My Faith Journey- Pastor Yu Zhao

I was born in a Christian family in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province in 1963, but the place where I grew up was a small village in Tieling City. Because my father was a policeman of the Nationalist Government before 1949 and was also a Christian, our family suffered a lot of unfair treatment. During the Cultural Revolution, we were sent to a rural village in Tieling. From then on, I experienced more hardships and pains in life, but I never gave up hope because my parents taught me to learn to look up and trust God in difficult situations. They set a good example for me.

During the Cultural Revolution, our home was an underground family gathering place, and my parents never stopped gathering. Although I was still a child at the time, I was deeply influenced by my parents' devout faith, and the seeds of faith took root in my heart. In that special era, my parents suffered blows and persecution because of their faith, but they never said a word of frustration; on the contrary, they regarded suffering for Jesus as glory and blessing. Although we were in trouble, we could “always rejoice, pray unceasingly, and give thanks in everything.” In this atmosphere of my family faith, I formally decided to accept Jesus as my personal Savior at the age of twelve. It was a winter night in 1975. I completely confessed my sins and repented. I confessed my sins to the Lord Jesus with tears streaming down my face. I asked God to forgive my sins one by one that I could remember and that the Holy Spirit reminded me of. At that moment, I knew that my life had changed dramatically. From then on, I decided that my life belonged to the Lord.

I attended high school in Tieling City from September 1980 to June 1983. In early 1981, our local church reopened. Although there were only seven or eight gray-haired elderly believers and an old pastor who had just been released from prison, the worship scene was very touching. When I went to church, I was the only young believer there. As soon as the old pastor saw me, his weathered eyes lit up. I worshipped on time every week, and the old pastor cared about me very much. Once, he came to me and asked me: "Have you ever thought about doing something with your faith?" At that moment, I really had no answer. The pastor knew that his question had stumped me, so he said: "Have you ever thought about going to seminary and becoming a pastor like me after graduation?" Later, I kept praying to God for the pastor's advice. On Easter, April 26, 1981, I was baptized.

After I was baptized, I seriously considered the pastor’s advice and waited for God’s guidance. I knew very well that if God wants to use me, he will call me and give me a clear proof. One day, during worship, I saw in a vision of burning fire, bright and hot. I was immediately deeply moved, my heart was racing, and I couldn't calm down. I kept praying in my heart: "Lord, are you calling me? If so, please let me calm down!" After praying, I was covered in sweat, but my heart immediately calmed down. From that moment on, I was determined to serve the Lord throughout my life and began to prepare for studying theology. At that time, Jinling Union Theological Seminary was the only seminary in China. In the summer of 1983, I passed the entrance examination and overcame many obstacles to enter the seminary.

I entered Jinling Union Theological Seminary in the fall of 1983. After four years of undergraduate study, I went on to study for three more years as a graduate student, graduating in 1990, the year after the Tiananmen Square incident. At that time, the country's political, economic, and religious policies tended to be tightened. Religion, especially Christianity, was seen as the vanguard of the peaceful revolution of the West. Therefore, the Chinese church at that time did not accept fresh graduates. I asked God: "Lord! You called me and You equipped me, but when I graduated, I had no church to go to. What is Your will?" Although I didn't get the answer at that time, I felt at peace in my heart, knowing that God will make a way for me, because He is the Almighty God.

At that time, the Nanjing YMCA had just started operating and was in urgent need of manpower, so I worked there for two years. During this period, I gradually understood God’s intention. He wanted me to preach the gospel among young people first. The YMCA is an ideal place for evangelism because the government considers it to be engaged in social work. The YMCA was close to Nanjing University. We held English evening classes and many students came to take English classes and TOEFL classes. I took this opportunity to talk about faith with college students, preach the gospel, and introduce them to the church. This is how many students came to know the Savior and accept Jesus.

