I know Titan A has mentioned this, but you all are answers to prayers. When we started the Mathema Institute, Titan A and I have constantly prayed that the Lord would help us connect with believers in the sciences. And my heart is full seeing you and seeing all of you here.

You are all the answer to our prayers. We can't stress that enough. Let's start by asking a few introductory questions. So if you would please introduce yourselves, tell us your full name and what is your academic background and where do you work? And we'll start, let's see, over here.

My name is Zisong Wang. I came from China. I got my PhD in electrical engineering this year at UC Irvine. Thank you. Finally. Yeah, it's a seven year program for a PhD. And then currently working at Irvine in Marvell Semiconductor Technology, working for CHIPS for optical communication. Yeah. Hi, I'm Joey Kim.

My PhD is in chemical engineering. I got it at the California Institute of Technology and I am very blessed because I get to work here at the Masters University as part of the biology department, as well as being the department chair of the engineering and computer science. So very lucky to be here.

Hi, my name is Karl Geier. I'm from Germany. I moved here now years ago to study at the Masters Seminary. Before I came here, I worked as a physician in Germany. So the trauma and orthopedic department, but the Lord called me now here. So my story is quite different from the other folks, but I'm happy to share.

Well, you don't know, maybe it's the same story. Andres Solonpas. My first PhD is aerospace engineering from University of Virginia. My second one, working on it now, material science at Johns Hopkins University. I'm a department chair for cybersecurity, American public university system, quite a bit of work in machine learning, AI, also a lot of hardware development stuff.

Thank you. Thank you. Wow. I love the diversity of backgrounds here, especially, you know, academic backgrounds and things like that. Feel free to connect with them as, you know, people from your field. And I would like to continue by asking, what was your upbringing? Did you grow up in a Christian home?

Did you grow up in a non-Christian home? If you grew up in a non-Christian home, how did you come to know the Lord? And we'll start on that side with Andres. Sure. Yeah. So definitely not a Christian home. Eastern Europe back in 1980s, if you know about Eastern Europe in 1980s, enforced atheism, nothing but atheism, and that's kind of what we grew up in, in the house.

Anyway, it's a very long story I'll have to share one day. So I grew up in non-Christian home. The first 10 years of my life, when I was 10, my parents got saved. But my life changed very radically from a very liberal way of life to very legalistic and conservative.

So I saw, like, in a way, both ends. And this raised, like, a lot of questions. If the Bible is true, and if this kind of church has this kind of laws and rules, and we can't find them in the Bible, what is the Bible about? So I started to read, to study the Bible more for my own, to get the answers of the questions that the church couldn't provide.

And I think with the time, even starting with the wrong understanding of the gospel, the Lord was gracious and opened my eyes to see Him in His grace. - Yeah, I grew up, it's hard to say Christian, but I can for sure say church-attending family. That was, like, one of my first earliest memories was just running around at church.

But it was a Korean church, and I'm seeing most of you guys aren't Korean, so just to give you a little insight, it seems they care more about morality as opposed to the gospel. And so just growing up in church, I just learned to be, you know, things like humble, sacrificial, and that's what actually really led me to pursuing a PhD, because I wanted to essentially make the scientists and engineering community my mission field.

Nevertheless, I hear, like, you know, some, you know, calming assurances, no, I didn't know what the gospel was. So my motives was actually to really become famous and influential. But that's kind of the deceptive nature that I grew up in. And it was only when I was in graduate school that I was fed up with a lot of the California churches that I've been attending, their superficial teachings, that I decided to Google, or yeah, turn to Google for, like, you know, spiritual nourishment, which you should, I highly don't recommend, and I also knew that, by the way, but that was just the point of desperation that I came to.

And luckily, the Lord used that as an opportunity, despite that being a terrible idea. That's where I was first led to, you know, Paul Washer, and through a series of his messages, I actually became to know what the gospel was. And I had an inclination to really drop my PhD at that exact moment, go attend seminary, because the Korean churches definitely needed the gospel.

However, going back into a little bit of my testimony, I decided to finish my PhD and still, you know, well, I still have that mission field of making the science and engineering community my mission field, and that's where the Lord has brought me here. And now I get to mentor the next generation of engineers in the way that, you know, the Lord sees fit.

And of course, I tried to do everything from the Bible-first standpoint. >> I guess it's my turn. Thank you. So I grew up in China, atheist family. My father is a mathematician, mother is a doctor in the ER room. So I was thorough atheist, I would say, growing up.

Before my conversion, I never went to church almost. Lord has really, I would say, go beyond the normal to save me. When I come to America, all I want is just build my American dream, my career dream, get the best education as possible. And then there's time I just want to end the academia, everything, but Lord never give me up.

Through knowledge, I cannot learn Him, basically. I just think it doesn't make sense. If you guys believe God, show me, right? As an engineering or scientific mind, we don't even believe what's published by peer-reviewed papers. How come you bring up to me several uneducated guy, give me some manuscript, even different from each other, and then tell me this is absolute truth and no argument?

If you don't believe this, you're a sinner. Right? What is going on here? Right? That's always my question. No one can show me any solid proof in my mind at that time. But through life, Lord slowly lead me to Him. My mom passed away very early, and she's a doctor.

We just hear the message, you have a lot of medical knowledge, you cannot heal life. And I know that from my personal experience. My mom got a chronic cancer, chronic tumor in her head, five years, and leading to death. She can heal a lot of people, but she cannot even heal herself.

When she got that diagnosis, she's like, death sentence, right? Then the entire family become nothing. Spring Festival in China become my nightmare, because everyone is celebrating. I have to go back home, cook for my mom and father. That's all my college. And then when I first began my PhD, the first year, my best friend committed suicide, age 27, top student.

