Korea Christian Gospel Mission, 120 Gumnanghwa-ro 26 Road, Gangseo-gu, Seoul (2026)

03/10/2026

An excerpt from John Chae's October 2026 KCGM Newsletter:
"Still, I keep thinking about the story of the prodigal son. Of course, this child is not the prodigal son, and the circumstances of the story are very different. What stays with me, though, is the heart of the father. When he saw his son coming home in the distance, he did not hesitate. He did not dwell on the hurt, the mistakes, or the long time apart. He did not wait until everything was resolved, every wound was healed, and everyone was ready. He just ran to him… Before sorting through everything that had happened or figuring out what came next, the father welcomed his son home. In the Bible, of course, the father had his servants bring out the best robe, put a ring on his son’s finger and sandals on his feet, and prepare the fatted calf. The only ring I have is my wedding ring, and I don’t know how my wife will feel about that. I do not have a fatted calf either, but I checked the Chuseok menu, and I think we are serving beef. The point is that we welcome him with open arms. This is the kind of home I want us to be. We cannot erase what happened, but we can make sure that when this child walks through our gates again, he knows that he is still one of ours. There will be time for the rest. For now, he is coming home."
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04/09/2026

September 2026 KCGM Newsletter from John Chae (www.kcgm.org):

My Dear Wonderful Friends,

I hope you all had a great summer! One unique thing about Korea is that summer break is very short for our children (only three weeks long) while winter break lasts nearly two months (when it’s too cold to do anything fun!). So, we do our best to pack those three short weeks with as much fun as possible. Of course, the highlight is always our Vacation Bible School. This year, we were blessed to have a short-term mission team from Hana Church in Southern California come to lead VBS for our children.

Perhaps no one was more blessed by their visit than I was! I’m usually the one planning and directing VBS, so having someone else take care of everything was a very welcome change! It has also long been my dream for our orphanage children to experience a full Western style VBS, complete with a theme, elaborate decorations, games, crafts, and all the excitement that comes with it. This team exceeded my expectations. When they opened their suitcases, I was shocked to see everything they had brought. They pulled out hand painted elephants, hand-printed T shirts for all our children and church members, enough snacks to feed an army, and banners and posters to cover our walls. I kept wondering what they were going to pull out next. Mary Poppins couldn’t have done a better job packing a suitcase.

It didn’t take long for our church sanctuary to transform into a jungle. The real fun was watching our children walk in the next morning and see it for the first time. Their eyes got big as they looked around and tried to take everything in. I honestly had not seen looks like that on their faces since the last time we took them to an amusement park. They walked into the same church sanctuary they see every week, but for that morning, it felt like they had stepped into another world.

Every day was filled with songs, games, crafts, Bible lessons, and even skits. Instead of simply watching a skit that adults had prepared for them, our children got to come up with their own stories, write their own scripts, direct each other, and act them out themselves. Of course, with so many children of different ages wanting to participate, there were not always enough parts to go around. That just meant the team had to get a little creative.

For example, our youngest girl was given the very important role of a telephone. Her entire job was to be carried onto the stage when someone needed to make a call and then carried back off again. She was so proud to be that telephone, you would have thought she had the starring role! I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her. She had no lines to memorize and nothing really to do except lie there and be a telephone, yet none of that mattered to her. She had a part. She was included. When it was her turn, she went up (or more like was carried up) on that stage as proudly as any of the other children. Sometimes, I think we forget how much it can mean to a child simply to be included. It does not always matter how big the part is. Sometimes, it is enough just to know that someone thought of you and made a place for you.

One of the things I enjoyed most about having the team with us was seeing our children through their eyes. There are things about our kids that have become so normal to me that I hardly notice them anymore. One thing that stood out to the team almost immediately was just how affectionate our children are. They want to hold your hand when they walk beside you, sit next to you and lean against you, climb onto your lap, or be carried around. It did not take long before our children were hanging all over the team members like monkeys. Apparently, the jungle theme had caught on a little too well.

