Pioneering Southern Methodist University

  • by WMD
  • Sep 15, 2017
  • 1414 reads

Hi, my name is Jonathan Jung.

Last May 2016, I and my wife, Karen, moved from New York, NY to Dallas, TX. God richly blessed our house church while we were in Columbia University Bible Fellowship in New York; we learned from M. David & Joy Baik and M. Samuel & Ruth Shin, prayed alongside with them, studied the Bible with others, and raised up disciples of Jesus.

I started a PhD program in my 30s to stay near Columbia and to serve the campus. God blessed me to finish it successfully and I received a job offer from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I was happy since I had been praying for a job that is flexible enough to serve college students that I applied for a federal government job. As a patent examiner, I prosecute patent applications filed by patent lawyers from companies such as Samsung, LG, and Apple. And by God's grace, I was retained after the 1-year-probationary period and recently got promoted.

As we moved to Texas, we found an apartment that is very close to Southern Methodist University (SMU). Through much prayer and the encouragement by M. Samuel, we started holding a family worship service at our apartment from September 2016. We also met Austin UBF folks early this year and were really encouraged by them, seeing them faithfully serving UT Austin. We also met other campus ministry leaders and college professors in SMU to learn about the community and the campus.

God granted Karen a full-time position at SMU last May. Through this, we began to believe that God was guiding us to serve SMU. Karen began Bible study with an SMU student and we continue to pray for one-to-one Bible studies.

Brian, Scott and Andrew, joined us for worship, so it is the five of us so far. They faithfully have been attending our family worship service since last year. One of my Bible students, Brian, now has a desire to deliver a Sunday message and started delivering a message. Andrew, from Washington UBF last year, also shared a message based on his 2017 key verse. I thank God for growing each one of us.

Please pray for our fishing ministry this Fall. Karen and I are praying to continue to go fishing every week. Please pray for our family to be strong even though we are small in number and to be a blessing to students here in Dallas.

By His grace,

Jonathan Jung