He has a very rich family. I remember their family bought a tea table for like $100,000, hired the entire plane, just don't want anyone to touch it. And when he got deep depression, I was like, why you got deep depressed? I have a much worse life, and I'm still fine, why you got deep depressed?

I thought he's joking, but years later, he committed suicide and died. And then I pursue, basically, relationship. I used to have a girlfriend. We dated for eight and a half years. And because of long distance dating, we end up broken up, break up. So before I know the Lord, basically, my career, my life, my friendship, everything, by the way, even my PhD, I initiated at USC, and the work I was doing there was taken over by someone else.

So then my career, my friendship, my family, everything, the Lord has shown me in my life, this is a vanity. And that time, Christian come to me saying, oh, God so love the world. I think that's nonsense, because why God love vanity? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

But Lord see me anyway, I think through prayer. There is time I was involved in a very complicated situation. I just like, okay, I give the Lord a try. It's not biblical, but Lord had showed grace to me anyway. He answered my prayer. Something I cannot figure out for months, he helped me figure out in a few hours.

And I was really like, what's going on here? - What was that? - We have time for that, okay. That was a relationship I was really trying to pursue. She actually was a non-believer, but she's a professing Christian. I was trying to date her. And through her, actually, I met the pastor who baptized me.

I was trying to date her. She asked me to go to a restaurant with a young out, sit down with her pastor. And she got a phone call, she went away. And then I have to sit down with this pastor. That's my first time I have to hear gospel, because I don't know when that girl will come back.

And amazingly, that night went very well. And I was like, oh, so Christianity is not totally nonsense. He explained to me what is vanity, why God still love this world. The gospel suddenly makes sense to me. And then I was like, showing me whether you are true. And then that night, within three hours, Lord actually showed me this girl I was pursuing.

She's not believer. She's actually simultaneously dating three boys. So I was like, by my own wisdom, I cannot figure this out, why she is so weird. But God can figure it out. That night, I was like, okay, this God doesn't care who you said you are. He care about truth.

He care. And I immediately have fear. I was like, He even know what kind of a girl I will like. He even know when I'm going to be very, you know, creepy to follow a girl. He set everything up to finally lead me to gospel, to Jesus. I was like, how can he be so gracious to me?

It just doesn't make any sense. So I began to follow him till now, yeah. Praise God. Carl, we'll start with you on this question. What made you interested in science in general? So early on in my childhood, I loved the nature. I loved butterflies, all the kind of insects.

But in the same time, I also loved or was interested in any kind of diseases. I always asked, okay, why did this person has to suffer? Or someone had like an accident, there was a fracture, or how can it heal again? So it was always this kind of interest in my life.

When I finished my 10th grade in school, I decided first to do something completely different. I did an apprenticeship becoming an electrician first. So I went through this kind of three years. In my second year, so my grandparents, they left with us, and my granddad got a very aggressive kind of cancer.

He died in a few months only. So on the whole time, all this kind of things with the doctors, the visits, all this diagnosis and therapies, we had no idea what does happen. So I said, Lord, I was in a way always interested in medicine, and it's not easy to get into med school.

It's kind of hard in Germany, but I thought if it's your way for my life, I would love to go this way to serve you first of all, but also so many people who needs help, not because I can heal them, but because I saw how many questions people even have.

And if I can help them, I would be happy to. So basically, I said, Lord, if you want to have me there, you will open all the doors. And he was graciously also in this. And I started in Münster. It's like a bigger med school in Germany for six years.

Yeah. Amazing. Andrei, what about you? Yeah, I always had interest in mathematics. So actually, when the way things worked in Ukraine back in the day is essentially they put you in the schools and all the schools have numbers. So I was in school number four, but I found it a little bit boring.

So I just out of curiosity, I went out and applied for this like very math heavy, what do they call it, it's not a gymnasium, but anyway, they have a special name for these type of schools. And I was accepted, which was great. And so long story short, like this mathematics was actually like always, I found it exciting, you know, and I guess maybe one thing that I'll say, you know, when the way the society was structured back in the 80s and the 90s in Eastern Europe, you were told what you're going to do.

It wasn't like, go try things out. No, it was like, you will be a scientist, you will be a doctor, you know, it sounds like, all right, well, there it is. So and then the other thing that I had passion for is I thought I was going to be like an astronaut and fly, and so anyway, that interest has always been just intrinsically in me.

You know, it just so happens that I eventually, you know, joined the military, kind of like traveled the world, searched God all over the world, you know, but eventually I realized that, and I think I've done enough deployments, I guess, in my life, and I realized that for me to probably live to the age of 30, I probably have to go to college, even though I told my parents I'll never do that.

Here I am, you know, teaching kids, but, you know, that's the way things worked out. When I went to college, I was in my, maybe like early 20s, mid-20s by this point, and I really, really, really enjoyed it. Like an early class for me, like 8.30 compared to the military at 5.30, right?

So it was like early classes, really, like mid-afternoon, but, and I fell in love with that. I mean, I loved it. It was the easiest thing I've ever done. Well, I don't want to say that, but anyway, I did fall in my first qualifier, never quit, and I did apply to Johns Hopkins on three occasions before I finally got accepted once.

So the point I'm trying to make is never quit. I mean, everybody can do it, I think, but, you know, and then I think once you get into it and you kind of, at some point, I think it was maybe like third or fourth year of my undergrad studies, like things clicked, and I was like, oh, I get it, like these equations actually make sense, and after that, it's just never stopped, I never looked back, and I love it.

