Our Testimony

In Isaiah 6:8, the Lord asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” This is such a pivotal verse in our lives for our ministry now just as much as it impacted us from the day we got saved. What does it take to drop all that you are doing as Jesus’ disciples did, and follow Him? What do you have to do to have the faith of Abraham and Moses and other prophets and leaders in the past? The answer is simple. You just believe with a childlike faith, have a willing heart, and trust God to lead the way. This has been our journey as children of God. We didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but we just took one step at a time, trusting God to provide for our needs and directing us to the ministry that He had prepared in advance for us to do.

KC’s Salvation

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 John 4:4, “Greater is He who is in me than he that is in the world.” Over the years, this verse has greatly encouraged me in my walk with God. When I received salvation at the age of 16, God opened my mind to understand that there is a spiritual world. It was eye-opening to know that angels do exist, and that Satan and his demons are also present in our world. Prior to this, I was unaware of any of these spiritual matters nor did I want anything to do with God or church. When God clearly showed me that He is real, I accepted Jesus into my life as Lord and Savior. The realization of dark forces and principalities at work actually made me afraid because I thought that demons would come and attack me at any point. However, when I came across 1 John 4:4, God gave me a deeper understanding of who He is. Jesus, who is living in me is far greater than anyone or anything. Since there is no one greater than Jesus, who is God, this helped me to overcome my fears. The fear of people and the fear of messing up were great struggles in my life especially since I was such a perfectionist. Making mistakes made me frustrated and angry until God helped me understand that the beauty of a human being is our imperfections and the ability to learn from our mistakes. With fear behind me, I was able to open myself up for any opportunity that God gave me.

KC’s First Experiences in Ministry

One of my first ministries was serving as an assistant teacher at a summer retreat for 3rd and 4th graders. I never knew how challenging this age group was until I attended this camp. Even after months of preparation, we were faced with kids that didn’t want to listen and challenged us on everything. We thought we were failures, and personally, I just wanted to quit. Instead of pouring out God’s love for these kids and sharing the Good News with them, I just wanted to send them all home for misbehavior. I thought to myself, “If ministry is this hard and I can’t even handle this, then I better just stop now before it gets worse.” Even in my doubts and discouragement, I still prayed and asked God for a sign. By the grace of God, on the last night of the retreat when there was an altar call for anyone who wanted to receive salvation, everyone of the 10 kids in my class raised their hand and accepted Jesus into their heart. That indescribable joy of seeing others receive salvation and the assurance that they will go to heaven was one of the best experiences I ever had. As we were driving back home, these former troublemakers were now transformed into babes of Christ, who had countless questions about God, Jesus and the Bible. To my embarrassment, I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to answer their questions, but my youth pastor came to my rescue. This challenged me to study the Bible even more so that I would always be ready to give an answer.

Over the years, God continued to stretch my faith and gave me opportunities to lead worship for Sunday School and learn to play the guitar. As I matured, I also taught the youth group and started overseeing and preaching for the English Ministry service as well as Sunday School. In all these things, God worked in amazing ways by giving me wisdom and incredible energy to handle ministry and also help my parents in the family business.

At the age of 17, I began praying for my wife because my youth pastor made a profound statement that impacted me greatly. He said that since our married life far exceeds our life as a single person, marrying the right person is crucial. I took this advice and prayed for a godly wife. Also, when I was 21 years old, I prayed that I would have a powerful yet simple faith like Abraham. Well, God was faithful to answer my prayers!

