Interview with 2023 Missions/Social Concerns Conference Speaker Kenny Chau

The Pulse Editorial Co-workers

It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation, it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again …… For it is his mouth that has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them together. He allots their portions; his hand distributes them by measure. They will possess it forever and dwell there from generation to generation. (Isaiah 34:10, 16-17, NIV)

Kenny Chao was the keynote speaker at CBCGB’s 2023 Annual Missions and Social Concerns Conference (November 10 to 12). He is a CBCGB-supported city mobilizer with International Students Inc. (ISI) and an affiliated Spiritual Life Advisor at New York University (NUY) serving international students. The theme of his three-day sessions was Living for God’s Great Kingdom. The following is excerpted from an interview by The Pulse editorial team on the night of November 12, 2023.  

How I Became a Christian

I was born in Vietnam in 1974 as the youngest of seven children. My dad moved there from Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, at a young age with his dad. My parents dedicated me to Christ before and after I was born and gave me a Chinese name 周君平 (和平之君, prince of peace). We left Vietnam in 1975 because of the war. We lived in a refugee camp in Macau or Hong Kong before being sponsored by a Chinese church in Washington DC (CCCGW) to come to the United States. I visited the church in 2019 while attending the Chinese Mission Conference in Baltimore. Their website said the church began in 1957 by international students in an office of International Students Inc. (ISI). It is wonderful that 42 years later the refugee family they supported would serve with ISI. 

My parents moved to New York City to work so they could get their three other children and my grandmother out. They lived a hard life, and I knew growing up that we were poor. Our apartment in Chinatown was a 500-square-foot walk-up between two funeral homes. I did not feel like going to church and took every opportunity not to go, because church was not relevant to my life. All my church friends were from out of town, and I was the poor kid from Chinatown. 

When I was in 8th grade, I really wanted a bicycle because all my friends had one. My parents eventually got me an $80 purple bicycle. It was my first bike, and my friends would laugh at me for the color. One afternoon, I was about 20 steps from my home when someone pushed me aside and took my bike. I started hanging out with friends of bad influences and robbing people of their bikes. Hurt people hurt people. When we’re hurt, we would hurt others, or we don’t care when others get hurt. Of course, I didn’t understand this back then. The only bike I took from someone was a chrome GT dirt bike. I was scared to take it home, so I ended up swapping it with a bike taken by someone else. One day, a local gang member threatened me for taking his bike and demanded me to pay him $360. I didn’t have the money and didn’t dare to tell my parents about it. I was afraid of being beaten up by my dad at home and then by the gang on the street. I needed to get out of the city. My dad told me about a summer conference my church OCM (Overseas Chinese Mission) was having away from the city. I jumped at the chance to get away. 

At the conference, I felt convicted for the things that I’d done. When we bowed our heads and prayed, I felt a sense of remorse and whispered softly, “I’m such a jerk, I’m wrong and I felt bad about it.” Then I heard a voice, “but I still love you.” I believe that was the voice of God. I deserved punishment and judgment, but God showed me compassion and mercy. On the last night before going home, I decided to trust God. I sang a song from the conference “You Are My Hiding Place” on my way home and kept saying in my mind, “God, please protect me.” As I walked by a church near my house, I looked at the cross on top of the building and sang that song. I saw the gangsters across the street. They never bothered me again, and I never interacted with them again. I found out after becoming a Christian that the police station kept a photo of us hanging out in the parks with writings on it that said “Future gangsters. Watch out for them.” Some of my friends did join the gang. Jesus saved me and delivered me from gang life. 

Roads to a Full-time Missionary

The summer conference was on the Labor Day weekend in 1988. At the winter conference in the same year between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I responded to an altar call to dedicate my life to full-time ministry. I was sure that I was called, though I didn’t understand exactly how and where. I have a gift for evangelism. In the years that followed, I had done city evangelism with Metro Ministries in a Yogi Bear costume. I was able to share the gospel in the army. At a friend’s wedding in California when I was 24, God spoke to me. He said, Kenny, you’ve told people that I’ve called you to do missions. I had you grow up in Chinatown. What have you done for my people there? My answer was nothing. I approached Pastor Billy Yep at CCHC (Chinese Christian Herald Crusades) about serving in Chinatown. I served there for four years. 

God told me to go to China in a dream. My wife Cindy and I met at OCM when she was getting an education degree at Columbia University. We got married soon after. I had a dream one night in 2004. I was standing in a large flat area in front of a big red building. I heard a voice that said, “Love God, love China.” I woke Cindy up and said, “I think God’s calling us to go to China.” We joined PESI (Professional Education Systems Institute, a non-profit organization) and taught English at a private kindergarten in Beijing for a year while sharing the gospel in our spare time. Cindy taught English full-time, while I split my time between the kindergarten and BICF (Beijing International Christian Fellowship) as an administrator. 

