October 3, 2004

My story begins with my birth in the small farming village of Chilgok in South Korea. I was born the seventh child on July 1, 1985 to a poor rice farming family. My parents did not have enough money to support yet another child, so they made what must have been the hardest decision of their lives – to put me up for adoption. I was in a foster home for about four months before I was sent on a plane to America. My adoptive parents had both completed law school in St. Paul, MN, adopted me during their time in Ann Arbor, MI, and then our family of three moved all over the New England area during my early childhood.

We moved to Minnesota in the fall of 1991 when I was in third grade. I had a hard time in elementary school with most academic subjects. In third grade I had the reading level of a kindergartner. In seventh grade I finally caught up to my peers academically. Ramsey Junior High was also my first experience with significant numbers of ethnic minorities. For the first time I noticed other kids that looked like me. This was quite a shock for a kid who had only been surrounded by white people. Even though almost all of the Asian students were Hmong, I thought it would be cool to hang out with people that looked like me.

Unfortunately, some of these Asian kids were not the good influence I expected. They turned out to be gang members and drug dealers. At first I was just hanging out with them; very quickly I was drawn into the gang by both physical threat and the attraction of belonging to something. Being a gang member gave me a feeling of importance and acceptance. I was also making good money selling drugs and doing other illegal activities for the gang. If only I could see then what it would do to me and my future!

When I was twelve I joined a Hmong Crip gang that had been around since 1991. I was part of this gang’s fourth generation. I felt lucky that my initiation ritual by gang beating lasted only four and a half minutes. At first, I did not receive the warm welcome I had hoped for. Instead, I was made fun of and beaten regularly by the junior members of the gang. This was the “test” period, to make sure I was down for the long hall. I wasn’t recruited to be a junior member, which was a good thing, since they have to do whatever older members tell them to do. I was invited to be a regular member.

During my years in the gang I was involved in wars with other rival gangs, dealing drugs and gun-running (selling illegal firearms). Within three years I had been promoted to “Shot-Caller,” which is considered middle management in my gang. In the end I would become the Leader for the sixth and part of the seventh generation of the gang until I retired. But even after one gets out of a gang one remains semi-active as an “OG,” or Original Gangster. You can’t really escape once you’ve been involved – people still remember your face and know your name. Even to this day I still see former members now and then. My gang fell apart after all the years of fighting and as members got older and smarter.

In the fall of 2003 I got an apartment on Rice Street in St. Paul near my OG house. I liked having my own place, but I needed a roommate to share the rent. I asked one of the gang elders if he knew anyone who could move in with me. His brother-in-law, a member of a rival gang called the Bloods, moved in with me and we became a sort of “family”. After a while, my roommate brought over his gang friends to party every single day in my apartment. At first I enjoyed it, then it got annoying, then they wouldn’t leave. They would stay in my apartment all day and party all night and would still be there when I returned from work. They wouldn’t do anything I wanted them to do, so I called my former gang members to come over. They brought two guns to my house and tried to intimidate the unwanted guests. Little did I know that my unwanted guests also had guns. Next thing you know, guns were drawn and things could have gone really bad, but luckily, someone talked both sides down.

I was doing drugs and most of the time I was in my room smoking crystal meth, which in sufficient doses causes serious paranoia. Then a certain gang member stole my credit card and charged $700. My roommate, who had a grudge against this guy, called his gun-toting brother from the Westside to “take care” of this thief. Later that night, when I realized that life and death hung in the balance, I contacted the Minnesota Gang Taskforce. After some surveillance, they raided my apartment while some thirty gang members were there. I have been working with the police and helping them build a case against these people. In the twisted morality of the gang world, I was a bad guy for going to the police. But I did what I had to do to save my life, and I know in the end that what I did was right.

My problems with the gangs forced me to I flee. Even the police advised me to go far away. So I packed a few of my belongings and on Dec. 1, 2003 I took a flight to San Francisco in hopes of starting a new life. Everything had been arranged for me and I settled in at a traveler hostel meeting a lot of nice people from around the globe. For the first time I did a lot of thinking about what I wanted to do with my future. There wasn’t much else to do with no car and no possessions. In the four months that I was there, I got to explore only four nearby districts of the city on foot. I worked as a dishwasher at a new restaurant with little business. I was given fewer and fewer hours each week so that I quit within a month.

Through a combination of depression, boredom, and despair, I started to do drugs again. In the blink of an eye I went from turning my life around to hitting rock bottom. In California crystal meth is extremely cheap. My parents sent me money weekly and most of the money went to drugs and the rest to living it up. I’ve always loved the adrenalin rush and the high of drugs.

One day, I was introduced to a man in his late twenties from Japan who was in the US illegally. He was a member of the notorious Yakuza mafia and was someone not to be trifled with. He seemed very friendly and we got along well. In the mornings we went out for coffee, then we’d talk business in one of his seven apartments scattered around the city. Later, we would drink sake and get high on crystal meth. At night I would go to work for my new boss running drugs all over the city. I did not like the idea of slumming for the Yakuza, but I had little reason at the time not to. We would then hit the town every night and he would spend absurd amounts of money.