In 1993, God called me to serve as a preacher at St. Paul’s Church in Nanjing. I was ordained as a pastor on April 9, 1995, and became the senior pastor of the church six months later. We organized many church activities, including youth fellowship, catechism classes, Bible study classes, prayer meetings and choirs, etc. We also held spiritual training and evangelistic meetings regularly. I served at St. Paul's Church for seven years, five of which were as senior pastor, during which the church's membership increased from over 800 to over 1,500. In addition to my daily pastoral work, I often visited hospitals and believers’ homes, taught long-term and short-term volunteer training classes, and often went to rural churches to hold evangelistic meetings. By God's grace, I gave myself fully to service.

In 2002, I had the opportunity to study for a PhD at Luther Seminary in the United States. I majored in systematic theology when I was studying at Jinling Union Theological Seminary. After arriving at Luther Theological Seminary in the United States, after prayer, I decided to change my major to pastoral care and counseling. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to apply the systematic theology I studied. Thank the Lord, from September 2004 to August 2005, I conducted a one-year pastoral internship at Fairview Hospital of the University of Minnesota. I often preached in English in the hospital’s chapel and accumulated a lot of practical experience, which was very helpful to me. It would go a long way in future pastoral work in the church.

On May 27, 2007, I completed my Doctor of Ministry (PhD) degree. Then, on June 24, I took my family, full of enthusiasm, to prepare to return to China to serve the Chinese church and expand the domestic professional field of pastoral studies. I had made up my mind not to care about personal gains or losses after returning to my country; I only wanted to serve the Lord’s flock and please God. Therefore, my wife and I resolutely decided to serve the house church without taking any salary and live entirely by faith. We mainly served in two house churches, one with more than 70 people and the other with more than 50 people, most of whom were young brothers and sisters in the Lord. According to the needs of the church, we adopted the method of simultaneous catechesis and spiritual training. While preaching the gospel, we helped these brothers and sisters lay a solid foundation; while conducting collective pastoral care, we also conducted discipleship training for brothers and sisters with special burdens and gifts. Thank God! We saw God Himself working mightily in the church, and the number of people being saved continued to increase. Now these two churches have grown and been planted into four churches.

At the end of 2008, God called us through the Presbyterian Church in the United States to establish a Chinese church in Corning, New York, USA. The Geneva Presbyterian Church in the United States saw the need for a local Chinese ministry in Corning in New York State and urgently needed a church planting missionary. There were five candidates, and except for me, all the other candidates were already in the United States or Canada. After several rounds of phone calls and interviews, the pastoral recruitment committee decided to call our family from China to Corning.

After five years of service, the Corning Church had grown from six or seven families with about fifteen people attending each meeting to today's church with forty-four members and a total of more than sixty people. Current church activities include Sunday worship, adult Sunday school, children's Sunday school, Wednesday evening prayer meeting, Thursday sisters meeting, Friday night Corning Bible study fellowship and Horseheads Bible study fellowship, as well as Mansfield University Bible study group and monthly Evergreen Senior Fellowship, etc.

Under God's persistence care and guidance, in August 2014, God called us to serve at the Chinese Christian Church of Greater Washington, DC in Maryland. We saw God's incomparable love and faithfulness. Time flies, and in the blink of an eye I have been serving here for 10 years. This traditional church with a history of 65 years is experiencing new updates and challenges. After the pandemic, the church fully resumed its various ministries. We hope that by organizing the Happiness Group evangelism ministry, more Chinese in North America will have the opportunity to know the Lord. May the Lord lead us to become a church that preaches the gospel and bears good witness to the Lord.

My parents are first-generation Christians, and I am a second-generation Christian; my wife, Peng Enlin, is a fourth-generation Christian. It has been 26 years since we met, fell in love, and got married in the church. God gave us two sons: Abraham and Joshua. Today, Abraham is studying aerospace engineering at Purdue University, while Joshua is still in elementary school. From children, we see God’s abundant love and blessings. Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shammah! I am grateful to God for his rich preparation and wonderful guidance in my life. Serving God all my life is a choice and I have no regrets in this life.