A Father's Response
to a Daughter's Disability
Like many students who pass through Princeton
Seminary’s doors, Young Chul Hong traveled a
circuitous and sometimes painful path to arrive where he
is today.
Hong left his home in Korea to come to the United
States in 1968 to pursue his education in architecture.
However, his plans changed dramatically with the birth of
his daughter Clara in 1974. Clara was born with profound
mental retardation.
“At first I prayed for healing,” Hong
recalls. But his daughter’s disability persisted.
When the healing took place, it was not within the child
but within the father. “I grew to trust God in
this,” Hong says. “Her healing became secondary
as I experienced a conversion. When I experienced that, I
wanted to pass it along.”
In 1978, while continuing to practice as an
architectural consultant, he enrolled in New England
Bible College at night. It was during his three years
there that he decided to attend seminary and to become a
minister. Hong entered Princeton Seminary in 1984.
“I wasn’t the best student,” he says,
“but I did receive excellent training.”
Upon graduating with his M.Div. degree in 1987, he
started a Korean-speaking congregation at the Prince of
Peace Lutheran Church in West Windsor, New Jersey, and
served as pastor of that congregation for seven years. It
was then that he began to consider focusing his ministry
on those with disabilities.
Coincidentally, one afternoon in July 1987,
his sister called from Flushing, New York, and told him
about a group of forty people with disabilities in her
area who were praying for a minister to pastor them.
Would he consider being that person?
For Hong, this seemed like an answer to his prayers
regarding the direction of his ministry. He accepted the
call.
When he arrived in Flushing, however, he was faced
with what seemed like unsurmountable challenges. They had
neither the vehicles nor the equipment necessary to
attract and accommodate people with a variety of
disabilities.
Not one to be discouraged, he sought help from a
well-known Korean Christian singer named Sun Young Kim,
who also happens to be blind. She and a Christian singing
group started by some of the elders in the congregation
hosted a concert that raised enough money to purchase the
van used today to pick up those who would be otherwise
unable to attend services.
The plan worked, and the number of members both with
and without disabilities grew.
However, there were many additional problems that Hong
encountered in the early stages of pastoring this church.
“They were practical, but important, problems,”
he says. Problems like how to transport the increasing
number of wheelchairs up the numerous steps leading into
the Fellowship Hall; how to find someone to sign in
Korean for deaf members of the congregation; and how and
whether to have a “handicapped-persons church”
at all.
This last issue is the one that has been the most
challenging for Hong.
“I struggled at the beginning with theological
reflections on such a church,” he says. “In the
Bible, I don’t think people with disabilities are
intended to be separate. They are clearly a part of the
Body of Christ. And many do not want to come to a special
church. They want to be included just like everyone else.
“One day I asked myself ‘What is the purpose
of a church?’ Whether it is for people with or
without disabilities, the message is the same—we
must all be reborn in the Spirit. If I do my best to
preach the Gospel and to love the members of my
congregation, I can leave that problem to God.”
Another question that Hong had to ask himself was what
he should do if people expected that he had the gift of
healing.
“Naturally I wish that I had that gift, ” he
says, “but I don’t, and that scared me.”
Hong notes that being cured and being healed are two
different things, and Christians both with and without
disabilities all seek the latter.
What he has discovered in his ministry with people
with disabilities is that generally they know that they
are not going to be cured, and they are less inclined to
pray for it.
“Many accept their disabilities, and they do not
make being cured the purpose of their lives,” Hong
explains. “They find meaning somewhere else.”
That “somewhere else” is in their relationship
with God.
Hong has learned much from his parishioners and has
integrated their philosophy into his ministry.
“I read the Bible and try to be obedient,”
he says. “I live for God, practice what I know, and
leave the results to him.”
As for Clara, now twenty-four years old, she is living
in a group home for retarded children in Queens, New
York.
“She is happy there,” Hong says. “I see
it in her face. They take her bowling and to the park and
on other outings. And they teach her skills—physical
and social. She is learning how to feed herself, how to
be more independent. We feel that we made the right
choice.” 
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Theological Seminary
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| last updated 01/22/99
outStanding in
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