Everything was great until I got scammed in a drug deal. In the strict world of the Yakuza mistakes are not easily forgiven. The consequence for my actions was to lose the last joint on my pinky. My boss brought out a stun gun as a favor so that I’d be numb to the pain. Then he took out a Sasumi knife and a cutting board. But an argument broke out among the four gangsters present about the severity of my punishment. After a 20 minute discussion, I walked away with only a cigar burn on my left forearm. An inch and a half of my skin was bubbling from the burn, but I felt lucky to keep my finger. After that I had had as little contact with my boss as possible.

I was now on my own and my parents had stopped sending money. Without a job or any income I was homeless, forced to sleep on the streets and dig in the garbage for food. Sometimes I got lucky and people would give me leftover pizza crusts or rotten bread. Towards the end of those four months in San Francisco I would often go without food for five or six days in a row. I once risked my life on a third floor ledge of a building to get some loose change. If I found a quarter on the streets I could get a six-pack of peanut butter crackers that would last me three days. In four months I went from 158 pounds to 120 pounds in weight. In desperation, I called my parents and asked them to buy me an airplane ticket back home. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, they said no. I felt I was left in California to die. Finally, a friend in Minnesota responded to my plea and he bought a Greyhound ticket for me to return to the Twin Cities. I left California with exactly 14 cents in my pocket.

Even now, I have many emotional problems I deal with on a day to day basis. I am uncomfortable around large groups of people. A combination of deep insecurity, paranoia, and drug use has damaged my memory and severely impaired the ability to create new memories. I have a hard time trusting people. I occasionally get aggressive and have a hard time controlling my temper. I also suffer from hallucinations, appetite problems, sleeping problems, and a host of other health issues. I used to smoke six packs a day, but I’ve been able to cut it down to one. I need God’s help to quit completely. All of my experiences since my teenage years have left me emotionally cold and physically weakened. But I’ve learned that you can’t live in the past. I now know that constant regret is a foolish waste of time and that I need to build on my past to create a better future.

Now I want to share about how I came to this church. I have been going to many Korean culture camps like KCC (Korean Culture Camp), Camp Tiger and Kamp Chingu for much of my life. When I was about 16 years old, I went to Camp Tiger, a culture camp for Korean adoptee teens. There I met Michael Peterson who served as a counselor. He encouraged me to go to church, and told me about his. I really didn’t take it seriously back then. When I returned from my devastating experience in San Francisco in late March of this year, I was dazed, confused and lost. I was actually homeless for a while after my return. I slept on Minneapolis park benches with five coats on to keep me warm. My parents finally let me sleep outside on their porch.

One Sunday morning in June I woke up and thought to myself, I need to go to church. Since Michael Peterson was the only person who had ever invited me to church, I decided to go to his. He was surprised to see me at church all of a sudden several years after his initial invitation, but that’s how I came to the Church of All Nations.

On August 1, Pastor Jin invited me and Michael to lunch after church. In the afternoon, I went to Pastor Jin’s basement for some counseling. I did not know him well, but something deep inside told me that I could trust him. I still can’t quite explain why I felt that that day would be a turning point in my life. I shared my entire life story with Pastor Jin, and then he asked me if I was a Christian. Having never gone to church or having any Christian family or friends, I did not really know what that meant. When he shared that God loves me for who I am, has loved me from my birth, and will love me to the end, I remember saying to Pastor Jin, “This is the good news I’ve always been waiting to hear.” He told me that his church needed people like me to be a part of the body of Christ. I remember thinking that that was the first time anyone had told me that I was important and needed. I prayed with him to accept Jesus Christ into my life and be born again. Even though my memory is not very good, I will always remember August 1, 2004 as my spiritual birthday when I became a Christian.

This church has given me hope and has been the only positive influence in my life. I have found strength through God and have persevered in ways that have surprised people who had given up on me years ago. God gave me the will to survive and the courage not to give up. God has done so much for me, giving me what I needed the most – the strength to keep living. Currently, I am nineteen years old and have a full time job at Auntie Anne’s Pretzel’s in Brookdale Mall. For the first time in my life I have dreams of doing positive things with my life. Through God and this church, I have met the nicest and most caring people I have ever met. I still have a hard time admitting that I’m happy without feeling embarrassed, but I really am.

When I look back, I didn’t understand why all this bad stuff was happening to me. I understand now that God was preparing me for my life today. I want to thank Pastor Jin, Michael Peterson, and the whole congregation of the Church of All Nations for welcoming me, accepting me, loving me, and helping me to grow as a Christian. I am excited about taking the New Member Class and getting baptized this Christmas. Most of all, I thank God for giving me this second chance at life. Amen.

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