OUR PASTOR Hyo-Won Park
Contact Information:
Pastor Hyo-Won Park office hour begins July 5th; preaches July 10th
Please stop in and welcome Pastor.
Hours: Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Phone: (262) 495-2540
Email: hyo1956@yahoo.com
“The Life Journey” of Pastor Hyo-Won Park
My grandparents were first generation Korean Methodist Christians. About 135 years ago when an American Methodist missionary came to Korea, they received the Gospel message and became Methodists. They graduated from the Christian colleges founded by the missionary. It was a sensation at that time, very adventurous and risky, because Korea was a very conservative nation for a foreign religion. So it was very natural that I became a Methodist Christian from my birth.
When I was in senior high school, I had a very sincere Sunday School teacher, who influenced me to devote myself to a Christian lifestyle. It was the turning point of my life when I decided to enter the Methodist Theological Seminary to prepare myself to be a pastor.
In 1980, after graduating from seminary, I started my ministry in a small Methodist Church in Seoul. This church was known for having members very involved in social issues. They were very practical, pioneers and forerunners who actively participated in the resistance against the dictatorship, and were eager to change the corrupt Korean society and its politics. Their active participation in social issues challenged me to respond to social problems and made me realize my calling as a minister includes a responsibility for social issues wherever I minister.
I began an outreach ministry with friends on weekdays. We gathered boys and girls who had to work in factories under miserable conditions and were unable to go to a public school because they had to earn their daily bread. Every evening we taught them all the subjects that they should learn.
In 1982 when I was 26 years old, I entered military service, right after I was ordained as a pastor. After a 4-month training course, I was commissioned as a chaplain and sent to a camp located on a mountain in DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) where civilians were not permitted to live. There was a very high military tension between South and North Korea in the area.
During my chaplaincy I encountered situations that I had never experienced before. Officers and soldiers asked me for pastoral care even though they were not Christians nor religious. The best that I could do for them was to be with them and give them comfort. On Sundays, I led the worship service at the church on the mountain; on weekdays I went up to the mountain and stayed with guard posts in DMZ and spent time with soldiers. The place was lonesome and dangerous. Sometimes soldiers stepped on land mines hidden under the ground. Sometimes a soldier killed himself. I myself almost had several accidents in the minefields and on steep mountain roads. Through these experiences, I learned that our Christian faith is being tested and molded in real situations that we face every day.
In 1987, I went to Germany to study abroad. Studying theology, I met several professors who were my advisors. They asked why I was studying in Germany where the churches were dying. It was very sad for me to see that the churches were weak in Germany, where the Protestant movement had originated.
One day in 1994, a friend visited me whom I did not expect to see in Germany. He was a missionary and came from St. Petersburg, Russia. He asked me for an important and urgent favor. He had established a private college there and needed someone to start a new department of Korean language and literature. So I took a leave of absence from my university and went to St. Petersburg across the Baltic Sea to work with him only for one year.
When I arrived in St, Petersburg, I was told that the unemployment rate was over eighty percent. It was enough to show me what really happened in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the day I taught Korean language and literature, and in the evening I opened a Korean language class for people who wanted to learn practical Korean. Most of the students were Korean-Russians who had lost their native language. From them I heard surprising news that I had never known before, that their parents and grandparents were deported from the east coast of Russia, which is the northern part of Korea, by the Stalin regime.
This was done to prepare for war against Japan. Their homes were destroyed, and they were moved by freight trains to Central Asia. This occurred in 1937 before the outbreak of World War II, and the victims numbered about 180,000. This miserable operation lasted for 3 months in the fall, and in the process half of those people lost their lives.
After hearing about this, a new call sprang up to me. I decided to be a missionary for them. I rented a ruined 3-room apartment and repaired it for worship services and private Korean language classes. Attendance at Sunday worship services was small, while the number of Korean language students was larger. They were afraid to attend Protestant churches because they were Russian Orthodox Christians. It took a long time to change the misperception that the Methodist Church was one of the heresies.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodix Church was bewildered and threatened by the influx of missionaries. They pushed their governor to restrict the activities of religious groups from other lands. They were very angry and uneasy about so-called proselytism, which is an attempt to convert to another denomination from their Orthodox faith.
In 1999, Bishop Rader and staff of the Wisconsin Conference visited Russia to make an inspection of the Theological Seminary in Moscow and some churches according to the sisterhood relationship with the Russian Mission Conference.
In 2000, Bishop Rader invited me to come to Wisconsin. My first ministry in Wisconsin began at the churches of Princeton and Neshkoro. For the first time I felt uneasy with my English pronunciation. I still feel embarrassed whenever I find myself being misunderstood. But I am encouraged to recall my memories of church members who accepted and loved me as their pastor even when I spoke mixing German, Russian and English. From 2002 to 2006 I served at the Madison Korean UMC, and from 2006 to 2011 I served at the San Francisco Korean UMC. In 2011, I returned to Wisconsin and served at the Greenfield UMC.
In 2013 I applied for UMC Missionary status. Global Ministries sent me to the same place in Russia. When I arrived, I found that the Russian religious situation was completely changed. In every corner, Orthodox church buildings were built and they were continuing to build. The religious visa no longer existed, so I got a 3-month visa from the Russian consulate in Seoul, and before it expired I would leave Russia and reenter as a tourist for 60 days. By doing that I was able to stay a total of five months without renewing my visa status.
A new law had been passed that a foreigner cannot lead worship services or have Bible studies in public or private places. Now official religious activities are prohibited and cannot be conducted. To proclaim the Gospel or to hand out a flyer or a Christian book is all strictly forbidden. Under the strict religious law, I continued to open Korean language classes to meet Russians and invite them to our worship services. I was teaching Korean every day, even on Sundays.
During the past year, about 20 people gathered for worship and had Holy Communion every Sunday. It was so hard to register a new church in Russia, but we have already done so. The first church I founded was Stremlenie (Aspiration) UMC 25 years ago. Now a Russian pastor is serving the congregation. The second church was registered last year and named by church members Vera (Faith) UMC. This church is open to all Russians, but it will be characterized mainly by the Korean/Russian Diaspora.
Returning to Wisconsin, I served the Baraboo UMC for one year. I have 3 sons. All of them are over 30 years old and living in Chicago. My wife is also a pastor of the Korean Methodist Church. Before coming to Russia, she served in the Chicago area for Korean single women and single mothers in difficult situations. Her mission was to restore them, help them to settle down, and connect them to a Methodist church nearby. On our return to Wisconsin she wants to resume her mission and ministry.
Thank you for reading,
Pastor Hyo-Won Park