In 1970, a 17-year-old girl of Chinese ancestry left her native land of Indonesia to arrive in New York City. At that time in Indonesia, the minority Chinese were second-class citizens, forced to endure discrimination even to the point of violence and bloodshed at the hands of the indigenous Indonesian people. The young lady was a born-again Christian.
After she arrived in New York, she vowed to herself that she would never return to Indonesia, but remain forever in America to pursue the American Dream. She dreamed of one day becoming a world-famous concert pianist. She became a student of Mieczyslaw Munz, a former concert pianist and professor at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. Eventually, however, she came to realize that she lacked the physical abilities required to compete at the highest levels of piano competition.
She later enrolled at Barnard College, the women’s division of Columbia University in New York. In 1973, at lunch one day in the school cafeteria, she met a young man who was born in New Jersey of immigrants who had come from China in the 1930s. He had never gone to church and was not a born-again follower of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, she had lunch with him, and they began to date. The following year in 1974, on the first of June, they were married by her pastor at a large Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The young lady married him fully aware of the word of God in 2 Corinthians 6:14 where believers are told not to be “yoked together with unbelievers”. But no matter what, she had to do “what a gal’s gotta do”—even though she knew that the Lord would someday call her to account for marrying an unbeliever. It would just be a matter of time.
Soon after they were married in 1974, they moved to San Diego where her husband was to pursue his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at the University of California. She enrolled there as an undergraduate.
In 1976, Dr. Billy Graham came to San Diego to hold his Crusade at the then Jack Murphy Stadium. Her husband went to the Crusade and heard the word of God. At Dr. Graham’s altar call he decided to join the many others who were streaming down the stadium aisles to the field to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
The young lady was of course very happy to see her formerly unbelieving husband a born-again Christian. Now she and her man could pursue the American Dream together as Christians!
But the Lord had other plans.
In 1977, they attended a Christian campmeeting in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma where her husband was powerfully baptized in the Holy Spirit—as the early disciples were in Acts 2. He was transformed from a Sunday morning churchgoer into a fiery witness for Jesus Christ. Overwhelmed by the intimate love of Jesus, he wanted to tell the whole world about the Lord’s indescribable love. He began by witnessing to strangers he would meet on the sidewalks of Anaheim where they were living at that time. Later he purchased a powerful bullhorn with which he could blow away bystanders outside at a good distance. “Repent! the Kingdom of God is at hand!”
He drove up to downtown Los Angeles on a Saturday morning where he preached the gospel at a busy intersection of Century Boulevard. While the crowds were waiting for the traffic light at the four corners of the intersection to turn red for them to cross the street, he preached the gospel to them through his powerful bullhorn.
On another Saturday morning he went to an apartment complex in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood of San Diego. He stationed himself directly in front of a hi-rise apartment building, setting his bullhorn on the grassy plot before him. He turned on the bullhorn to full volume and began preaching at the apartment building using a tract of the Four Spiritual Laws translated into Spanish. (He didn’t speak Spanish.) Doors in the hi-rise opened and heads craned out to see what was going on. When the people saw that it was just another crazed street preacher, they went back inside closing their doors.
Eventually, however, a crowd of about a dozen little children began to gather right in front of him outside in front of his bullhorn. They listened to him as he read word-for-word from the Spanish language gospel tract. On the last page, they all repeated the “sinner’s prayer” in Spanish after him. Afterwards he dismissed them with the Lord’s blessing. (At that time, he knew nothing about follow-up and discipleship.)
During this time, he began feeling a call to full-time ministry, perhaps as a pastor. Eventually, however, he became aware of the fact that Southern California and America in general have so many churches and “Christians”. He started thinking about overseas where people never heard about God’s love through His Son Jesus Christ. Eventually he began thinking about serving God full-time as a missionary. But where could he go?
His wife was originally from Indonesia! He approached her with the idea of the two of them leaving America and going to Indonesia as missionaries. When she first arrived on the shores of blessed America in 1970, she had sworn to herself that she would never, ever go back to Indonesia. But now she realized that the Lord was giving her a second chance after her marriage to an unbeliever in 1974—in disobedience to the Lord’s holy command. Fearing the Lord, this time she made up her mind to obey Him. She told Him, “yes, Lord, I will go back to Indonesia with my husband.”
Around that time, they were attending a church pastored by Robert Curry, a former missionary who had served fervently in various Third World countries. On one occasion Pastor Bob prophesied to them, “If you obey God like Abraham, your days on earth will be like heaven.”
“Heaven on earth”, whatever it could mean, sounded most desirable. But a certain condition would have to be fulfilled. They would have to obey God like Abraham. How did Abraham obey God? Most believers have been taught how God tested Abraham in Genesis 22. God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering to Him on Mount Moriah. Isaac, as a result of a wondrous promise from God, had been born to Abraham and Sarah when he was 100 years old and she was 90. So Abraham most certainly loved his only son—an unbelievably miraculous gift from God—more than he loved anything else in life. Nevertheless, early the next morning, Abraham took Isaac and set out for Mount Moriah to obey God’s command. (Of course, we all know the rest of the story.)
The young couple had been told that if they obeyed God as Abraham did, that their days on earth would be like heaven. They would have to sacrifice their “Isaac”—that which they treasured more than anything else on earth—in order for God’s promise of heaven on earth to be fulfilled. What was their “Isaac”?
Their “Isaac”, like that of most people in America, was the American Dream. They would have to sacrifice their American Dream for God’s promise of heaven on earth for them to be fulfilled.
This encouraged the couple to give up everything they had in America—including their dreams and all their possessions—to leave for Indonesia to proclaim the Kingdom of God to those who never heard. In 1978 they left America for Indonesia. When they left, they had no financial support from any church, no mission agency to train and prepare them, with only a 28-day tourist visa for him. They had only $300 on them. They had no idea what they were going to do after arriving in Indonesia—they simply radically trusted the Lord to open the way for them. The young man had known the Lord for only two years and had not yet finished reading the entire Bible.
And so they trusted and obeyed God radically like Abraham—who without hesitation trusted and obeyed God after being commanded by God to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. After they arrived in Indonesia, God most graciously opened doors for them and used them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and make disciples in primitive unreached regions of Indonesian Borneo—where living conditions were, shall we say, unmentionable. The Lord performed many miracles through them and through the disciples they trained, leading many idol-worshipers to believe in Jesus Christ. After nearly nine years of fruitful ministry there, they were expelled by the Indonesian government and forced to return home to America. Their story is told in Dancing on the Edge of the Earth.
Today in 2026, 48 years after they obeyed God like Abraham, they are enjoying “heaven on earth”. Although both are now well into their 70s, they are in very good health with neither taking a single prescription medicine. Some people think they are still in their 50s. They have been together for 51 very fruitful years. Their lives are blessed with peace, joy, with much meaning and fulfillment in the Lord. They look forward to spending eternity with the Lord in heaven. Their youngest daughter is now a missionary in Southeast Asia along with her husband and three daughters (and counting).
By God’s wondrous grace, their ministry continues to expand. They have trained the Lord’s disciples in over 51 countries on six continents of the world. They are now training and supporting very fruitful local workers in Third World countries to help fulfill the Great Commission during these very Last Days. They are now in the last quarter of their race and hope to win the race going away. They do not plan to retire. Rather, when they finish the race, they hope the Lord will just take them up.
God has been so faithful, graciously fulfilling His promise to them. “If you obey God like Abraham, your days on earth will be like heaven.”
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Mark 10:29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.
Luke 17:33 “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
Psalm 92:12 The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; 13 planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, 15 proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”
Philippians 3:13 But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
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