I think, you know, the earth, the universe, everything testifies of the glory of God. It truly does, you know, right now we're working a lot of the high power computing, you know, we're talking quintillions of computations every second, every second, quintillions of computations. What is quintillions? Oh, quintillions? I don't know that word.

Yeah, yeah. So multiply a million times a million times a billion, yeah, every second. So just think of the number of zeros after that, and we've been working on these models for years, and we can't break the smallest code of these enzymes that are ten times smaller than the smallest known enzyme in the human body.

Think about that. Mind-blowing. So whoever created the human body clearly is brilliant, beyond our wildest imagination, army of Nobel laureates armed with literally infinite memory, computing power that we can't even dream of, and we can't even break, you know, a structure, we can't even model a structure that is ten times smaller than the smallest known enzyme in the human body.

Think about that. And I think, you know, to me, just science testifies of the brilliance of God. I think it's very naive when people are like, "I'm going to stand before God and ask Him questions." It's like, I don't think it's going to go that way. I think it's going to be more like, "Oh, wait a minute, I put you on the planet Earth to do a certain thing for me, and you didn't." I think it's going to be more like that conversation.

But anyway, that's my interest in science. I love that. What about you, Zisan? When I chose my career, at that time, I was an unbeliever, so I chose whatever can bring my own self-benefit, and I grew up in China, also kind of patriarch, that's how they train you. At that time, China is backward in cheap design, so I chose that area.

That was why I chose that, and Lord slowly showed me even in that area, it's kind of vanity, you know, in many ways. But after I followed God, I can see God's glory can be reflected even through the cheap design. I mean, the small chip I designed, it's like a fingertip, like a nail size, right?

And that takes years for a thousand PhDs to develop a single one, and sometimes we make mistakes. But then I think about God, who designed the whole universe in six days, and he made no mistake, and just by himself, just speak the word, and it happened. I was like, my brain used to challenge him, question him, you know, how foolish I am and how glorious he is, yeah.

Joey? Money. Honest. So, I wasn't naturally interested in the world. I wasn't good at math. My high school GPA was 3.1 or something, so I was just passing by with, I got a collection of A's, B's, and C's. But my family, I think probably many of you guys might be able to kind of connect with me on this.

A lot of the arguments that my parents had was financially motivated, and so for me, being a believer at the time, money was the solution to pretty much all of my problems. And so that's what really motivated me. Initially, oh, excuse me, could I get some water? So I actually began as a chemistry major, and as the summer was progressing leading up to my freshman year, people were just giving me counsel, like, oh, you need to switch to chemical engineering, you need to switch to chemical engineering, and I was like, wait, why?

Like, so originally, I wanted to leave as many options as possible, and pharmacy at the time was paying quite a bit. And so I wanted to leave that as an option, but during orientation week freshman year, this is before I stepped foot in a single class, I went up to my academic advisor who was in the chemistry department, and so I asked him, I was like, hey, a lot of people are telling me to switch to chemical engineering, can you tell me the difference between the two?

And he was like, okay, in chemistry, you take reactants, and then you make a product. And I was like, all right, in chemical engineering, you take reactants, and then you make profit. I was like, all right, no brainer, and so as soon as I went back to my dorm before my butt hit the chair, I was beginning the process of switching to chemical engineering.

And after I did, the following semester, my decision got confirmed, because I remember I was with my friends, and there was a postdoctoral, you know, teacher who was teaching a class or two, and out of curiosity, me and my friends asked him, hey, how much do you make? He thought a little bit, he was like, probably less than you think.

I was like, wait, what? But there was a professor overseer who was actually running the course, and so my friends, we asked him, oh, what about Professor Lenhoff, how much does he make? He pauses, he's like, probably more than you think. And at that point, my dollar signs in my eyes, and I'm like, yes, I made the proper decision.

And ultimately, I share this, because now I don't really care about money at all. And that, for me, was the power of the gospel, and I don't know, do we have time to go over? I'll just share that. So I was just money motivated, that was pretty much it.

And I'm not, once again, I still don't know the gospel at this time, but I was going to church, and one of the pastors, he shared a testimony on somebody else's behalf of like, oh, this person, she had the opportunity to go to MIT's mechanical engineering PhD program, but then she gave it up to be a missionary in Europe.

And he set this to, once again, highlight this sacrificial nature, the thing that a lot of Korean churches are promoting. But for me, when I heard that, I wasn't impressed at all, actually, I wanted to throw up. Because I saw the atheistic nature of the science and engineering community, all of my professors, how my students were behaving.

If you wanted to do missions, why not go to MIT? That for me, I, yes. And so I'm not, I was I sinfully judging this unknown person back then, yes, I think that judgment is improper now, but nevertheless, the Lord did use that moment to really change something in me, to rip the idol of money out of me, because when my world was shaking at that time, I told God, I was like, God, if you give me an opportunity to go to a place like MIT, I'm going.

And by the way, this was literally a long shot, because I told you my high school GPA was 3.1. My SATs, I got a 480 on the reading and writing comprehension, literally, I can statistically show you the power of God by looking, by comparing the average SAT scores of Caltech students to my SAT score.

It is a world's difference, but the Lord made that happen. And this is why, even though when I heard the gospel, I wanted to give up my PhD, I did recall that moment, I said, Lord, if you give me an opportunity to go to a place like MIT, I'm going.

The science and engineering community will be my mission field, and that's why I stuck it out, and the Lord brought me here, and I'm just so thankful that I still get to serve him in that capacity. - I love that, and I think many of us resonate with the heart to be missionaries or be sharing belights in our workplace, so thank you for that, that was wonderful.

So we'll start with you, Joey, on the next question, since you're tearing up. So this is a question for all of you. For those of you who work at secular institutions or have worked at secular institutions, could you talk a little bit about what that's like, and also witnessing how you've been lights, how you've seen the Lord working, and also, could you talk about people's reactions to you as Christians?