I’m used to it, but seeing the team notice it reminded me that our children probably need those little moments of affection more than I sometimes realize. Our children are surrounded by people who love and care for them, but most of them also know what it means to be separated from the people they love. Maybe that is why they seem to hold on just a little tighter. It was a good reminder that sometimes caring for our children is as simple as putting an arm around them or giving them a hug when they come looking for one.

What did surprise me was how quickly our children became attached to the team. Our children had only known them for three days, but you would never have guessed it when it was time to say goodbye. On the final day, a few of our children began to cry. I remember looking around and thinking, “It has only been three days!” Yet somehow, in those three short days, the team had become people our children genuinely cared about and were sad to see leave. I think that says as much about the team as it does about our children. I am so thankful to every member of the Hana Church team for the incredible preparation they put into VBS and for the way they poured themselves into our children.

With that, summer has come to an end, our children are back in school, and we are headed into autumn. The months ahead will bring their own joys and challenges. Our high school seniors are beginning to make some important decisions about what they want to do after graduation as they prepare to leave the nest that is our orphanage. It is an exciting time for them, but also one filled with a lot of uncertainty.

I am grateful to know that we do not walk through any of it alone. You have walked alongside our children through so many different seasons, and your love and faithful support continue to mean more to us than you know. May you be encouraged on your own journey, knowing that we are praying for you too and that, as Deuteronomy 31:8 reminds us, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you!”

Yours because of Calvary,
John Woosik Chae

25/08/2026

We are Korea Christian Gospel Mission!
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06/08/2026

August 2026 KCGM Newsletter from John Chae:
www.kcgm.org

My Dear Wonderful Friends,

One new role I have taken on this year is serving as a professor at Seoul Christian University, a school my father founded to prepare future Christian workers for ministry. It's something I really didn't want to do because I already felt like I had enough on my plate with the orphanage and the mission. Some of you may be surprised to know that I even have a doctorate. Me too! The truth is my brain alone wouldn't have made it through the program. The only reason I finished was because enrolling in the doctorate program gave me the perfect excuse to delay coming to Korea and taking over my father's work. You see, Asian parents don’t complain when you say you want to study more. Unfortunately, the four years it took went by much faster than I expected, and before I knew it, I was done and supposedly qualified to teach.

I am now something called a Doctor of Missiology. What does that mean? I still don't really know, but apparently I'm supposed to be an expert in the study of Christian missions. I am not, but since the spring semester I have been spending about half of my time pretending to be. If I'm an expert at anything, it's at convincing people that I'm an expert, because everyone at the university seems to be buying it.

In all seriousness though, taking on this new role has been a real challenge. Still, I have been reminded that investing in the next generation of Christian workers is every bit as important as the ministries I have already been entrusted with. My favorite part so far has been advising doctoral students on their missiology dissertations. It has been a joy to walk alongside students as they tackle some of the church's biggest challenges, whether strengthening discipleship in northeast India, navigating the debate over women's ordination in the Naga Baptist churches, or preserving Christian identity in schools across Ghana. I genuinely believe these students and their research can make a lasting missional impact, and it has been an honor to play a small part in that journey.

God willing, they will successfully defend their dissertations and earn that fancy piece of paper with three important-looking letters after their names. Then, like I did, they'll discover that real education begins the moment they step into the mission field. Looking back, I can honestly say the children at our orphanage have taught me more about ministry than any textbook or classroom ever could.

For example, one of our girls asked me a few weeks ago, while studying the Ten Commandments, "How can I honor my father and mother when all they did was abuse and abandon me?" She and her siblings have been through more than any child ever should (but I'll save that story for another time). In that moment, my doctorate suddenly didn't seem all that impressive. I was simply looking into the eyes of a little girl who had experienced more pain than most adults ever will.

