Boen Wang
speaker
122 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Boen Wang’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, how about all the free stuff that you and dad got when you were first in Oklahoma?
Over the years, my mom's been really hurt by people from church. She'd raise questions about the Bible. Like, if God created everything, why did he also create Satan? Why would he allow Satan to tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit? Why would he even create forbidden fruit in the first place? No one at church would ever fully engage with her.
They'd give her surface-level platitudes that never satisfied her. There was also a period when she was depressed. I remember coming home from school and seeing my mom lying on the couch, with the lights turned off and the curtains closed. My mom tells me that while some people at church helped her in this moment, others weren't so kind, and some actually seemed happy that she was suffering.
Wait, really? Yeah. At church? Yeah. Why do they think that you're a non-believer?
Why did you stop participating?
She hasn't been there since the pandemic shut everything down and is much happier for it. But as my mom withdrew from church, my dad got even more involved. He became a deacon and spent more and more time at church functions and less and less time at home with his family. If someone needed a ride to the supermarket, he would do it. If someone needed a ride to the airport, he would do it.
My mom was not happy about this.
So do you feel like church almost destroyed our family?
So my mom finally put her foot down and gave my dad an ultimatum.
It was almost comforting, realizing I wasn't the odd one out in my family. I thought I was the only one who was damaged by Christianity and who left the church. I thought it was me against them. But it turns out that my mom was actually on my side this whole time. Who knew? I wasn't surprised that my dad gave in to my mom, though. When it comes down to it, he puts family first.
I asked him once if he ever had any regrets, and he told me this story about how, when my sister was a baby, he discovered that she'd torn up an important piece of mail. My dad yelled at her and made her cry. And then he thought to himself, why did I do that? She's just a baby. She doesn't understand what she's doing. And he remembered that moment forever.
So he's always been a kind, thoughtful, reflective person who wants the best for us. He's also always been a true believer, going back to the very beginning. June, 1989. My dad has been accepted to the University of Oklahoma. He applies for his passport and visa so that he can leave Beijing.
On the evening of June 3rd, my parents watch the news on their landlord's TV since they don't have one of their own.
And on the morning of June 4, they wake up.
All the government offices are shut down. The entire city is shut down. To get his passport, my dad now needs a letter from his workplace saying he didn't participate in the demonstrations. But there's a problem. He had to quit his job to apply for the passport, and they're saying that since he doesn't work there anymore, they can't provide him with that letter. My dad is freaking out.
He staked his entire life on studying abroad. This was his plan, his future, his chance to leave his boring job in a Jeep factory, living in his tiny room in Beijing with no running water or heating or cooling. Now, his future is crumbling before his eyes. In this most desperate hour, my dad does something he's never done before. So I prayed to God, or Sang Di.
Were you specifically praying to the God of Christianity at the time?
I never knew this story. I thought my dad's first encounter with God was in America. But two months earlier in Beijing, my dad naturally and spontaneously cried out to a God he didn't yet know or believe in. And then when his workplace finally gave him the letter that allowed him to leave China, it had to be God answering his prayer. So my dad was already primed to believe.
And when he came to America, he would have encountered a Christian eventually, inevitably.
You would have eventually been exposed to Christianity and you would have always, after having considered it, accepted it. Is that right? Yes, yes. Why?
Showing 101–120 of 122 · page 6 of 7
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