What factors of your native culture have informed your religious world view? Explain the impact of these factors

I was born in America and grew up in a big Christian family and church was practically my home. My grandpa was the pastor of a small Presbyterian Korean church in Washington; therefore, my family attended church every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. For me, going to church were just days for my five year old love story with the church hunk. I listened to bible stories and admitted that I was a Christian, but Jesus was only the stereotypical, genie in a bottle, wish granter to me.

Ten days after I turned nine, I moved to Korea, stripping me away from my fiancé. The first six months in Korea were the hardest days of my life for the culture shock was too much for me to handle. My parents knew about my agony and always reminded me to pray, but whenever they mentioned God always answering prayers, I only became angrier at God. He was supposed to give everything I wanted in some supernatural way; living in Korea was not something I did not ask for.

In Korean school, I was always told I was not good enough. Education ranking meant everything to my class and my school. Coming from an American culture, ranking didn’t have any significance to me because my old school never ranked me. Every student takes the final exam on a specific day in July; from that, the education department obtains the average scores of students and rank schools. My school asked me not to take that test because my score would bring the school average down. Not showing up on the exam day was a plus for me because it was one less test for me to take, but it was the beginning of what would be my biggest struggle in my journey with God.

The culture shock and my anger towards God subsided when I started attending TCIS; however, I was horribly influenced by friends who always told me, “You are not good enough, and you never will be.” These words still impact me today. What I struggle with most as a Christian is taking my relationship with God a step further. As I learn more about God’s omnipotence and omniscience I felt inclined to withdraw myself from Him. “God would never want me. I’m an ugly, mean, and sinful girl. He could careless about me.” I can’t recall how many times Satan has placed those words in my head.

Coming into high school, my view of God changed drastically. Placing many faithful servants of his into my life, God challenged me to take my relationship with him a step further. Many of his faithful servants were my teachers. They encouraged me to be better but still loved me for being me. God taught me, through my teacher s, both his loving nature of and his wrath towards sin.

God gave me opportunities to see more of his world by sending me to several different countries. One mission trip that has made a huge impact on me was the medical mission trip I attended. I went to Laos with my church’s medical team to give free treatment to the people there. The patients I remember most were the pregnant women. I was able to observe, through the ultrasound machine, the forming of new life. As the doctor was pointing out baby’s eyes, spine, hands, feet, and heart, I experienced the moment of realization on how wonderfully I had been made.


“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139: 13-16

God had to love me immensely for me to be even created; therefore, how could people have the right to say that I am not good enough? God had finally proven to me that no human can judge me, now I am on the path, in which I am growing closer to Him and he is working in me as a daughter of Christ.