Christmas Prayer Comes True for Boy’s Mother and Church

For one parishioner from Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral, Christmas came about 10:30 Monday morning, and the unlikely setting was the inside of the Garden Grove Police Department.

It was there that Wei Ping, a frantic Rowland Heights mother, was reunited with her 15-year-old son, Peter Wong. Peter, who is mentally retarded, had wandered away from a midnight service at the Garden Grove cathedral Sunday and disappeared.

The Rev. Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral issued a public call for help, and one of the church’s senior pastors organized an all-night prayer circle.

Their prayers were answered when the boy managed to call his mother about 8 a.m. from a pay phone at Ball Road and State College Street in Anaheim.

Anaheim police picked up the boy a short time later, after a gas station attendant called them and said the youth was hanging around the parking lot and looked lost.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Jim Moser said the boy was calm but quiet when he got there Monday. Moser waited with the boy while Garden Grove police came to pick him up and take him back to the station, where his mother was waiting.

“You’re just so glad that the parents and this kid are reunited,” Moser said. “That’s the best part.”

Dale Walters, head of security for Crystal Cathedral, said he thinks that the boy walked all night and finally was able to find someone to help him call his mother.

He said the boy, whose first language is Chinese, speaks very little English, so police were not able to figure out how he had passed the early morning hours. Peter did not look tired, Walters said. He just looked happy to see his mother.

“They smiled at each other, and the mother embraced her son,” said Walters. “I’m just very thankful that the prayer was answered, the family reunited, and Christmas is going on for everyone.”