My Life Story…. Jerry Cho

I was born in Masan, South Korea in 1961. Less than ten years after the armistice of the Korean War, most Koreans were poor. I was the sixth of seven children. Like many poor people in that time period, my parents did not have the benefit of public education. Therefore, my father did several odd jobs to put food on the table while my mother stayed home taking care of the children.

My father succumbed to cancer and died in his mid forties, leaving my widowed mother and seven children with no money. My mother managed to feed her children with home-grown vegetables and the meager income from my older siblings’ work outside the home.

I remember that the mood in our family was heavy and gloomy. Being almost at the bottom of the family hierarchy, I felt powerless and helpless. I didn’t feel that my mother and older siblings were particularly loving and affectionate, probably because life must have been hard for them, too.

A ray of hope and excitement began to shine in our family when my oldest brother began to go to a nearby church. My oldest brother, Sung-Won Cho, was in his twenties and virtually the father figure and leader of the family. Before he began going to church, he used to smoke and drink a lot to the point of alcoholism. This changed drastically once he began to go to church. He quit drinking and smoking and became a devout Christian. He often led family prayer meetings before he went to work in the morning. He led all family members to our neighborhood church. Christianity was a newly imported religion from the Western countries. Church seemed a symbol of American culture and hope for a better future. I enjoyed going to church. Church was a haven and salvation for me from the depression of our poor family. Church was the place where I met my friends and kind people and attractive schoolgirls. Among school, home and church, church was my favorite place while I was growing up as a teenager.

One summer afternoon, my younger brother, Suk-Rae, was found dead underneath the water while playing with friends in the nearby stream. I was shocked and grief-stricken by the sudden death of my younger brother who was thirteen years old at the time. Ever since, I became the youngest in my family.

I was always religious in my youth. I also regarded my pastor as a well-educated, intelligent, nice and successful man. So I wanted to be a pastor when I grew up. After graduating from high school, I entered Mokwon Methodist College in Daejon, South Korea. I had to work my way through college because my family could not afford sending me to college. My undaunted spirit and determination helped me to finish college and graduate school in Korea. I must admit that my two older brothers and three older sisters helped me along the way even though they were not as fortunate as I was when it came to getting the benefit of public education. I am closer to my sisters than to my brothers in Korea. However, I immensely thank my oldest brother for his encouragement and support for my education and career choice.

While working on my graduate work in Biblical Theology, I served a rural church as a student pastor. My mother cooked for me and took care of me as I was a single pastor. After being ordained by the Korean Methodist Church in 1986, I served the Korean Army as a chaplain. My mother lived with me in the Army parsonage during my Army Chaplaincy. I enjoyed having my mother all to myself, without having to share her with other siblings like when I was growing up.
I did not want to get married and settle down in South Korea for the rest of my life. I always had a dream of living in the United States. After honorary discharge from the Army, my American dream came true when I received the letter of admission and a full scholarship from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. South Korea was my roots. The U.S.A. became my wings. I came to the U.S. to attend my Master of Divinity program at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas in the fall of 1992.

I set a goal to finish M.Div. Program and then pursue Ph. D. program in the Pastoral Care and Counseling field. Although my English listening comprehension and spoken English was less proficient than desirable, I managed to get decent grades with my reading and writing abilities. While at Perkins, I enjoyed attending interfaith meetings where I met some Jewish religious leaders, and I also practiced Zen Meditation with Buddhist friends.

To qualify for Ph.D. program in Pastoral Care and Counseling, I took a basic CPE unit at Terrell State Hospital in Terrell, Texas in the summer of 1993. After finishing my M.Div. program in 1994, I moved to Yuma, AZ to have a CPE Residency at Yuma Regional Medical Center. After finishing nine months’ CPE Residency, I moved to New York, NY to attend a “Pastoral Care Studies” program at Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute. I worked as a bike messenger in downtown, Manhattan for a few months to pay for my rent.

In 1996, I was accepted into the Ph. D. program in the field of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. I was planning to go back to Korea to teach at my alma mater as a professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling when I earn my Ph.D.. But Ph.D. never happened in my life. Due to academic and financial struggles, after only three semesters, I had to take a leave of absence. I moved to Wisconsin to serve rural churches.

Since relocating to Wisconsin in 1999, I served Prairie Farm, Oconto Falls, Bonduel, Red River, and Eau Claire Lake Street churches. I was a single pastor until I married Cindy, my wife, in 2004. Cindy was a middle school teacher in Oconto Falls where she was raising her two teenage sons as a single mother.

Cindy is three years older than I am. She is wiser, smarter, more mature and better-balanced person than I am. Cindy is my defender, my honest critic, my stronghold and my safety blanket. After eleven years of married life, I thank her for her love and support. I try to remind myself, “Happy Wife, Happy Life.” Cindy’s two sons are grown up and on their own, living in Green Bay and in Milwaukee respectively. They treat me with respect and love, and I appreciate their support for our married life.

My greatest fear came about two years ago when my elderly mother had a stroke and became unconscious and passed away at the age of eighty six. I always worried how I was going to live without my mother on earth. It just so happened that Cindy’s mother also passed away only three days before my mother’s passing. We commiserated and supported each other over the loss of our mothers. It was the best healing grace to me when I knew that I was not the only one who lost mother.

I am glad that my mother could visit me from Korea ten times. I am glad that I had the chance to take my mother to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Hawaii and Japan for sightseeing. I was glad that I could treat her at a fine restaurant in downtown, Los Angeles while I was there to attend a clergy meeting. I was glad that I could take her fishing, kayaking and even on a roller coast ride at Six Flags. I brought some of my mother’s ashes home and buried them under a tree in our backyard.

I have been a pastor for the past sixteen years in Wisconsin. I have mixed emotions about my ministry experience. I have met some living saints and guardian angels in my congregations. But I have met some challenging personalities as well. I enjoyed seeing smiling faces of children, sharing meaningful stories and funny jokes and doing good deeds for the community, but pleasing everyone equally with quality sermons Sunday in and Sunday out was challenging.

I like to think of myself as someone who is trying to “think critically and live faithfully” as a follower of Jesus Christ, St. Francis of Assissi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa.

One of my hobbies is golfing. When I first started golfing, I played very poorly. After five years of playing golf religiously, my game has improved, and I feel more confident and comfortable in my golf games. As I continue to grow in my personal and professional lives, I hope that I will improve just as my golf game has.