Read letters from Don and Sook Choi
2016
March - Missionary Doctors' Visit
older Letters
December 2015 - First-Year Challenges
September 2015 - Rolling Down a Hill
June 2015 - Travails and Blessings
March 2015 - Settling In
November 2014 - Introducing Ourselves
Summer 2014 - Preparing to Leave
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 239
Don and Sook Choi
Mission Co-Workers in Indonesia since 2014
Serving at the invitation of the Duta Wacana Christian University
Give to Don and Sook's Ministry
Meet Don and Sook in a videoDownload Don and Sook's prayer card
Contact: Don Choi (don.choi@pcusa.org)
Contact: Sook Choi (sook.choi@pcusa.org)
Don and Sook will next be in the USA June-July 2016. Email them or to extend an invitation to visit your congregation or organization.
About Don and Sook Choi's Minsitry
Duta Wacana Christian University is a highly respected academic institution supported by several Christian denominations in Indonesia. It plays an important role in preparing ordained and lay leaders for the country’s churches. Yet the school is open to people of all faiths and seeks to build positive interfaith relationships. As an international adviser to the president, Don Choi will help build an international network to strengthen five new master’s degree programs the school has started or will soon start. He will help Duta Wacana connect with universities and non-governmental organizations in the United States and in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Presbyterian-related colleges in the United States will be a special focus. His job will also include facilitating student/faculty exchanges, joint research projects, and dual degree opportunities and promoting cultural awareness and understanding of the US/Indonesia friendship on campus and among Duta Wacana’s partners. Sook Choi will teach art primarily in the Department of Architecture and will serve as an English instructor in the school’s new undergraduate Department of English. In addition, she will support student extracurricular activities especially among local arts and culture groups.
Country Context
The Republic of Indonesia was formed in 1945 when it claimed its independence from Dutch rule. Indonesia’s population consists of many people groups who live on the 5,000 inhabited islands across the archipelago. Indonesia is home to the world’s largest religious Muslim population, and adherents to Islam make up about 85 percent of the population. Christianity, the faith of about 10 percent of the people, came to Indonesia in the early 16th century with the arrival of Westerners. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) began its involvement in Indonesia in the 20th century and continues to serve with partners in Christian higher education, theological education, interfaith relations, and disaster assistance.
About Don and Sook Choi
For Don, answering the call to mission was a “natural progression” of what he calls the “law of abundant life.”
“This abundant life, epitomized in Jesus’ death on the cross followed by his Resurrection, is a gift of God that we receive as we ‘lose our lives,’ which in essence means that we start living for God and others,” Don says.
A decade ago he sensed God urging him to live focused less on himself and more on God and others. This eventually led Don, a mechanical engineer who holds a doctorate in the field, to earn a seminary degree, complete clinical pastoral education and a pastoral internship, and fulfill requirements for ordination to be a teaching elder. Through prayerful discernment he determined he was called to serve in international mission.
Initially Sook was cool toward the idea of overseas mission work. Don shared his call, but Sook had a recurring question: “Why has God not spoken anything about (serving in mission) to me?”
Things changed one day in October 2013. Sook had a “flashback moment” that included mental images that she describes as being similar to a “vivid HD, 3D film.” Her mind raced back to age 13 when she was a new Christian. She and others in her church youth group were participating in an overnight prayer vigil. “I was praying, and all of the sudden I heard a small voice asking me if I would do mission work when I grew up,” she recalls. She resisted saying yes, but the question was repeated twice, and finally she said, “I will go.”
Sook says she had forgotten about that experience, but God had not. Her recollection of that moment led her to carefully consider the prospect of “the precious role of teaching young Indonesians.”
“Little by little I grew to like the idea,” she says. “Also the idea of exercising my talents that God has given to me makes me feel like I am closer to my true self and to God.”
Don looks forward to helping Duta Wacana expand its global reach. “While keeping the big picture in mind, my focus is on the lives of the individuals and communities in the immediacy of Duta Wacana,” he says.
Indonesia is the site of their first mission appointment, but it will not be Don and Sook's first encounter with living cross-culturally. Both were born in South Korea, moved to Brazil as youngsters, and came to the United States as young adults.
Don earned undergraduate degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from the University of Sao Paulo and a doctorate from Stanford University. He earned his seminary degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary. After working for several California companies as an engineer, he founded his own engineering consulting company, Choi Associates, where he was employed immediately prior to his mission appointment.
Sook holds a bachelor’s degree in art from the San Francisco Art Institute and a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of California, Berkeley. She taught art and was a principal at Palo Alto Art Studio before starting mission service.
Don and Sook’s home church is Daesung Presbyterian Church in Sunnyvale, California. Don will be ordained as a teaching elder by San Jose Presbytery later in 2014.
Don and Sook are the parents of three adult children, Beatrice, Jean Hyung, and Grace.
Birthdays:
Don - June 27
Sook - April 29
