My earliest memory of being exposed to religion was during my first trip to Hong Kong. My grandmother on my mom's side took me to a Buddhist temple and told me I was Buddhist.
Ok. I'm Buddhist, I thought.
On the same trip, my aunt and uncle on my dad's side took me to church and told me, "Nick, you're a Christian."
Ok… I'm confused.
So, I went to the only person I knew who had all the answers at the time- my mom.
I asked her, "Mom, can you be both Christian and Chinese?"
"Sure," she said.
Sweet, I thought, I'm both Christian and Buddhist because for some reason I thought being Chinese and Buddhist was the same thing.

I was 6.

Of course I eventually found out that you can't be both, and after that I stopped calling myself anything. It didn't really matter in my family because my parents are non-religious despite being from somewhat religious families (Dad's side- Christians, Mom's side- Buddhists/non-religious).

Fast forward about 15 years to my senior year in college, when a close friend of mine asked me and some friends to go to a church with him. At the time, I thought it was kind of weird because he wasn't the religious type. When we got there though, we understood. It was for… a girl. Looking back now, we should probably thank him for wanting to impress her because the two other friends that went are getting baptized with me at Vox this Sunday.  We continued to go to AKPC because the people were so friendly and made me feel comfortable being at church, which made it easier at least for me to want to explore Christianity and God. But I have to admit during the first year as I discovered God, I was sometimes skeptical because I wanted scientific proof of what that the Bible said. And it was something that I struggled with.

Fast forward another year, I had just come back from Hong Kong where I had gone to study film and gotten to know my relatives.  I thought film was what I wanted to do but wasn't completely sure.  So that summer, I wrestled with what to do with my life.  Go back to school to find out if I really liked it or quit and get a "boring" office job with my finance degree (which I wanted to avoid). I hope none of you have ever experienced what it feels like when the path you thought your life was heading all of a sudden ends and leaves you directionless. But it su-cks. 

I didn't know what to do, and I was too ashamed to talk to my parents or friends because I felt like my life should have been together by now. So I avoided them, and became pretty depressed. I just didn't know how to handle the situation. And so I stayed at home, kept to myself, and slept… a lot, hoping maybe when I woke up that the answers would miraculously appear. Eventually I realized that there was someone I could feel comfortable talking to.  So, I started praying.  I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. I prayed for a clear sign to tell me what to do, to point me in the right direction with a big neon sign, or maybe the winning lottery numbers.  I prayed like I had never done before and then the prayers just started into conversations. But still nothing.

About a month later at church, it was the first week of the 2nd year of the MFA program in HK, and I had decided to not to return. I was feeling pretty crappy because I had never quit anything before and did not know if I had made the right decision.  But for some reason that Sunday Pastor Ted ended the service differently.  He asked if anyone needed people to pray for them, and for some reason my hand went up slowly.  I just kind of looked at it and wondered, "What the heck you were doing?"  Then I felt it, peoples' hands and their prayers. This might sound cheesy or cliché but, it was incomprehensibly powerful. After that, nothing really changed. I still had the same fears and uncertainties of my future. And life still had its ups and downs.  But I finally realized something I should have already known - I wasn't alone. I had my sign. I had my proof. I have faith.