Have you faced persecution? Have people been supportive? Have you had opportunities to share the gospel? Joey, we'll start with you. - Yeah, I'll begin. I think the level of hostility has changed from when I was in undergrad to graduate school. So in undergraduate, a lot more of it was just kind of like implied, whereas in grad school times, this was when a lot of the abortion debate was heating up, as well as a lot of racists, these kind of notions began to come into play, so it was a lot more explicit opposition.

But nevertheless, regardless of how in my face it was, there was just an implied cultural understanding or assumption that the Bible was wrong, because Bible was from 2,000 years ago, science has developed, we now know things that people didn't know even two years ago. I trust this fairy tale book from 2,000 years ago, and that was pretty much the basic assumptions.

And so when I was telling my friends, "Oh, there's a Christian meeting that I'm going to on campus, they're all working," they thought I was being lazy and stuff. It was an excuse to not work, although I stayed up till 4 a.m. pretty much every single day, but they still kind of had that accusation.

In graduate school, it became a little bit more explicit, and I think I'll just share this one notable experience. As my PhD was finishing up, I was speaking with my advisor about the future plans, like what am I going to do afterwards? I told her my intention was to continue in academia.

At this point, I did know the gospel, I did reorient my thinking into forget money, I want to be a missionary in the science and engineering community. That did not mean, actually at that point, just to show you, highlight how much of a bubble I lived in, I didn't know Christian universities were a thing.

I thought it was public school or all private schools were Catholic. That's what I grew up in. So I wanted to teach, obviously not at a Catholic school, just a public research institution. There was one advice that my advisor gave me, and it was not, "Highlight this research that you did, how it was a very difficult problem, but you solved it," it was not that.

It was not, "Oh, go speak to this person so that he can write you a letter of recommendation," it was not that either. The only advice that she gave me was, "Don't tell them you're a Christian." I was like, "What, what?" She obviously saw my expression and she reiterated, "If you want to get hired, don't tell them you're a Christian." In my mind, I'm like, "That's illegal," and I think I actually also said it because she responded with, "They don't care." They don't care it was illegal to reject me based on my religious belief.

That's when I was like, "Do I really want to work at a place like this, much in opposition?" I know I wanted to be a missionary, but I was a very young believer at that time. I was still searching for, one, just understanding what the Bible was about, and secondarily, just even if I know what the Bible is about, I'm so young in my spiritual faith, I don't know what living the Christian life looks like.

I also wanted some level of Christian mentorship, not just for them to tell me doctrinal knowledge, but how they actually live. This is, at the same time, my world flipped upside down because Pastor John in one of his sermons mentioned the Master's College. I Googled what the Master's College was, and now it's the Master's University.

Wow, Christian universities are a thing. Ever since then, TMU was my dream job, or dream destination to teach at, and that's kind of how everything transpired. But yeah, in terms of the level of hostility, my single advice I got for pursuing future career paths was to simply say, "Don't tell them you're a Christian." Yeah.

Wow. What about you, Seung? Me, I just began to work, so there's still some tasks. After my Ph.D., my professor is kind of, I don't know what he may consider himself as God. I remember before Easter, even this year, close to my graduation, he said, he clearly knows I'm a Christian.

He said, "Okay, this one, you cannot go to church. You have to finish this paper. I guarantee you, you listen to me, you will not go to hell." I was like, "How can you guarantee me that?" Well, that's basically my entire Ph.D., I consider him as my Egyptian pharaoh.

I was praying, "Lord, when will you deliver me from this?" Yeah, he delivered me the enemy, finally. I was like, I'm a very impatient person, but this is Lord's providence for me to really learn how to be patient. But during this program, seven years, Lord didn't put me there in vain.

I was actively involved in Bridgeton National, it's a campus ministry under campus crusade, specifically reaching out to international students. At least, I think there are three or four students came to Christ through me. Last year, I baptized together with a seminary, we baptized a Turkish brother who used to be actually a radical Muslim.

Well, he actually got his green card because he applied asylum for Muslim faith. He's that radical, even Turkish government has to persecute him. Now, he become a full-time minister at campus crusade. Yeah, that's just Jesus Christ, that's God. So Lord didn't waste my time there. And in my work, the company, I remember when I was doing intern last year, I have a colleague sit down with me, and opening mark of him is, "All religions are stupid, all religions are stupid." I was like, "Okay." I was like, "Okay, I don't know how to do that," but I said, "I probably will agree with you, all religions are stupid, but I will tell you, Christianity is not religion, it's just truth." We had an interesting conversation, and after a while, he said, "Oh, okay, I figured." I said, "Yeah, this is just your belief." I used to think like that, but it's not like that anymore, it's just a different set of belief.

You can have your own opinion, make it logical, but God's logic, it make more sense to me. That's just apologetics opportunity. But I think most encouraging time during that internship, if you remember, I shared my testimony, my PhD work was taken over at USC to another student, and we were colleagues at the company.

So at the last week of my internship, he sit down with me during lunch, somehow, the other colleagues left, and they pick up their lunch, and we sit on the same table, just me and him. And he said to me, he said, "Jisung, whatever happened at USC, I did for you, I'm really sorry." I was like, "Huh." And he said, "What do you see?" I said, "Actually, I don't have a thing for you, because through that, Lord saved me.

So I thank you for this." He look at me, he's like, he's a Muslim, but he didn't really know God's forgiveness. I said, "This is God's message for me to you, that God loves you also, and God also will forgive you. And who am I to judge you?" So yeah, that intrigues him about, okay, so Muslim God and Christian God is very different.

