Chef Chew shares his journey from have a negative balance in his bank account to God providing and being able to start a restaurant. 

Bite Size Talks 2017

<p>Chef Chew shares his journey from have a negative balance in his bank account to God providing and being able to start a restaurant. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

ASI Pacific Union

GW Chew

Life as a Pastor to a Food Business Owner

Do you believe that God has a plan for your life?

But in my life, believe it or not, when I was a baby, I actually was adopted.

Pretty cool, but I guess you could say, interestingly enough, a lot of us in here are entrepreneurs.

You know, when you're adopted, it's at that moment, it's like you're, it's a moment, literally, think about it, my first name was Brian, right?

That's not my name right now, but my first name was Brian.

So again, I couldn't comprehend the controversy that was going on in my biological parents' lives.

They were college students, they couldn't take care of me for whatever reason, still haven't met them, I don't know the story behind it, but there was a controversy.

I got, I experienced as a baby when I was born, rejection, right?

You know, I experienced not having, you know, the resources that you need in life, you know, the mental support, the educational support, the financial support, I had none of those things at that time, you know, and sad to say, you know, my future could have been, you know, a really, really bad future, but I like to say, you know, there's always a statement in life, we always say, but God, amen?

You know, God had a family, my father and mother, who, my mother literally had 5 miscarriages, and she was unable to bear children and so as a result of that she wanted to adopt.

I grew up in Maryland, about 40 minutes from D.C.

And so we were a family that loved eating, loved food.

He's made a Thanksgiving dinner or some kind, I don't know what it was exactly, but some kind of great meal.

My parents was a family that loved to cook.

My mother had her famous potato salad, mac and cheese, my father had his delicious cakes that he made.

You know, I always as a young child loved to get involved in birthday parties and things that evolved around food, and it was so exciting.

And so in my life as I grew up, again, my father, again, he was not at Venice.

So I grew up in a family that literally, we wasn't set up in Venice, so understanding that, we ate literally everything.

When I say everything, I'm talking about squirrels.

Like literally, we were country people, and my father grew up like during an era where They ate everything that walked.

It was a tough era when he grew up in the 50s and the 40s and so forth.

And so long story short, we grew up eating a lot of different things.

And I had the taste of pork, obviously a lot of different types of meats and so forth.

But my mother was raised Seventh-day Adventist.

And as a result of that, I started going to church when I was like in third or fourth grade.

And so going to church at a young age, again I wasn't 7 to have been, but I was exposed to guess what?

Now again, if you grew up in the 80s and the 90s, anybody remember vegetarian food back then?

Now it was good if you know how to make it, right?

So I had a family that actually knew how to make good vegetarian food.

I mean, my aunts and my cousins, a lot of them who made the dinners that we had on Sabbath dinners, they actually were amazing.

You know, it wasn't even though they used canned products, but they would take it and add some other special ingredients.

Right, they made special taste taste like, I mean, it tasted like meat to me.

So I grew up eating vegetarian food that actually tasted good.

And So amazingly, at the age of 12 years old, I made a decision to actually not give up meat per se, but I actually stopped eating pork and all shellfish, stopped eating crabs.

And so this was a big decision for a squirrel eating, pork eating country boy, you know what I mean?

I'm literally telling my dad, I'm not eating no more pork chops.

And so it was a pretty interesting transition, but at that point in my life, I believe God began putting a calling on my life.

And as I got older, literally, God began to speak to me even more clearly.

And this is the calling became when I was pretty much in 12th grade.

In 12th grade, I actually had a full scholarship.

I actually had a full scholarship to a school called Howard University.

And I actually was ranked in the nation at 1 point.

We was third in the nation in our age group when I was 16 years old in the 4 by 800 relay.

And I had a full scholarship to go to this school, Howard University.

And crazy enough, right after I signed my scholarship, my leg literally broke in a race.

I mean, like, this was my turning moment.

My fibula, tibula broke while I was running.

In this race, I just signed my scholarship.

I've been trying to get this girl to go to prom with me for like years, and she's finally, well not years, but I've been trying to date this girl forever, and she's going to prom with me, but now I have a broken leg, right?

Right, I got this scholarship that I just got, you know, and so at this point, I don't know what to expect, but at that moment, at this crisis, God spoke to my, guess what, to my soul.

And he began to convict me on some principles in life that has not left me, and I'm saying this as a foundation as I go into this conversation about food.

I realized at that point in my life, God has something special for me.

And he literally, at this point, again, I was in the Seventh Adventist, and some of you all might not be Seventh Adventist, but the Seventh Adventist Church, we keep the Sabbath.

And it's actually an amazing health principle because you actually get to rest.

We live in a society, especially, anybody here, is anybody here chefs?

I mean, most chefs work 7 days a week, right?

And so having a day of rest is actually a blessing.

Some of y'all might workaholics and so forth, so having a day of rest is a blessing.

So in taking this scholarship, most of the track meets were on, guess what, which day?

And I was convicted at a young age, at 17 years old, to let this scholarship go and to follow God all the way.

So literally, I gave this scholarship up, you know, by the glory of God, and I started my journey.

And I began to recognize that God had a call on my life.

I realized that this name Chu wasn't given to me by any, by happenstance.

And I began to read the books of the Seventh Adventist Church.

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Life as a Pastor to a Food Business Owner

Transcript

Description

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Plenary

Something Better to Chew On

1h 26m

Running a Food Business as a Seventh-Day Adventist

18m

Young Professionals

Starting a Center of Influence

21m

Plenary

We Walk By Faith

1h 41m

Another Quake

45m

Young Professionals

ASI 2020 Young Professionals: Chef Chew

53m

How To Raise Funds For Your Food Product

47m

Young Professionals

God’s Got a Plan and You’re In It!

52m

Seminars

Connecting to the World Through the Health Message

1h 9m

Sound Doctrine