Ellen’s Salvation

Since my middle school years and onward, I always felt an emptiness in my heart. Even though I attended church for most of my life and read the Bible, I actually felt more guilty because I wanted to be “good” and obey God’s word but failed miserably all the time. I filled the void in my heart with the fading pleasures of the world only to find it disappointing and painful. I believed in God, but I didn’t know what I had to do to rid myself of this guilt. I went further and further into despair and depression. However, things slowly started to change when I was 19 years old. I was on vacation with my family visiting my older brother in Hawaii, and also visiting my aunt in Arizona. My visit to Arizona changed the course of my life. As my family was sight-seeing at Papago Park near the Phoenix Zoo, I stood upon a big rock and all of a sudden out of nowhere, I had the idea to come finish my college education in Arizona. At that moment, I had no idea that it was God who put that idea into my head because a special young man had been praying for me, and God was preparing me for salvation. Immediately an excitement came over me because I had the opportunity to start a new life in a beautiful state that always had sunshine. After a year of preparation, I finally drove out to Tempe, AZ with my parents all the way from New Jersey. It took me a few months to get up the nerve to find a church to attend in a strange new city, but I took the bold step. Through my new friends at this church, I was later introduced to the church activities where my future husband was serving. This then opened the door for me to start attending a college Bible study where KC was also involved in. On the very first night that I joined the meeting during a time of prayer and worship, the Holy Spirit brought such a conviction in my heart of what a wretched sinner I was, and that I needed a Savior. With much weeping and confession, I accepted the invitation to receive Jesus as my Lord and King. With God there is no coincidence or chance meetings. Throughout my life, God had been drawing me one step closer to Himself, and I am ever so grateful for His work of transforming me into the woman that I am today, and I am still a work in progress. Praise God!

Ministry Together

God introduced me to my beautiful wife when I was 23, and we were married less than a year later on January 6, 1996. Over the years, God blessed us with 4 precious children, Emily (23), Noah (21), Elijah (17) and Samuel (13), who were each conceived through prayer. How time flies! Next year, we will be celebrating our 25th anniversary. Throughout our married lives, we have partnered together in ministry through prayer, leading worship, teaching, preaching, and directing in every ministry possible for all ages ranging from birth to adults in various churches throughout Arizona and California. We faced great challenges, and our faith was stretched to capacity, but God always equips those He calls. He has always been faithful to fill us with wisdom, talent, and creativity to accomplish the Lord’s work. However, the Abraham faith that I prayed for at 21 became activated when God gave us a burden for Tucson.

Ministry in Tucson

When KC and I first came to Tucson True Light Church to serve God back in January 1998, we felt the burden after he received a call from a college student who was hungry to know God’s truth and grow in his faith. He said that there was no one to lead or teach the college students, and he earnestly asked if we would consider doing ministry in Tucson. KC and I decided to pray and seek God by taking a road trip all the way up to Mount Zion National Park in Utah. There we received God’s answer and conviction to follow His calling to Tucson. To our knowledge, we believed that KC would only be teaching the college students, but as he met with Pastor Luke, he asked me to consider teaching the youth group as well. To our surprise, God convicted KC to also minister to the needs of the youth. Accepting the call was probably the easiest part of our spiritual adventure. When we broke the news to our parents, KC’s parents were devastated. His mom was in tears and his dad who was still a new-born Christian at the time, was completely against our decision. He had disowned my husband as his son, and never wanted to speak to him again. We were heartbroken, but we had to obey God’s calling and trust Him to change his father’s heart. We had no job nor a place to live, but our family of three set out to find an apartment with the love offering provided by our Phoenix church as they sent us off. When our savings had dwindled down to $100, God supplied KC with a job at a paging/cellular company. Because God convicted him not to accept a salary from the church, we had to fully depend on the Lord for whatever provision He chose to provide. Within a couple of months, my father-in-law finally called KC, and their relationship was reconciled. Not only that, God was blessing the youth ministry and causing it to flourish. This was a great test of our faith, and it laid the foundation for all the ways in which we have served God from this point forward. Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Even though we can’t see with our physical eyes what God is doing, we place our hope in Him by trusting that He will do His marvelous work in and through us.

By God's favor and blessing, the Tucson True Light Church has commissioned and sent us off as missionaries to go into all the world to preach the Good News with boldness and also refresh the hearts of the saints. They will be our accountability and our prayer support throughout this spiritual journey.