2006: A Chinese Norwich Union employee has spoken of how her Christian faith became a reality at her lowest moment when facing up to the death of her cousin.

February 5, 2006, was an unforgettable day for Angela Cheng, a 25-year-old woman from China who now works at Norwich Union.

This was the day she was baptised as a Christian believer at Norwich’s Surrey Chapel Free Church. That morning she said in her testimony to the congregation: “I have decided to follow Jesus. Pray that he will help me to know him better.”

Angela was brought up as an atheist in China. When she came to study in England at Loughborough University, she was firmly convinced that modern science had proved that the Bible and Christianity and any idea of a God were all nonsense.

 It was there that she met Chai, a Christian Chinese student, and she started going to church with him. Meeting Christians in this country began to raise her interest in finding out about Jesus, but she still could not see why she needed God in her life.

Her degree completed, Angela went back to China with her mind full of doubts and questions. Then her little cousin died from blood cancer and her whole family was immersed in grief. Angela felt absolutely helpless and lonely and longed to be back in England with Chai, the man she had grown to love.

At her baptism she told what happened next: “At that helpless moment, I began trying to pray to God. I told him what I was worrying about and asked for his help. I still hadn’t fully convinced myself to accept God at that time, but God listened to my prayer and showed his mercy to me.”

 

Angela was able to come back to England to be with Chai, who was by then working as an engineer with Lotus in Hethel.

Angela’s Christian faith became a reality and she and Chai were married at Surrey Chapel in December 2005, as a Christian couple.