Learning Spiritual Service

My name is Danny Chung, and I am a sophomore religion major with an emphasis on health. I am also taking classes to go to medical school. My dream job is to serve as a medical missionary, so right now I’m getting practice in spiritual leadership.

On Sabbaths, I help lead a Sabbath school group at the Napa Korean Church. It’s my home church. We don’t have a very big young adult group there, so we combine the high school and college students together. My challenge is to try to pick topics that are not above the heads of the high school kids, but also not too kid-ish for the college students.

Occasionally my pastor asks me to do a sermon. Last week I ended up doing a sermon on prayer. It was based on a Bible study I had done earlier. We know that when we pray we come before the presence of God, but sometimes we forget how awesome and powerful God really is. In my sermon I talked about keeping in mind the awe of God’s presence when we come to him in prayer.

I hope to someday graduate from medical school, possibly Loma Linda University. This may sound a little weird, but I have a dream of going on a mission with friends from my future medical school—maybe to help out in a Third World country. Although I have not yet attended any medical mission trips, I’m looking for opportunities to get some experience in the field.

But as of now, my biggest challenges are keeping up with my studies and managing my time with other extra curricular activities, like basketball intramurals and serving as one of two religious vice-presidents of the Korean-American Student Association. Together we conduct Bible studies every Wednesday for our club.

School can be a challenge, especially since my parents are not able to support the cost of my education. Like many other college students, I’m going to school on loans and by donations from other supporters. This year I was able to receive two scholarships: the Wah Choy and Grace Ching Scholarship for Biology and the Paul and Mae Quimby Scholarship for Religion. These funds really helped in paying for my books and room and board fees. With these expenses covered, I was also able to afford to fly out to visit my parents in Texas, whom I haven’t seen much since they moved there during my high school senior year. I am really thankful for the funds I was able to receive because it continues to provide for me a way to attend PUC.