Faith in focus: The Hong family

PROGRESS 2018— A United Methodist Church appointment brought Yohan Hong and his family to Red Bay from Madison, and for the past seven months the family has been soaking up the Franklin County/Northwest Alabama area.

Yohan is filling in as a temporary assignment for FUMC minister Mitch Nethery, who is deployed.

“We had never heard of Red Bay,” Yohan said. “But we were missionaries in the field, so in the spirit of being a missionary, we are ready to go wherever God will lead us to go.”

He and his wife Jenny You – Korean women do not take the last name of their husbands – were both born and raised in Korea. They married in 2007, and they have one daughter, Esther, 7. They were missionaries in the Philippines when Esther was born, but she has lived her whole life, since she was 4 months old, in America and is bilingual. “She is experiencing Korean and American culture,” Jenny said. Cultural identity has sometimes been a challenge to the seven-year-old. “In kindergarten and first grade, she had a little bit of a difficult time articulating both languages,” Jenny said. “She felt stressed about that. But then a Korean girl came to her school from Korea, because her father was in the military, and she couldn’t speak any English at all. The teacher could not communicate with her. So the teacher asked Esther to translate, so she translated, and because of her they could communicate very well. Since then, she has been proud of speaking both languages.”

They have tried to adapt the best of both cultures, Korean and American, into their family life, Jenny said. They play American board games together, like Monopoly and Guess Who, and Esther is exposed to plenty of American culture at school, but many of their values and manners reflect Korean culture, such as highly respectful regard for the elderly. Jenny also tries to cook dishes from both cultures – pizza is one of Esther’s favorites, but their dinner table might also feature kimchi, pierogi, Korean barbecue or bimbimbap.

“We are a hybrid between two different cultures,” Yohan said. “Jenny and I are different from ‘authentic’ Koreans, living in Korea, and of course we are not traditional Americans. We are living in between.” It’s a challenge, Yohan said, faced by many Korean immigrants. “We are truly open to embrace American culture.”

Prior to serving in Madison, where the couple was charged with helping restore a Korean church in connection with Asbury United Methodist, they lived in Kentucky for four years while Yohan worked on his PhD at Asbury Theological Seminary. Yohan is now completing his dissertation, which consumes a good bit of his free time, and while Esther is at school, Jenny is also working on her theological degree online through the Asbury seminary. Jenny said Esther likes that all three of them are students.

When the family has free time to spend together, they will watch Korean television, visit museums and parks, watch high school sports, go for walks or attend community events. Jenny loves to visit the farmers market, and Esther enjoys the Red Bay Fun Park. Yohan and Esther will ride bikes, dance, sing and play – “whatever she wants,” Yohan said. A favorite family trip is to Atlanta, where Jenny can buy all the specialty ingredients she wants at a thriving Korean market.

Yohan and Jenny both love to learn. “Before Esther was born, we would have plenty of time to do things together. We would go to a coffee shop and read a book and have a conversation or discussion on the topic,” Jenny said. Theological topics were usual the subjects of choice. Yohan also enjoys hiking. One of Esther’s favorite activities is gymnastics. “She wants to be in the Olympics and win a gold medal,” Yohan said. “She practices every day,” Jenny added.

Their focus is to bring the good news to the church and the community and to love people of other cultures. Even when that mission takes them to new and unfamiliar places, “it’s not scary. It’s exciting,” Jenny said.

Faith is an important part of the family’s heritage. Yohan’s great-grandfather was one of the earliest Koreans to convert to Christianity. “He was evangelized by one of the American missionaries, so that kind of spiritual tradition has been handed down to my generation,” Yohan said. “I grew up listening to missionary stories in my childhood, and I feel like I am indebted by the American missionaries and American churches, so I have to pay that back to American churches. That is one of many reasons I wanted to serve in English-speaking settings.”