He's still not believing, but I'm still trying to witness to him. Yeah, that's all I want to share. Yeah. Amazing. Congratulating. What about you, Andre? Yeah. So, you know, when I was at UVA, I guess, you know, I came to Christ very late. I was at the University of Virginia, maybe not quite a graduate student.

Yeah. Actually, you know what? Yeah, I was a graduate student at that point. I had an internship in Moscow State University. Long story, anyway, the pastor flew out, we talked, and finally, anyway, I was a graduate student. But after my repentance, you know, I kind of was like, you know what, I'm going to, if we're going to do this, we're going to do this right, right?

So under my signature block, I put, "But unless you repent, you all too shall perish," right? It's just a quote from Jesus. And I put it on my UVA signature block, and so then every email that goes out, you know, to my dean, to my chair, to my professors, to fellow students, I'm like, you know, maybe some read it, maybe some don't, and you know, and I got mixed feelings.

So I'll say this, my advisor at the time, she's a dean of research now, and I'm not going to name her, but she was very open to it. She was very open, very understanding, one of the, like, the leading scientists in her field. But there were others who would, like, email me back, and they're like, "You asked me for a question, you asked me for help, and then you told me I'm going to perish.

Why would you do that?" But my response is, "If you don't believe it, what are you worried about?" You know? And then they're like, "Well, yeah, that's true." So, but then something deep inside, it's like, "Oh, wait a minute. What is going to happen?" You know, and so there was a mixed feeling, and there was one time I was applying for a job, kind of a long story, but I was coming into this research field, and the hiring manager, you know, we interviewed.

I think it went great. I mean, I thought it went really well. She emails me back, and she says, "About this signature block of yours, do you think you could fit in our office?" And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely. Why not?" You know? I mean, you know? And long story short, I didn't get the job.

They never told me why. I don't know. But, you know, that was a blessing in disguise, because somebody else reached out, and they actually gave me a higher salary, and they put me into this office where I really enjoyed it, and this person became my mentor to this day.

This person is very, very high up there right now within the government. I'm also not going to name—if you want to know offline, I'll tell you all their names, you know? But, yeah, that person is a mentor. Like, to this day, this person, like, if I call them, within 20 minutes, I get a call back.

Now, this person is, like, really high up there, reported to the Secretary of Defense, right? So, like, the point I'm trying to make is, like, it was a really mixed responses that I received. Some people really disliked the quote from the Bible that they didn't even believe in, which I don't know why you don't like something you don't believe in.

And then the other people were like, "Well, you know, that's their beliefs." But God kind of opened up doors for me that I couldn't have envisioned in the past, right? And even now, you know, department chairs are very different. I work in a secular university, and there's one department chair specifically, and she's very, very anti-religion in general, maybe, but anti-Christian for sure.

But then, you know, she's very nice to me, and she says, "You know, the one thing that frustrates me about you, Andre, is you're so polite, so unbelievably polite." And I'm like, "I'm sorry, I'll try to change, I'm really sorry, but please accept my most sincere apologies," you know?

And we laugh about it, but her publications, the stuff that I read that she writes on religion, I'm like, "I don't think this is right, I think this is, like, purely your beliefs," you know? So, but again, mixed feelings, despite all of that, you know, I don't think it was the universities that were pushing me along, or the graduate schools, or whatever else.

I think it was really God opening up the right doors, even though they weren't evident in the beginning. As you can imagine, when I didn't get hired for this one job, I was like, "Oh, well, that's frustrating. What do I do now?" And sure enough, somebody else reached out, and they're like, "Hey, what do they offer you?" "Oh, that sucks.

Like, come over here, we'll give you more," right? So, anyway, because we're going back to the mic, I'm just kidding, that's right, but anyway, so I think, you know, as long as you stick with it, I think God ultimately sees it through, right? So we read about Joseph, we read about David, right?

You have so many stories of people that did not deny God. It was tough. I mean, it was really, really tough for Daniel, I'm sure. "Hey, look, we're going to put you with a bunch of lions, all right, for about a night. You survive?" "Okay, well, forgiven, but if not, then, you know, tough luck." So but then look at Daniel, what happened after that.

Even you look at what ended up happening, even the king was like, "We got to worship this God," you know? So I think you got to stick with it, even though you are going to feel a little bit of pressure. But anyway, these are my thoughts on that. - Thank you.

Wow. Very encouraging. Karl, what are your experience working in secular? - So in general, in Germany, the people, they are not hostile against Christianity, but at the same time, they're not interested. So if it's your belief, that's fine, do what you want. But don't tell me anything about this.

So the task was in university, in med school, or even my hospital, I worked in the trauma department. It's all about relationships. If they see that you're authentic, if you say you're Christian, then you don't have to ask them questions, they will come to you and ask you questions.

So I was praying, "Lord, that's hard. I don't want to be an actor, just to act like someone. Help me to be really a reflection of your glory, to reach out to these kind of people." And probably like, as some other medical young people think, "Oh yeah, I can go to the hospital, I can preach the gospel to the patients," forget it, you have no time.

In the trauma emergency room, you have patient after patient. I worked up to 85 hours a week, 24-hour shifts every other day. There's no time to preach the gospel to the patients, but to the co-workers, because they see you every day for 24 hours, for weeks. So when I started first in the hospital, everyone was again, like, in a way, distanced because they were just observing me.

But with the time, they came to me and asked me, "Hey, you said you're Christian. What do you think about this kind of thing, or this kind of matter?" Even at the end, when I had to resign, and I talked to my boss, I said, "Hey, I will leave to the States to study the Bible." He got in a way upset, but happy at the same time.