I told her that honoring her parents did not mean pretending they had done nothing wrong or excusing the hurt they had caused. Rather, it meant choosing to respond in a way that honored God instead of allowing someone else's sin to determine the kind of person she would become. Honestly, I don’t think that answer was perfect or even did any good. Looking back, I think it probably meant more that I simply sat with her. Sometimes, children aren't looking for perfect answers. They're looking for someone willing to carry the weight of the question with them. Moments like these remind me why I say that real education begins in the mission field. Every day these children ask questions that no textbook can fully prepare you for. They have taught me more about grace, forgiveness, suffering, and the love of God than any classroom ever could, and for that I will always be grateful.

If I ever actually become an expert in missiology, it won't be because of the three letters on my diploma. It will be because God chose to teach me through these children. So thank you for making it possible for me to keep learning alongside them. I pray that every lesson I learn from these children will someday find its way into a classroom, and every lesson I teach in the classroom will ultimately find its way back into the mission field.

Yours because of Calvary,
John Woosik Chae

P.S. Here’s a photo of me with my fellow faculty members at Seoul Christian University during a recent event! I’m the handsome one in the second row, just right of center. Can you can find me?

02/08/2026

Learning English and the Bible together!
# www.kcgm.org

11/07/2026

An excerpt from John Chae's July 2026 KCGM (www.kcgm.org) Newsletter:

"...Coincidentally, I have been leading a Bible study through Ecclesiastes with our orphanage youth. In our most recent lesson, we discussed Solomon’s famous words that there is 'a time for every matter under heaven.' Solomon knew what he was talking about. Some seasons seem to move from one blessing to another. Other seasons are marked by challenges, disappointments, and uncertainty. Even though this year has felt more like the latter, I have learned that it often takes only one moment of grace to remind us why we keep going. One reason to laugh can make us forget a hundred reasons to weep, and one reason to dance can give us strength after a long season of mourning. As it turns out, my reason to laugh and dance came from someone I least expected. It came from a girl who has been testing my patience for quite some time. If I were making a list of the children I expected to see spiritual growth from this year, she would have been near the bottom. Then, something changed. Out of the blue, she asked me if she could be baptized. I knew she was serious because... I was stunned. If it hadn’t happened so suddenly, I’d be tempted to take some credit for it. As it is, only God can make a person change overnight like that. I usually try hard not to make everything about me, and I know God worked in her heart for His glory first and for her sake second. Still, I cannot help but think that some of it was for my sake too. The timing was too perfect. Right when I needed a little morale boost, He gave it to me. So, I’m still here! I’m still here not because ministry is easy or because the problems have gone away. They certainly have not. I’m still here, because every now and then God does something that reminds me He has not forgotten these children, and He has not forgotten me either. So if you ever find yourself where I was, tired, discouraged, and dreaming about somewhere else, remember that He has not forgotten you either. Just give it some time. The season you're in today won't be the season you're in forever."

02/06/2026

June 2026 KCGM Newsletter from John Chae (www.kcgm.org):

My Dear Wonderful Friends,

“You remind me of your father.” Someone said that to me recently. Honestly, I never quite know how to respond when people say that to me. If I’m being completely honest, there is a part of me that feels uncomfortable with the compliment. It’s hard to explain, and no Korean I’ve spoken to (a culture in which honoring family legacy is so deeply valued) really understands why I would feel this way, but maybe you can understand? It’s just that sometimes, I want to feel like my own person and not simply an extension of my father. His legacy casts a very long shadow, and for much of my adult life I think I have quietly tried to step out from underneath it.

On the other hand, of course, I also recognize what an incredible compliment it really is. After all, my father is my hero. I didn’t just randomly wake up one morning and decide I wanted to spend my life raising orphans and planting churches. Everything I am doing now is really a continuation of what he started. If I could be only half the man he is, then all of us reading this newsletter can rest easy knowing that these ministries are in good hands (unfortunately, the verdict is still up in the air). So, I was honored to hear it. Pride welled up inside of me.

