I was born in a Christian family.

From a young age, I attended church regularly

and actively participated church events. When I was an Elementary student, my father
started to pursue his vocation, becoming a pastor. Since then, I became more dependent
on church that I attended more than once a week, and helped Sunday school teachers
when they led the Bible Study. Church was another school for me that taught about God
and entertained me with various church events and friends I met in the church.
After graduating Middle school in Korea, however, I had to leave my home
country and move to Japan due to Gods calling for my father to be a missionary in Japan.
I was so sad that I had to leave all my family and friends but I was also so excited that I
get to experience new culture. When I got there, I had to attend International Christian
High School where the education system is based on English. Since I could not speak
Japanese at all, I chose to attend school where I can learn both English and Japanese with
diverse students. This school not only gave me an opportunity to learn diverse culture and
languages, but also to be thoughtful and mature in learning and questioning about who
God is in my life. As I met many different Christians and studied Bible in my school, I
could get not only deep knowledge about God but also doubt why I have to believe in
God. Unfortunately, my doubt never got answered because my faith at that time was not
strong enough as I attended my fathers church where all the services were spoken in
Japanese that I had little understanding in.
However, God never gave up on me but offered His grace to worship Him and to
study about Him more deeply in a language that I am familiar with as I came to Calvin.
As I was deciding a church after I came to Calvin, I had strong affection to this Korean
church where the pastor seemed so passionate and loving to guide us in God. His sermons
always awoke my spirit in God and made me to repent my doubt about God that I had in
the past. I became to be more passionate and faithful in God than the past years in Korea.
I joined worship team to serve as a vocal. I also became a leader of the small group. I
have to lead the Bible study every Saturday after our youth service. Also I have to do
one-on-one with each member in my group so that I can listen to their struggles in their
lives and pray with them. As I became a leader and vocal for the worship team, I realized
how important to live a godliness life with continuous prayer and Bible in order to serve
my group members in God's way. Such tremendous responsibility in my church shaped
me to be more dependent on God and pursue God in everything in my life. My Christian
faith in Calvin shapes me to try to behave, act, and talk like Jesus with a life of faith due
to my position in my church and God's plan for me to grow stronger in Him through the
position. I struggled, realized, thanked, and finally believed in God with all my heart and
continuous effort to strengthen my faith.
I have been serving as a teacher for Korean school in my church for two and half
years. I am teaching them in both Korean and English since there are some American
Koreans who cannot understand Korean. As I major in education and gain deeper and
deeper knowledge of education at Calvin, I could apply things I learned as I teach lessons
and could also get feedback for myself from my teaching experience in Korean school.
As I teach language, I have a confidence that, with my teaching experience, I can
effectively teach English to Chinese kids. My past work experience, in both restaurant
and international event that diverse people participated, has given me knowledge of how
to communicate with people with different characteristics from diverse cultures. My deep
understanding and strong communication skill acquired from diverse work experience
have prepared my future career as a teacher.
I am currently studying from Calvin College with a major in Elementary
Education concentrating in Chinese and ESL. I love learning languages and especially, I
enjoyed learning Chinese since I was in elementary school. I have been to China when
my aunt lived in Tianjin and I wanted to visit China again because of its comfort and
happiness I received as I traveled China.
Teaching experiences in my coursework at Calvin and in the Korean school at my
church gave me valuable exposure to build effective interaction skills with students and
to develop teaching skills. Additionally, being part of leadership team at church allowed
me to deepen social and organization skills. I believe that God has provided me valuable
opportunities and experiences to walk a path as a language teacher.