Hosanna Wong: Poetry, Identity, and Finding Your Purpose

In this intimate conversation, author, Bible teacher, and spoken-word artist Hosanna Wong offers reflections on the global pandemic as it relates to faith, loss, leadership, and where we go from here.  

 The daughter of a heroin addict and Chinese gang member in San Francisco, she recounts her father’s transformation through faith, the impact of his loss, and how she met that loss with “the only thing I knew how to do,” which was poetry. 

 She also speaks bravely about finding and embracing her identity as a Chinese American and as a Chinese American woman, and her passion to empower others – especially young people – to lean into their own unique identity and God-given worth in order to live out their purpose in a changing world 

 Hosanna is the teaching pastor at EastLake Church in the San Diego area and the executive director of Calvary Street Ministries, an outreach bringing hope to the homeless and low-income families in San Francisco. Under the name Hosanna Poetry, she has released two spoken-word albums—Maps, Boots, & Other Ways We Get There (2013) and Figless (2015)—and authored three books, I Have a New Name (2017), Superadded (2018), and her new best-selling book, How (Not) to Save the World, available now.