He said, "Karl, I really want you to stay with us, but I think study the Bible for you will be much more better. So go, have my blessings, and do it." So it was just amazing to see how the Lord can use different kind of means and occasions. I wasn't able, like, to preach and to see someone repenting, but I just hope that my presence there, being a reflection of Christ, was helpful to implement some seeds in the people's hearts.

- Wow. So encouraging. Amazing. What encouragement do you have for Christians in sciences in STEM, and what is your prayer for them? Andrew, let's start with you. - Yeah. I would say use the science to talk about God. I mean, it's one of the arguments, I think, and that's the one that I'm trying to make in the paper as well, and I know it's still brewing in my head, and one day maybe I'll publish a book about it.

But it's, think about the argument of this whole thing in sciences. There's no intelligence, and that's the intelligent argument we're making to you. Just think about how absurd that is. - That's a great point. - You know? And I'm intelligent because I do science, and I can tell you from an intelligent perspective that intelligence doesn't actually exist.

And if you don't believe me, you're not intelligent enough to understand what I'm telling you. So it's just the absurdity of this whole argument, and then my counter-argument, and I've made this challenge to so many of my fellow colleagues and students now. You know, if you're so intelligent, you clearly are much smarter than the Mother Nature, right?

I mean, Mother Nature, her intelligence is zero. So even a child, and I'm gonna go with just a little bit of mathematics here. You can actually divide by zero, did you know that? You actually get infinity. We just don't tell the high school kids that because it gets so confused, you know?

But if you actually integrate, you know, from infinity to infinity, you actually get a constant. Anyway, so like, the bottom line is, you can divide by zero, but if Mother Nature's intelligence is zero, you multiply it by infinity, you get a number. So basically, a child with an IQ of a certain number, be it 5, 10, or whatever the IQ is, right, is infinitely smarter than Mother Nature.

Then you, as a graduate student, are infinitely smarter in squared than Mother Nature. Come to my lab and reproduce a smallest enzyme in the human body. Oxalocortylate tautomerase is the name of it. Shouldn't be that hard. Mother Nature did it. Her intelligence is zero. You're really smart. I've been throwing this argument out there for decades now.

Not a single person accepted the challenge. Well, why not? You know, so what I would tell people in science, you should, I don't want to say ridicule people, but like, you should kind of ridicule the idea that an unintelligent creator is more brilliant than an intelligent human being, right?

But then whoever the creator is, okay, and I understand there's different directions you can take this argument, but whoever the creator is, he's way, way, way smarter than all the human beings combined. And that's what I got from science. And that's what I'd encourage everybody in science to say, look, if you're so smart, reproduce the smallest enzyme in the human body, and nobody will accept that challenge ever.

So, I don't know. Thank you. Karl, what about you? I was always impressed about why God gives some people wisdom, especially in medicine, to do things that seems to be in a way impossible. Like even from the easiest things, like someone has a fracture, he goes to surgery and can walk again out, or we go into neurology or other things.

So there's always this kind of thing, the Lord is giving people wisdom to do something with the purpose to glorify his name. Obviously, in the secular world, people don't do this with this purpose. But this is the end of all means, because this is what the Lord created us.

So my wish for young scientists is always, hey, if the Lord gives you this kind of wisdom, use it first of all to marvel about the Lord, how big he is, how great he is. He's the intelligence. He's in a way the one who oversees all, who holds all together.

On the other hand, if he gives you wisdom, use it for his glory. And yeah, we can have money reasons or other reasons. But go back to your beginning, see the Lord, and use this wisdom to glorify his name and to help people wherever he will place you. Thank you.

What about you, Joey? I have a few things. One, I think just how atheistic science and engineering community is. I think this is one of the classic scenarios of like light shines brighter in the darkness. And just like how Carl's demeanor, Andre, you're the most polite person apparently. Right.

Like that, it becomes very noticeable. I recently had a daughter. Thank you. Yes, yes. The cutest baby in the world. Yes. And so a lot of parents think about their child's future and the child being born now, you might think I'm in this mental stress. For me, I think this is an opportunity because as long as my daughter's not insane, she will be a great proponent for Jesus Christ.

You just need to not do anything insane. But obviously I'm trying to raise her to be much more than that, Christ-likeness, Christ-like excellence in all things, that's what we're trying to do. And it just makes it that much easier for Christ's glory to be really demonstrated. And hopefully that does open up opportunities for people to ask about the gospel, right?

Perfect opportunity to share the gospel. Another one, personal experience, you know, I love theology, you know, I'm attending seminary right now. And I believe if I were to redo my life entire again, I would still choose chemical engineering, primarily because it helped me learn to think where I immediately know if I thought wrong.

In theology, that's not always the case, and that's why you get into all of these heretical thoughts. It really helped me to make logical connections appropriately. And then I was digging into the Bible, I already knew what some of these logical errors were. It helped formulate the mental mind frame for doing theology properly, and it just made my life so much easier in terms of pursuing the greatest truth that anyone can know, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Along that same vein, wait, I had a third one. All right, maybe that's good enough. >> I was gonna say that you teach logic at the Master's University, and, you know, it's wonderful to see your heart in that, and you're, you know, passing that along to disciples, right? >> Oh, actually, I did remember.

Okay. >> That's what I was trying to talk. That's what I was trying to give you some time for. >> Okay. Okay. So, you know, the culture just puts, you know, scientists and engineers on a pedestal today. A lot of people, especially if they're not believers, they're using it for, I would say, incorrect purposes.

But we have the opportunity to actually use that pedestal, whether it's rightfully obtained or not, in a way that actually spreads the gospel at, yeah, it's just more opportunities for sharing the gospel. And I don't think we should shy away from that. Instead, we should try to really see it as an opportunity that God has gave each and every single one of us, to really use that as a platform to be the voice for the gospel.

