Andy Trinh Tang admits that if Christ hadn't rescued him, "I would have divorced my wife, I'd be alone and broken, spending all my money on sinful desires." (Photo by Frank King)
From Lethal Combination To New Life
By FRANK KING
The combination was lethal: a broken home with a violent father who tried to kill his wife, and a family with no spiritual grounding, fighting to stay alive financially.
Eighteen-year-old Andy Trinh Tang, who couldn’t afford to rent a gown for his Vancouver high school graduation, found a solution to his money woes—one that would eventually turn on him. He got involved in organized crime.
High school friends connected him with drug dealers, who proceeded to pay Andy $1,000 per day to transport illegal drugs. But he couldn’t even keep all that money, because his alcoholic father demanded thousands of dollars from him.
In looking back 20 years later, Andy admits he didn’t fully understand what he was doing until it all came to an end.
“When you start to seek worldly things, they distract you from the evils of that world,” he explained. “I was after respect and money.”
Meanwhile, he was going to bars, getting into fights and having illicit sexual relationships.
“A lot of my reasoning was my broken family,” Andy said with the benefit of hindsight. “I didn’t have love, so I sought it out with women.”
If this wasn’t bad enough, Andy’s success at being a drug mule made other gang members so jealous that they paid one of their customers to attack and rob him. A man attacked Andy with a knife, stabbing him in the cheek before Andy could drive away. He sought help at a nearby hospital. “I knew it was a set-up because they kept asking me to meet this guy, but I kept avoiding it,” he recalled quietly. “Looking back now, I think God was protecting me.”
He continued drug-running for several months until he was arrested. Amazingly, Andy was let go with just a warning. “It was my first offence and I was still underage,” he said. “If I was 19 or older, it would have been a different story. It was God’s timing because I turned 19 just a few months later.”
Still, Andy realized having a criminal record would drastically change the direction of his life. So, vowing to make a new start, he left Vancouver and his family, moved to Calgary and stayed with a family friend for a year. It was a smart move because he found out from a Vancouver acquaintance that his former criminal associates spent the next two years looking for him.
Knowing how drug gangs often operate in several cities, Andy kept his head down and did little more than go to work (he found a job as a welder) and then go home.
“At this point, I was an atheist,” Andy noted, adding “I believed in science” and, in fact, went to the University of Calgary to study chemistry, physics, and biology.
Meanwhile, he struck up a relationship with a woman who convinced him to visit a tarot card reader.
“I let demons into my soul,” Andy admitted, adding that the visits (his girlfriend took him twice more) haunted him for the next two years.
In 2016, Andy ended the relationship, then started working at a jewellery store. Eventually, a friend introduced him to the woman who, in 2020, became his wife.
By this time, the idea of God was one what Andy was willing to accept. But it didn’t help him in his marriage, which he admits now was a struggle. “I was selfish and still doing my own thing,” he said.
Then his wife became pregnant, which Andy found just added to the marital stress. So, in desperation, he started asking jewellery store customers about their faith journeys. Sadly, those conversations led him to try a non-Christian faith, which was no help.
Sales at his store dropped, the marriage became harder and even getting a decent night’s sleep was becoming a challenge.
In 2024, God led Andy to hire a Christian. That man, Bai-li, started talking to him about Jesus. “I told him to stop because I was spiritually drained and didn’t want anything to do with religion,” Andy said.
But Bai-Li didn’t stop, inviting Andy to church enough times that he finally decided to research this Jesus guy. It was a struggle: “He sounded like a fictional character. It didn’t make sense to me.”
Still, something stuck in his soul because in the summer of that year Andy, awake for yet another night of poor sleep, reached out in a prayer of desperation.
“I said to God, if you’re real, then please show yourself. Suddenly, I saw a vision of Jesus and felt the Holy Spirit in a way I can’t explain.”
Encouraged and energized by this breakthrough, Andy made his first visit to Centre Street Church in early 2025, choosing it because the hair salon owned by his wife was nearby. He encountered a staff member who served as a mentor, helping him understand the basics of following Jesus.
Last summer, Andy’s new faith was tested when his son (Ethan, then 18 months old) became ill. He and his wife debated whether to take Ethan to the hospital. After praying about it, the couple united and went to the hospital, where Ethan recovered.
“I surrendered my son to Jesus,” Andy recounted soberly. “I wasn’t going to force my way.”
Andy Trinh Tang made his new faith public in 2025 when he was among hundreds of Centre Street Church attendees to be baptized in the Bow River. (Photo supplied by Andy Trinh Tang)
After this experience, Andy decided to make his faith public and was part of the annual Centre Street summer baptism in the Bow River. Confirming his spiritual path left him “happy and blessed. I knew God was real and no nothing can shake my faith in Jesus.”
Andy now has no trouble pointing to the ways the Holy Spirit has transformed his life, noting that without Him, “I would have divorced my wife, I’d be alone and broke, spending all my money on sinful desires.”
This is one reason Andy’s favourite Scripture verse is Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
“When you think about life from that perspective, God will provide a way for whatever you want to do – when it lines up with His way.”