Ms. Zeng was born in HuBei province, mainland China. Her parents came from quite different socio-economic backgrounds. Her father wisely invited her early on to witness the often bleak realities of everyday working life of ordinary townspeople. This was intended to serve as an inducement for her to place more importance on her education. Partly as a result of this wisdom, she was selected to attend the elite Peking University, earning her Bachelor's degree in anthropology.

After the tragic 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, she and most of her Beijing classmates were forced to endure a one year banishment to work camps in the "countryside" as a warning to others. However, like most Chinese, she chooses not to be bitter about such life-disrupting events. She finds comfort neither in zealous communism nor materialist capitalism. Given her experiences, she holds a remarkably balanced view about both socialist values and modern capitalism, finding value in both and being wary of the extreme application of either.

After moving to southern China, she continued postgraduate education in Linguistics at Shenzhen University. She had never been part of any formal religion but has often involved herself in religious and philosophical discussions. She has had a lifelong spiritual connection to nature and to certain Chinese concepts that are still difficult to convey to westerners.

Mr. Carroll had at various times labelled himself as either an atheist or an agnostic. However, because he too felt a non-mechanistic, spiritual connection to the universe, he probably would have felt most comfortable as a pantheist. He grew up as a non-Mormon in the decidedly conservative Mormon suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. His father (deceased) was Catholic and his mother is Lutheran. Like many Americans, he was more-or-less forced to attend church semi-regularly in his youth. However, traditional religion always seemed wholly illogical and improbable to him.

During the Vietnam war era, he was active in both civil rights and anti-war movements while attending the University of Nebraska. He was also involved in campus and state politics to a minor degree. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in Psychology in 1975. He then spent over ten years living in Europe. During that time he obtained a second B.A. in Computer Science. He married Yu-Ling in 1998 and currently lives in Honolulu.

The couple are forming two Aaltuit Churches, the Aaltuit East-West Friendship Church of Honolulu and the Aaltuit Chinese/American Friendship Church of Zhuhai (China). They welcome any help or advice regarding the practical side of organizing a successful church. Donations to establish these churches are welcome, however, at present the churches are not yet recognized under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code as a tax-exempt organization. Therefore, such donations are not currently tax-deductable. In any case, since the Aaltuit religion is still in its formative stages, we value your ideas, insights and general support most of all.