Revelations 5:9-10 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

Dear reader, in the picture, you should see my wife Kathy, our children Jonathan, Jeremy, Margaret and me. These words constitute the testimony of God's work of conversion/calling in my life. Any testimony claims to present the truth of that reality and usually falls short due to our limitations. This will be no exception. Please accept my apology ahead of time.

My name is Tai Wong. I was named after the place of my birth (Taipei, Taiwan), born when my family was fleeing mainland China during the ravages of Mayo Tse Tung. My two older brothers were named geographically as well ... the oldest named after a region in Canton and the next oldest after the city of Hong Kong. Our names and ages were a dead give away that the family was escaping from communist China. If we were caught, we could be persecuted or killed. This was a time of warfare and political turmoil. Yet God was gracious enough to grant a grandmother wisdom to pass on to my parents: Change the names before passage to America so that in case of capture, no one would be the wiser. I found out later that our temporary names had a Christian influence. The (rough) translation of my "new" name was "abundant or eternal life". This grandmother was by God's grace a Christian.

We lived most of our life in Grover Beach, CA. where Americanese became my primary language. My Cantonese vocabulary never grew beyond what was needed to function in our daily household activities. We were not brought up in any particular religion. There were the traditional Chinese folklore figurines and a statue of Buddha, but none of these was used as an object of worship. My mother was trained in the Chinese classics (this was a grace not normally bestowed on women in her culture and time frame) so we were taught moral stories from the Chinese culture. As an eastern child in a foreign land I often felt like a stranger in America. This must have been God's way of showing me that there is more to life than meets the eye. Even as a child, I often pondered "why was I here and how did the reality around me arrive at its current state with its glory and darkness?" There must be an answer.

I explored eastern, western and middle eastern world views and religions. I remember thinking Bullfinch's Mythology offered some very weak and implausible images of gods and goddesses. Science seemed to ignore the supernatural or exclude it and said nothing about what it meant to be human and distinct from the rest of creation. Evolution seemed to be very poor science and quite hypothetical. It left me with the same problems as the eastern philosophies did, offering no special place for mankind or my humanity. I recognized my own sinful state even before reading scripture. I saw morality had roots in all of human culture yet could not find the seed that planted it.

In God's providence, we lived across the street from a church. I started attending regularly and reading the Bible when I was still quite young. By the age of only ten or eleven, I was converted. I came to the conclusion that the Bible was God's revelation. The Old Testament was true to the reality of sin and glory, life and death, good and evil, unity and diversity, humanity and creation. It not only explained who I was (a sinner) and the world around me (after the fall) but the great need I had for the life and death of God's anointed Savior, Jesus Christ. Then as I read the New Testament I was convinced by the changes recorded in the life of the apostle Paul, that Christ must have truly been raised from the dead. Paul was transformed as was everyone who claimed to encounter the risen Jesus.

During my early years, I attended a number of different churches as I tried to determine what was true and faithful. Many years later as an adult in Rochester, Minnesota, God blessed me by having a Jewish Christian, invite me to a Bible study in the book of Romans. This group first helped me to see the importance of being accountable to a local church. That study group eventually became a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Later I met and married my wife Kathy at Trinity Presbyterian Church. When we moved to Modesto, we found Grace OPC to be a strong, Bible-preaching church that faithfully seeks to fulfill the great commission. Our family has been with this church for about three years. We can not merit God's grace and yet we are called to serve joyfully by His ordained means.

I was not fortunate to have a clear Judeo-Christian family upbringing, yet God has provided me with a different covenant family. One that has allowed me to examine creation, different religions and world views, and to embrace the truth of the Gospel. He has shown me that His providence, Word and Holy Spirit provide where my planning, thinking or upbringing could not. He has bought me into His fold, and as the Good Shepherd, protected and nurtured my family and me. This fold is His Church (the covenant community that spans space and time). His faithfulness expresses itself in more ways than I can tell in this brief testimony. He has brought me to new life in Christ through the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in the midst of this creation, fallen, but still glorious.

P. Shaun Bryant, Pastor
1448 Standiford Avenue
Modesto, CA 95350
(209)522-5922