>> Thank you. That's very encouraging. What about you, Tizong? >> Well, after these three great brothers shared, it's hard to add on, but I would see some insights I was doing. There is time I really question why I'm still staying in this area. You know, people are talking about AI is coming up, a company actually doing infrastructure for the AI.

So it's like, okay, maybe I'm doing some evil thing, I should really quit, you know, all kinds of thoughts. And with lawlessness, it increases, I think everyone, especially in scientific and engineering field, will feel like, okay, is this a field we should stay in? Because all the lawlessness in this area is even sometimes initiated by scientists and engineering.

So it's like, should we really stay there? But when I stay in the scripture, as I read, just in Genesis, Lord asked actually Adam to cultivate the field, right, cultivate the field. It doesn't really, I think it doesn't just stay with the field on the earth, it's actually every field.

But his first son, Cain, he is also a cultivator of the field, but he's the first murder. So that's after the fall. So the problem is not the field, God created the field. The problem is where your heart is, the problem is our sin, right? So with that, I would say that it doesn't matter which field you are in, God created us to cultivate the field.

But it matters what our motivation is, and who are we really report to, responsible for, who are we really worshipping in our field, right? So we can either murder the shepherd, or we can really worship him, right? So that's really what I want to say, it doesn't matter where you are, you can glorify God in the field you're cultivating.

- Thank you, really encouraging. Do we have time for one more? Okay, excellent. Would you speak on how the Lord has been teaching you recently, personally, as much as you feel comfortable sharing, and what Bible verses have you been meditating on, and how has the Lord encouraged you recently, we'll start on this side.

- Recently, I was reading a Bible study on Ephesians. There is one thing, in Ephesians 1, he said, basically, "Summing up all things in Christ." I was really meditating on that, because this is the eternal plan, before the foundation of the world, and till the end of this world, that's God's entire purpose, basically summing up all things on heaven and earth in Christ.

Basically, everything outside of Christ is vanity, nothing important, and God intentionally built his church, built his elected people toward that direction, and no matter where we are in, we should really align our life with that purpose, and help to share the gospel, because that's the only thing that can lead us, lead everyone to that purpose.

Outside of that purpose, we have no purpose, right? So I just want to say that Christ is all, and it doesn't matter where we are, and help us to really fill other people with Christ, and fill ourself with Christ, and make Christ fill all. - That focus is so encouraging, and so convicting to me.

Thank you. What about you, Joey? - Yeah, like I mentioned, I recently had a daughter, and so I'm a workaholic, by the way. Ever since I began teaching, I taught at a few other universities than here, I never taught the normal teaching load. The minimum I taught was like one and a half times.

One time, I was a full-time professor here, full-time another place, full-time seminary student, so triple full-time duties. Now, okay, I was like about to break down at that point. I wanted to cry, but I was like, "I don't have time to cry, because I got to do work." But I'm just a natural workaholic.

I just love to work. When I had my baby, my love for work or working didn't decrease, but God has given me something where the love of my daughter has just so much surpassed it. I just want to go home. But obviously, I am the provider for my family, and really embracing that role was a different level of submission.

When I had marriage counseling, it was actually with Monica and her husband, by the way. They counseled me- - Pre-marital counseling. They don't need help. It's just pre-marital counseling. - Yeah, pre-marital. - Everybody should be doing when they get married. - Yes. During pre-marital counseling, I learned about submission, loving my wife, things like this.

But I didn't mentally prepare for how much I wanted to be home. And so right now, the Lord's really teaching me how to just submit to, I guess, like God-ordained role as a provider. Also, I do work here, so submitting to God-given role was something that I didn't foresee I have to do, but I'm doing it right now.

She's seven months old, and so it's still a work in the process. We love Joey and Megan and their beautiful family, so it's a privilege to know you guys. - Oh, wait. There's a Bible verse. So right now, I'm working through 1 and 2 Samuel in my just daily readings.

And just King David, how his approach to life, you know, I think all of you guys kind of know the overall gist, but one thing that the Lord's really been guiding my mind to is how much he emphasized the anointed of the Lord when referring to Saul. And that's the only reason why he didn't kill Saul when he had the chance.

King David had zero issues with killing people. He even killed the servant that killed Saul. But he killed the servant that killed Saul because that servant killed the anointed of God, and everything for him was really focused on that. And so that's what the Lord's really been, you know, focusing in my head is everything derives from God as a believer, everything should be an act of worship in the similar vein that, you know, King David really treated his specific scenario.

- Joey's also my boss, so I have to say something about his leadership. I mean, it's so obvious that everything is Christ-centered for you, and you always think about how to submit all things to Jesus in everything we do. We always open with prayer, and I just wanted to thank God for your leadership in the Engineering Computer Science Department.

- Thank you. - What about you, Karl? - In John 21, we read Jesus' famous sentence, "Follow me." If you read John 15, there we read about what it means to remain in Christ. And if you go way back to Genesis, the Lord called Abram, said, "Hey, leave Ur and go to the place where I want to be you." So these kind of connections I'm going through right now, I will graduate seminary in one year, I left all those, for now, this kind of medical career behind me, and people said, "You are such a foolish, you spend so much time, now you're going to study the Bible." I always said, "No, I'm not losing anything, I'm gaining more." I don't know what exactly, but I know even if I don't have the means, the Lord will provide if He wants me to be at some place.

So my prayer is just, "Lord, I want to follow you." It's not the what and the where, because whatever and wherever, it's about your glory. So give me the wisdom to be ready to follow and to remain in you, whatever the future will bring, with the knowledge that you will provide for everything I need.