Beijing was a vision trip for us for two reasons: to see for ourselves the spiritual conditions of the people in China and to get further clarity on how God was leading us. While teaching in Gansu in the summer, I was invited by my students to a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Something stirred in my heart when they worshipped their gods in front of me. God said to me, “You see these people pray to false gods? You should be an intercessor to pray on their behalf to the one true and living God, so that they would come to know me.” Before leaving China, we were on a tour to Tibet to see Mt. Everest. The tour guide said the roads to Mt. Everest were closed. We had to follow a new itinerary to visit numerous temples against our intentions. They took us to the Jokhang Temp in Lhasa. I saw a long line of people holding two things in their hands, one with their offering and the other with their babies. I remember the picture of this baby with big eyes looking at everything. It broke my heart. I wept uncontrollably for the next 15 minutes. I realized that it was not one person but the Tibetans as a people were hopeless. On the other hand, when they believe in their version of the good news, they will pass it on to the next generation. That night, God not only showed me the spiritual conditions of the people there, but also the clarity of how I was going to serve him, which was to transform generations of idolaters into generations of true worshippers. I decided to go to seminary to be a resource to others who don’t have the opportunity. Cindy and I went to Gordon-Conwell in 2005 to follow our vision as long-term missionaries to China.

A City Mobilizer with ISI

In my last semester at Gordon-Conwell in 2008, I accepted a two-year assignment from OCM to help send missionaries into the field. I would be among the first to go. We partnered with OMF which included financial support as well as training. I was to be with OCM between 2009 and 2011. In 2010, our daughter Meimei was born with Down Syndrome and hearing problems. We wanted to go to China, but the costs for special care in Beijing were prohibitive, while New York City has probably the best care and most generous benefits in the world for children with Down Syndrome. I felt God led me to a dead end. The OCM leaders offered me a youth/English staff position at their church plant, the OCM Canaan Church in West Windsor near Princeton, NJ. God also helped us win a housing lottery to move up to a brand new two-bedroom apartment in East Harlem for $86,000. 

After two years of traveling to Canaan on the weekends, a 70-mile commute, I agreed to stay on for another year for them to find my replacement for their sake and my family’s sake. I did not have a plan for the next step. I felt that God led me to another dead end, but God opened doors for me to talk to Intervarsity Fellowship (IVF), and finally to ISI. 

My official ISI title is City Mobilizer. NYU gives me the title of a spiritual life advisor, an affiliate status. There are 70 unpaid spiritual life advisors at NYU. I have access to meeting rooms in their buildings. What led me to serve at ISI was the part of its mission statement that says it is in cooperation with local churches, which was what I wanted to do. I wanted to help the local churches by giving them a platform to reach international students. The goal is not just for church members to become volunteers but to help them become missional. 

We match international students with professionals in New York City from our partner churches on a one-on-one basis for one academic year. With the professional mentorship program, the mentor would meet their student once or twice a month for nine or 10 months, help them with their resumes and networking skills, talk through their goals, etc. The mentorship is usually done away from the church. The mentor invites the mentee to the church for Christmas and Easter. If the student is interested, they can invite them to church at other times. Asian American congregations are often out of practice sharing the gospel in workplaces. With the program, we train the mentors to walk on two legs: the professional leg, which is usually strong in New York and Boston, and the spiritual leg, which is often weaker. If you serve these students and you never mention God, I have failed you. We want you to be prayerful for an opportunity to share the gospel. I founded the program in 2014, and passed the program director’s role to someone else, a Chinese Canadian named Jackie who joined as a mentor six years ago. 

What can CBCGB learn from City Mobilization at NYU?

Two things come to mind. One is a professional mentorship program, and the other is very intentional mentorship. First, give people an opportunity to serve that builds up their faith and helps them see that the harvest field is ripe here, and they don’t have to quit their jobs to be part of the Great Commission.

A very intentional mentorship means a program that helps the person who answers the call to ministry/mission. The old church model is after you answered an altar call to full-time ministry, you go on a short-term mission trip. It is not until you go to seminary that they start supporting you. It’s not about financial support, but how the church walks with you. An old lady on a missions committee once told me, “Kenny, God called me to missions a long time ago, but I never went. That’s why I serve on the missions committee.” I believe that if someone had walked with her when she was younger, she would have made it to the mission field. OMF regional director Steve Nephakis once said that only 1% of those called to the mission field actually make it. It’s because of the lack of mentorship. When I spoke to the people who raised their hands to full-time ministry at your missions conference, I said that the most important thing for you is to pray for a mentor. Be courageous and ask someone to mentor you. 

Transcribed and edited by Lance Pan