The funny thing is, the people who said that to me did not say it in response to a rousing sermon I preached or after hearing about a child’s life that I saved or something really cool and respectable like that. They were older orphanage graduates who visited the orphanage and stepped into my office for the first time. They looked around and saw the clutter of trinkets I had lying around… A candy jar filled to the brim for children to take. Shiny magnets from all over the world for the kids to play with (most of which you sent me). A Connect 4 lying open, red and black tokens all over the place. A Pez dispenser collection. My office (if I don’t tidy up) looks more like a kid’s play room than a director’s office. It drives my wife nuts, especially when I ask her to find me more clutter, such as a Pez dispenser display rail I’ve been looking for to “organize” my dispensers.

Anyway, these two graduates walked in, looked around, and immediately just started tearing up. “You’re just like him.” They couldn’t stop laughing and crying at the same time. I thought it was strange at first. I believe that any office in an orphanage should feel welcoming to children. It should not feel stiff or formal. Kids should feel comfortable wandering in after school to grab a piece of candy, look at something interesting on the shelf, ask random questions, or honestly just sit there for no reason at all except to hang out. Some of my favorite moments are when children come into my office with absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

This is just my philosophy, or so I thought. After these visitors stopped by, I began to think back deeper and realized… it wasn’t actually my philosophy. It was my dad’s philosophy! They were right! My dad’s office was always a mess, now that I remembered. He always kept his drawers full of candy to the joy of not just the children of the orphanage, but of all the ants on our campus. Every other day, he wanted us to put up something new on his already cluttered wall. He kept toys and fun things all over his office. I suddenly remembered the love/hate relationship I had with an electronic parrot on his desk that records and mimics everything you say. A Santa Claus doll that bobs back and forth to the chorus of Jingle Bells to no end. Everything I believed my office should look like was actually from my father!

So… I don’t know… I guess it’s just crazy how much of our parents stays with us whether we intend it to or not. Running the orphanage has made me realize that children carry far more from their parents through life than any of us probably like to admit. We see every day how deeply parents shape their children, even when they are not in the children’s lives anymore. It’s uncanny how children who come from violent homes often struggle with anger themselves. Children whose parents battled addiction carry those same tendencies. Fear, instability, insecurity, shame… these things somehow echo through generations. Maybe that is part of what Jeremiah meant in Lamentations when he wrote, “Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.” Brokenness rarely stays contained to one life alone.

But thankfully, it’s not just the bad things that get passed down through generations. The good things do too. Kindness does. Warmth does. The feeling of being safe around somebody does. A child who grows up feeling genuinely loved carries that with them too. A child who is laughed with, listened to, welcomed, and wanted, often grows up learning how to give those same things to other people. Trust me, we have seen it happen.

It is precisely why we continue this work. It is probably why those orphanage graduates got emotional standing in my office. They were not remembering candy jars or noisy electronic parrots. They were remembering how my father made them feel when they were children. I think somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, I inherited that part of him too. And for the first time in a long time, I did not mind being compared to my dad.

Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” The older I get, the more I realize that the greatest inheritances are often not money, possessions, or success, but the parts of ourselves that we pass down to others. So, thank you for helping us pass down good things to these children. Your prayers, encouragement, and support have become part of their inheritance too!

Yours because of Calvary,
John Woosik Chae

04/05/2026

May 2026 KCGM Newsletter from John Chae (www.kcgm.org):

My Dear Wonderful Friends,

Most of what I share in these newsletters tends to come from our orphanage. If I am being honest, that is because the children are closest to my heart. I see them every day, and their stories are easy to tell, easy to picture, and easy for you to connect with. At the same time, many of you know that our ministry here in Korea is not limited to the orphanage. Over the years, we have had the privilege of being involved in numerous church plants, and several of you have asked if I could share more about that side of the ministry as well.

So this month, I want to write to you about one of the pastors we have been walking alongside for almost a decade now. His name is Pastor Son. I know him well because I actually grew up with him. He was the children’s pastor at the church I grew up in. I remember him as someone who was always fun and always full of life. He had a way of finding joy in the simplest things, especially food. He loved eating good food, talking about food, and even preaching about food (He preached about Jesus obviously, but his illustrations were always about food).