That's what I'm thinking about. - Wow. You're the opposite of the rich young ruler who would refuse to let his riches go to follow Christ. So that's just so encouraging. I think we all have that to a certain extent in our lives. So we appreciate the encouragement. Andre? - Yeah, I guess a sort of philosophical dilemma that I've been having over the last maybe year, year and a half is the whole, "Blessed are the peacemakers," right?

So as we kind of go through this life, and God opens up new doors, to chairship, or then maybe deanship, and beyond, a provost, or whatever else, and some other opportunities in research and grants and all this stuff, in the end, what is the point behind all of it?

What is the meaning behind all of this, right? It's a philosophical dilemma. But also, "Blessed are the peacemakers," because of everything that's going on in Ukraine, and it really made me think about different things. The peace is not there. The whole world is looking for peace, but the peace is clearly not there.

I mean, in Congo, there's war. In Sudan, there's war. In Yemen, in Ukraine, and all sorts of places, there's war all the time, even though people are looking for peace. And then it kind of made me realize that there was a time in history when Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, two heathens, don't even believe in anything Jesus has to say.

One just wants to see miracles, the other one's like, "Well, I don't know. He's an innocent man, and I know you're just jealous of him," and all this stuff. One heathen sends Jesus to the other heathen, and they became friends, and it made me really think about this stuff.

So as Christians, so more, we should be sending Jesus to all these places where the war is, and I think that's the ultimate goal behind all of it. Anyway, the thing that I've been thinking about is, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and if two unbelievers could become friends because of Jesus, then why can't the rest of us, professing Christians, also get along, especially as I read some stuff on the Ukrainian and Russian side, and speaking both languages, and I don't know, I think, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and that's one thing I've been thinking about quite a bit.

And then how do you bring that peace to a lot of people on the planet Earth? You are from a country that no longer exists, like I've heard you say before. Which country is it now where you were born? Yeah, so now it is Ukraine, but I think I was sharing this in the breakfast earlier, so my great-grandfather, obviously don't come from a family of Christians, my great-grandfather fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

His kids were Polish because the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart from World War I, became part of Poland. Then in 1953, our part of Poland was given to Ukraine, so we became Soviet. Then I became Ukrainian, and my kids were born in America. Alright, so five generations, five countries, and let's see, Austro-Hungary no longer exists, Soviet Union no longer exists, so yeah, I mean, what am I?

You know, the way I see it is, people ask me, "Which president are you voting for?" and all this stuff, and I'm like, I live in a theocracy, like I live under a king, I don't understand, I don't vote for a king, he's there, you know, Jesus is the king, and hopefully you got the reference.

Anyway, so I was born in the Soviet Union, I guess, but yeah, no, I am a citizen of the heavenly world, all of this is very temporary. If I could share something from quantum mechanics, I apologize, I don't want to— Well, we owe you some time because you didn't answer the first question, but go ahead.

Oh, I did not? How did you come to learn? It's okay, you can replace it if you want to talk about quantum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so from quantum physics, I'll just briefly talk about this. Time doesn't exist. I was sitting in the class under— I know, I know, bear with me, I was sitting in the class with this, he's a professor of quantum physics, Professor Najib is his name, he works with David Doitch, and if you follow quantum physics, David Doitch is sort of the name in the field of quantum physics, right, so one of his collaborators from Oxford came to Johns Hopkins, he was teaching a class, and he's like, "We don't need a book, books are redundant, we don't need no books," and we're like, "Okay," he's like, "Time doesn't exist." So anyway, long story short, I finally found a book by this Professor Griffith, he's from University of Michigan if I'm not mistaken, but one of the things they talk about, they say, "Look, if you start thinking too much about the problem of time, the problem of the fact that we don't really exist unless there's a conscious observer," I'm talking purely quantum physics here, "unless there's a conscious observer 24/7, we don't really exist." So then the question is, who's the conscious observer?

The argument today is, well, you're the conscious observer, okay, that's fine, what about before the mind came to be, who's the conscious observer, right? And Professor Griffith says this comment, he says, "Well, just don't contemplate these things, just kind of accept it," and I'm like, "Well, that's very not scientific of you." But you know, so time is very temporal, and time doesn't really exist in the way that we think of time, right, so then we have to think about it from the perspective of what really matters if you take the time away, right, and I think it's how much we actually put towards the service of God.

And as far as if I go back to my conversion, a very long story, but anyway, long story short, I had to leave my house, tell you another day, I apologize, it's just too difficult, so yeah. I just love your gift of taking crazy intelligent stuff and connecting with apologetics, and your mission is so clear, everything that you're doing, everything that you're thinking is like, "How can I challenge people intellectually so I can flip the world upside down and they can be ready to see how foolish they are and they receive the gospel?" So I'm so encouraged by that.

Part of having this conversation was to start a discussion, a broader discussion amongst all of you, so we're hoping during lunchtime you'll share your testimonies, you'll share your stories of how the Lord has worked in your lives in similar ways that we've shown here in this discussion. And before we go and take a break, we'll ask Dr.

Dewey to please pray for us if he's here. Thank you. And let's thank our panelists. - Okay, let's pray. Dear Father, I just want to thank you so much for this conference, Lord, and for this institute that's in development. Lord, what a treat it is for us to be together with others with interest in the STEM fields and practices in the STEM fields.

Lord, this is a neat time for us to get together, to enjoy fellowship, Lord, and to share lives with one another. Father, we just thank you for all that you've done. We want to remind ourselves and each other that you are the reason that we're here. It is our devotion to you and our love of you that drives our lives.

And Lord, we just pray that you would bless this fellowship as we spend time together in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen. - Amen.