Meet Scholarship Recipient: Minho Jeong

The Multiracial Student Scholarship Fund is one of the strategies employed by the Office of Race Relations (ORR) to develop multiracial congregational leadership in the CRCNA. Recipients attend one of the higher learning institutions affiliated with the denomination—Calvin University, Dordt University, The King’s University, Redeemer University, Kuyper College, Trinity Christian College, and Calvin Theological Seminary. They have also expressed a strong desire to train for and to engage in the ministry of racial reconciliation in church and/or in community.

Through bountiful gifts given last year, the ORR was able to award scholarships to ten students for the 2021/22 school year. It’s our privilege to introduce you to Minho Jeong, one of these ten recipients. Read his brief biography below and some of his thoughts on the importance of social justice.

Hello, my name is Minho “Jake” Jeong from South Korea. I am an MDiv. student at Calvin Theological Seminary with two semesters left for graduation. While I am still navigating my specific vocation, I am currently interested in chaplaincy. It has been only about 3 years since I moved into the U.S. and, throughout all the ‘first time ever’ experiences in the U.S., not only did I feel lost in a sense that my communication skill, cultural awareness, financial certainty, and social status were all gone but also, I could find the strong invitation of God during the journey while I discovered that I put the foundation of my life on those uncertain and limited things on earth, not on the only sure foundation, our God.

Also, under this shaping and molding finger of God, he opened my eyes to those whose backs are against the wall for various reasons since I was invited to live under their similar circumstance as an Asian international student in the U.S., especially in this serious time of racial conflict. And I could see that financial, emotional, and relational isolation can even lead to spiritual isolation, which divides and separates relationships not only with one another but also with God.

Along with seminary education, I am fascinated by ministries outside of the traditional church setting where I can have people accessible much more easily and broadly across cultures, religious traditions, and races so that I can be present with those who are in need as God has been present with them.

Living under God’s humbling hands continuously, I will keep on exploring pastoral and spiritual care with intercultural, interfaith, and interracial intelligence, which will take more than my entire life to master, but I am very excited because I believe this will benefit people in both society and the church. I pray that, through the ministry that God will specifically call me to do, God uses me as a channel to his presence of love and justice in which there is forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration in relationship with God and one another.

If you feel led to support this valuable scholarship fund and students like Jake, please give online at this link. Your gift today will bless future students as they train for and prepare to engage in the ministry of racial reconciliation in church and in society. 

For those who wish to be considered for a scholarship from the Office of Race Relations, information and an application are found at this link.