Anyway, about ten years ago, he became convinced that God was calling him to plant a church in a small coastal city called Gangjin, which only had a population of about 16,000, but was surrounded by a number of similar-sized towns with very few churches between them. He asked if we would partner with him, and we gladly did.

For the next few years, Pastor Son put everything he had in this church plant. He sold all his possessions to finance the operation. Night and day, he prayed and strategized. To me, it really felt like no one worked or prayed harder than Pastor Son. He was not shy about asking for help either. At one point, he had a young energetic praise team from Seoul travel down every week to lead worship, because he wanted to connect with the younger generation in that city. He also opened a children’s library inside the church to reach out to families in the neighborhood. He asked if we could help fill the shelves, and since we were already operating a children’s library at the orphanage, we gladly sent books from our collection.

The church grew rapidly. Eventually, they surpassed one hundred members. Things were going so well that they even made a down payment on a beautiful church building. Not long after I moved to Korea, I remember visiting this new church building with my parents and letting him know how proud we were of him and the church. Just being there, you could really feel the energy of the church. There was so much momentum. We arrogantly believed that the growth could not be stopped.

Then, of course, God immediately humbled us (as He often does), in the form of COVID19. The timing felt almost uncanny. If the church had just a little more time to stabilize, it might have made it through. If it had been planted after COVID, the outcome might have been very different. As I mentioned, Gangjin is a small town, and many of the members were traveling in from surrounding areas. With travel restrictions and strict limits on gatherings, attendance dropped quickly. Here in Korea, those restrictions lasted for nearly three years! As time went on, membership declined, and the financial burden of the building became too heavy. In the end, they never recovered, and they had to close the church…

It was a devastating turn of events. We were heartbroken, especially when he started mailing the books from his library back to us. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for him after pouring his heart and soul into the church. So, when I called him to see how he was doing, I put on my most concerned and sympathetic voice. I expected him to sound listless and worn out, but to my surprise, he didn’t. In fact, he looked and sounded just about the same as always. He still laughed a lot. He continued to joke. He continued to smile. He continued to talk about good food and what restaurant he wanted to take me when I visited. I didn’t know what to make of it. It didn’t match what I expected at all.

At the least, I thought he would need some time to recover from the loss, but almost immediately, he shared with me that he had finalized plans for another church plant, this time in a larger city a few hours away. He approached this new church plant with a different strategy. Instead of purchasing a building, they would rent. Instead of relying heavily on outside help, he would work with what he had so that the growth would be more organic and sustainable. He said that many of the original members were going to help form the core, and even his daughter was old enough to serve alongside him in meaningful ways. He had all these new ideas for reaching people in the city!

I actually had the opportunity to visit this new church last week, and I was deeply encouraged, because you could instantly tell that the new congregation shared his spirit. During his sermon, he gave a testimony that really stuck with me. He described himself as a simple man. He shared that simple things bring him joy, especially a good meal (there were a few knowing chuckles after this line). He shared that after the first church closed, many people came to him and asked how he was doing. They were concerned for him and expected him to be discouraged. He said he did not really understand why they felt so sorry for him. He explained it this way. When he is eating something delicious, he is happy in that moment. In that moment, nothing else matters. That is enough for him. He is simply grateful for what is in front of him.

That simple confession moved me, because knowing him I knew it was genuine. If I had to describe what I respect about him, I might use words like resilience or perseverance. At the same time, those words do not fully capture what I see in him. There is a simplicity in his faith and in his outlook on life that I admire.

I find myself wanting to grow in that same way. I think sometimes I’m too much of a sulker. I dwell too much on the past. Do you ever feel that way? When it feels like everything is falling apart and plans do not go the way I expect, I tend to get stuck on what went wrong and struggle to move on. Watching Pastor Son, I was reminded that it is possible to lose almost everything and still sit down, enjoy a good meal, give thanks, and keep going. And I hope, in your own life, you come to experience that same kind of grace from God. As it says in 1 Timothy 6:6, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” God bless you!

