Mandarin Baptist Church of Los Angeles

110 W. Woodward Avenue, Alhambra, CA 91801

(626)282-2467; (626)282-2468

You can say that this was the church I was "born" into. In essence, this was the childhood church, and it was the place I first asked Christ to enter my heart, to become my personal Lord and Savior, repented of my sins, and asked Him to save me. Like all churches I've attended, I have both fond and unhappy memories there.

I first attended this church when I was just a toddler, about 7 years old. At first I hated every bit of church. The only reason I went to church was because my mom forced me to. Gradually though, I became friends with George Chang, Davie Chang, and Tommy Chang. George and Davie were brothers, and Tommy was their cousin. So, I enjoyed going to church because I got to hang out with my friends.  Unfortunately, all three of these guys stopped going to MBCLA after a few short years. I don't remember the reason why anymore. It was too long ago. Once again, church became a drag, and I hated going there. I had a notorious reputation with the adults as being a "troublemaker", and it was obvious to me that many of them despised me. Yet, my mom continued to force me to attend.

Later, I was able to become friends with Leonard and Kevin Ho, John Wang, Terrence, Harvey, and Paul. Terrence, Harvey, and Paul were especially close to me. By this time, we were all attending Total Devotion, the youth fellowship at MBCLA. One Sunday, I saw a bunch of people from my youth group standing in line waiting to sign up for the 1989 annual winter retreat. I had absolutely no interest in going to the retreat, but for some reason, by the hand of providence, I mistakenly thought that all my friends (especially Terrence and Harvey) were going. So, I signed up too. It wasn't until a week before the retreat that I discovered none of my friends were going. Naturally, I felt a bit left out.

But praise the Lord! It was at this retreat, the 1989 youth winter retreat, that I first found Christ! I don't remember a whole lot of details because these things happened so many years ago. In fact, I don't even remember who the speaker was, or even the topic of his message. I only remember that I was touched by his message, and became a Christian through that message. This retreat took place in February of 1989. I have never regretted the decision to follow Christ ever since. Of course, there were many times that my faith was extremely weak, but God was always faithful. God always carried me through the difficult times in my life. I was only in the eighth grade when I became a Christian.

During that period in my life, there was great turmoil in my family. This may have been a factor in why I chose to become a believer. My mom had recently divorced, and was living with her boyfriend.

When I was still in the sixth grade, before I became a Christian, I remember that my dad suddenly didn't come home one day. I asked mom where dad was. She told me that dad had gone on a business trip. I believed her, and thought nothing of it. About a month had passed, and still no sign of dad. So I began to ask mom tougher questions. Where did dad go? When will he come home? What was he doing away from home so long? And so forth.

The only answer I could get out of mom was that dad went on a business trip somewhere far away. By that time, I began to suspect that mom was not telling me the truth. Dad had never been away from home for so long on any business trip before. The months passed very slowly for me, and everyday I missed my dad. I still remember crying myself to sleep at times because I missed him so much. It wasn't until a year later, on Christmas Eve, that I saw him again. He came home, with a gift for me, talked to me briefly, and disappeared out of my life again for about another year. When I saw him, I was so excited that I virtually ignored the Christmas gift because I was so happy just to see him!

Almost immediately after he left, I began to miss him again. I opened the present. That Christmas, he had given me lots of stationary (pens, pencils, notepads, etc) and two handheld portable video games. These were all very inexpensive items, but I became attached to them because it reminded me of my dad. Several years later, even after my video games were broken, I refused to throw them away. On one occasion, my uncle offered to buy me a new video game to replace the broken one. I declined the offer for fear that I would no longer enjoy the gift my dad had given me. This must all sound very silly to the reader, but it's what went through the mind of a sixth/seventh grader who really missed his dad.

By the time I was in eighth grade, I was having regular conflicts with my mom almost daily. I have no idea how or why I became such a bitter person. Both my grandma and my dad were no longer part of my life because the adults in my life didn't know how to get along. Perhaps that had something to do with my bitterness. I sought refuge and belonging mostly through friends.

