. So they gave up. Yeah.

Yes. Thank you for that. Yes. Go ahead. Hi, Eric. Good to see you again. I met you a little bit at the Church Planners Forum. So I really enjoyed hearing your story today. And I had a question for you about the—so you attended the Marlon Weaver's—was doing the teaching there at the bridge. And you called that the fishing pond for followers of the way.

And you also talked about how you learned to trust Marlon. So I'm thinking about that. I think that's neat how they did or were doing that and using that as a fishing pond. But so you didn't feel—I take it that you didn't feel like they were using that as a—yeah, as a way to attract people and then end up saying—and then end up trying to convert you. So people can kind of feel like they're attracted by something, and then they get another story. They find out, "Oh, they're just trying to convert me." So I'm curious to hear your experience on that and how they did it in a way that didn't feel like they were being deceptive or something like that.

Thank you for the question. It's a good question. I think around 2015, before knowing God, I went to Hong Kong. There were some people giving out brochures or flares or CDs about Christianity. At that time, no. I know people want to convert me. So I didn't have any interest to talk to these people. They gave me brochures, CDs, and threw it in the trash bin. Yeah. I know they have a purpose. But the breeding thing is different. At the beginning, I wanted to learn English. And also, yeah, he didn't talk anything about Christianity at all at the beginning in the class because in the class, we have so many religions of the students from all over the world.

Yeah. He just, like my brother Patrick said, just a witness. He's very patient, loving, caring, asks questions of us, caring about our life. And after class, I would love to talk to him because he's a very interesting man. I want to know more about his life. I want to learn more. Gradually, we built a relationship with each other. I trusted them from a little tiny bit, and it's growing more and more trust until the point that whenever—until the point that even though he brought up Christianity, I think, "Oh, it's fine." Yeah. For me, I think. Normalize. Relationship, love is more than, yeah, something else. Yeah.

So maybe. Can I? Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. So maybe you were open to hearing about Christianity because they had invested time and relationship into you already. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. That's good. So what he just said in my language, since I'm different than most of you, we've already determined it, is they cared about him. They showed the love. He accepted the love. He opted into it, meaning he was engaged by an activity. He chose to get involved, and then it worked. You can't overthink love. You can't overthink relationships. Shut up and show love.

Yeah.

Well, Patrick, we're glad to have you here, and we really like your perspective. Question I had: so where are you? Are you simply here for the remainder of your wife's training? Have you been able to get a visa? Are you able to work here now? What does your future look like? Yeah. Thank you so much for this question. Like I said, I have many values since we came to America. Yeah. Our visa issues, our next step. Honestly, we didn't know. Yeah. And right now, my wife, she just graduated from school, and she has to find a volunteer work, a job, at least 20 hours work, and she can maintain her visa. I'm still on her spouse visa, means I cannot work legally in America.

Yeah. So I'm doing volunteer work at a local nonprofit organization, and also I'm helping with something at the bridge. That's something we're doing. But for the next step, we don't know. We are learning. We're still learning and growing, trusting God. Leave everything to God. Let him make a decision and give us direction.

Yeah. And in the long term, that is our plan. But I'm still praying for this. This is the will from God. In the long term, maybe we are planning going back to China, have a church out there, and to preach gospel to Chinese. Yeah.

That is why I went to Church Planter a few weeks ago in Pennsylvania. Have you ever heard of ABT? No. All Bible translation and knowledge? Yeah. Yeah. I heard that.

They're looking for people like you.