Yours because of Calvary,
John Woosik Chae

06/04/2026

April 2026 KCGM Newsletter from John Chae (www.kcgm.org)

My Dear Wonderful Friends,

I hope you had a wonderful Easter. Ours was good too. I handed out a lot of Easter eggs. Like your churches, Easter Sunday tends to bring a few more people than usual to our small orphanage congregation, which always makes the day feel a little fuller and a little more meaningful. This year, what made it especially memorable for me was seeing several of our graduates return to visit. There is something about seeing familiar faces after a long time that makes you realize how much life has moved forward in ways you do not always notice day to day (To put it another way, I felt old). I found myself giving them hugs and a few solid slaps on the back, asking where they had been and what they had been up to, and just enjoying catching up. Beneath all of that, there was also a quiet awareness that these were no longer the children we once knew, but young men and women now walking their own paths.

For example, there was one young man I saw last week for the first time in years! He is the older of two brothers who grew up in our home, and I had not seen him since he graduated, maybe four or five years ago now. I still remember him and his younger brother as little kids, the kind of boys you couldn’t resist reaching over and tussling their hair playfully. Now he stood in front of me tall and steady to the point where I could not even reach the top of his head anymore if I tried (I’m only five foot four, so it’s not that much of a feat really). What struck me, however, was not simply how he looked now, but how clearly I still remembered when he and his brother first came to us.

They were children of a troubled mother. At the time, no one fully understood that their mother was struggling with severe mental illness, and what eventually happened became widely known across the Korean news. One day, while bathing her young daughter (their older sister), she intentionally turned the water to its hottest setting, and in the chaos that followed, the girl eventually died. At that time, the older of the two brothers was still just a baby. In fact, his mother was carrying him on her back that day, which means that while she was doing this to her daughter, she was carrying her son at the same time. He witnessed all of it.

After this, the mother was sent to prison, and the baby was placed in the care of his grandmother. However, she was also living in extreme poverty without even a proper home. The boy and his grandmother stayed in a container at a street market where she worked, and the boy was often left alone while she tried to make a living. One day, the floor heating in that container became too hot, and he was severely burned on his stomach, which was the incident that finally brought the attention of child services and led to him being brought into our home.

I actually remember the very day he came to our home when I was just a high school student myself. At the time, he was our youngest child, and because of that he received a great deal of love and attention from everyone around him. For a baby who had already experienced so much, he smiled often, and at first that seemed like an encouraging sign. It was only later, through conversations with a counselor, that we came to understand that the constant smiling was also a way of coping, a response shaped by trauma rather than simply joy. As he grew older, there were moments when he would become quiet for long stretches of time or seem to drift away into his own thoughts, and those moments reminded us that there were deeper things he was still carrying. Even so, seeing him as a young man who had grown and was moving forward in life in his own way, there was a quiet sense of gratitude in simply being able to see that he was doing well.

His younger brother’s story unfolded differently. When this mother was sent to prison, she had been pregnant. She ended up giving birth in prison. In Korean prisons, a mother is allowed to keep a child born there, so this boy was raised within the prison for the first eighteen months of his life. Eventually, he too came to our home. His story was different, but in its own way, just as difficult. After all, it’s not hard to imagine what those first months of life in that environment must have been like. Still, he grew, and over time, he moved forward in his own way, just like his older brother.

So standing there while recalling this story, I found myself reflecting on how differently their lives began and how easily those beginnings could have defined everything that followed. Yet, through the years they spent growing up in our home, surrounded by the love and support that many of you have made possible, they are now in a very different place from where they started. Praise the Lord!

This is essentially what Easter is about, isn’t it? When you hear stories like this of our children, you quickly begin to understand that in Christ, a life is not defined by how it starts, but by how it is transformed by the power of the Resurrection! Maybe some of you are going through a difficult period in your life right now. I hope this reminds you that in Christ, your story is not finished. As Scripture reminds us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation! The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Happy Easter! He is risen! Thank you, as always, for walking with us in this work.

Yours because of Calvary,
John Woosik Chae

Korea Christian Gospel Mission

03/10/2026

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25/08/2026

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