By the time I was a freshman in high school, our (broken) family had moved from Temple City to Pasadena, and I was going to San Marino High School. That same year, my mom and her boyfriend got married. Needless to say, I never got along with my stepfather. In fact, mom didn't really get along with him either. Mom and him eventually got divorced about 6 years later.

The first few years of high school were very turbulent for me. I was arguments with mom persisted almost daily, and stepfather made things worse because he would always side with mom, no matter who was right. Eventually, I couldn't stand it anymore. One night, after a really big argument that resulted in me socking my step-dad in the face, I ran away from home. That happened during my sophomore year in high school. I remember locking the door to my room. While my mom tried to break down the door to send me away, I frantically packed my things in a bag, took the few dollars I had, and quietly jumped out the window. This way, while they're occupied with opening my door, I would be long gone by the time the realized I ran away. My first stop was at Mike Cham's house. He and David Chen were the only people I considered friends from my high school. I never did manage to make a lot of friends in high school.

I distrusted all adults because any one of them could turn me in, inform my mom where I was, or even call the cops. So, I came up with the elaborate scheme to stay at each friends' house for a maximum of one night per week. I would rotate the friends' homes where I would stay at. All my friends covered for me too, and told their parents that I just wanted to hang out for the night. After staying at Mike Cham's, I went to David Chen's place. After staying with David, I would stay with Paul Cheng. After Paul, I would stay with Terrence. After Terrence, I wold stay with Harvey. And so on. This went on for several months, and all the while I was still struggling to go to school. I had made up my mind that I would not drop out of high school no matter what. However, my grades did drop dramatically. Even then, I was smart enough to realize the importance of an education. The sad thing is that my mom never bothered to look for me at San Marino High School. The high school is the most obvious place to look, yet she never did look there! To me, this was an indication that she wasn't concerned that I had ran away from home.

It was very tough moving from place to place every night while trying to get some homework or studying done. I had brought a homemade gun with me before running away from home, and several times I wanted to use it to kill myself. My friends didn't let me.

Eventually, Harvey had the courage to tell his mom the truth of my situation. For some strange reason, Harvey's mom was very understanding, and invited me to her house to live with them indefinitely. I was so happy because I had a place to live and no more arguments! This was the turning point for my downhill sliding grades too.

As I lived with Harvey, I began to devise a plan for my life. I was going to graduate from San Marion high school, and go to a nearby junior college called PCC (Pasadena City College). After finishing two years at PCC, I would apply for UCLA and either use grants or loans to pay for the tuition. After graduating UCLA, I would then get a job and pay Harvey's mom all the money I could afford to because of her hospitality. This was such an awesome plan, I thought to myself!

As usual, God had different plans for my life. None of my plans ever work out quite the way I envision them to. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother making any plans for my life!

One night, while I was studying, I received a phone call from Arthur, the youth leader at Total Devotion. I have no idea how he found out I was living with Harvey. He tried to convince me to go back home. I adamantly refused. He kept trying to persuade me, and kept saying "no". Finally, Arthur told me that he'll make a deal with me. He said that he only needed me to go home with him and Sandra(his wife) just this one time to talk to my mom together. If we couldn't work things out, he promised he will never ask me to go home again. Furthermore, he promised not to tell my mom where I was. After thinking about his proposition for awhile, I agreed. I had absolutely no intention of making things work. I thought to myself that it should be pretty easy to make everything fall apart, and get Arthur off my back. All I have to do is get into an argument with my mom!

Arthur came and picked me up from Harvey's house. By the time he took me home, we all sat down at the living room to talk. I began to say a lot of really outrageous things. To my surprise, no matter how hard I tried to provoke my mom, she would not retaliate. Believe me, I tried really hard and usually I don't even have to try to provoke her anger! Furthermore, for the first time in my life, my mom sincerely apologized to me for putting me through so much pain. Before this time, when I asked for an apology when she wronged me, I often received a response such as "Yeah, I'm sorry Davy…I'm sorry that you're my son!" These were sarcastic, insincere apologies meant to hurt me. But this time, as far as I can tell, she sincerely apologized. This apology was enough for me to disarm and begin making peace. To make a long story short, I returned home because Arthur and Sandra took time out to help us with our family turmoil.

About a year or so after this incident, both Terrence and I left MBCLA to got to MBCP.