Breaking down barriers

Liberty professor Dr. Jaeshil Kim will spend a semester teaching in Vietnam

When Jaeshil Kim became a Christian 20 years ago, she had no idea where God would take her.

Originally from Korea, Kim is a professor of linguistics at Liberty University and holds a doctorate in linguistics from the University of California-Irvine (UCI). After completing her doctoral program, Kim taught linguistics courses at UCI for two years before becoming a faculty member at Liberty in 2007.

“Ever since I came to Liberty, I have been blessed with so many good students who are not only academically strong, but are also very godly and very sincere,” Kim said.

According to Kim, her students are the highlight of her teaching career, adding that she prayed about leaving UCI because she wanted to have more intentional relationships with her students, something she could not do in classes of more than 300 people each.

In addition to her linguistic interests, Kim has a passion for mission work and sharing the gospel, a passion that led to a mission trip with a group of Liberty students to Thailand in 2011 abroad to teach English to underprivileged children.

Upon returning to the United States, Kim realized that her short-term mission trip had become much more than that to her — she had a burden that she could not shake.

“Ever since I came back from Thailand in 2011, I realized that there is a great need in the mission field for helping the missionary teachers who are actually teaching English and ministering in the field,” Kim said. “Whenever I went into the mission field, I encountered lots of missionary teachers who were having a hard time teaching English at the schools that they run or coming up with good curriculums.”

Knowing that teaching English is a common way that missionaries build bridges to sharing the gospel, Kim felt compelled to do something about the problem she was seeing. So she did.

Last year, Kim designed a Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) certificate workshop especially for missionaries who are teaching English in the field. She then traveled with Paul Muller, an English and linguistics professor at Liberty, and a group of students to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to put the workshop into action — teaching missionaries from five different countries — for three weeks.

“I encourage my students to teach (English) with humble hearts,” Kim said. “You really have to put yourself in their (language learner’s) shoes. When you’re teaching English, you have to discern your students’ needs first. They are struggling with the language; you have to come up with a way to help your students. And of course, by doing that, you are going to learn from your students.”

The workshop was a success, and Kim became even more aware of her desire to be directly engaged in international mission work.

For Kim, missions is something that is also deeply personal. She was first introduced to the gospel by a missionary couple living in California, during her first year of the doctoral program at UCI.

The couple had been missionaries in Thailand for more than 30 years, ministering to the children of lepers, who were often discriminated against because of the disease of their parents. They were societal outcasts, and lacked educational opportunities. In response, the couple started a school for the children of lepers in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital.

Reflecting on the influence that missionaries have had in her own life, Kim began praying about how she should be involved in the mission field.

In January of this year, she received a call from a representative of an organization called Bridge Builders Global (BBG), who told her that they had been praying about developing some educational opportunities in Vietnam and neighboring Southeast Asian countries. She was then asked to pray about her involvement in the effort.

“They told me about this opportunity, (and) I think that it is not from them, but it’s actually from God,” Kim said. “So I told them (that) I’d been praying about this kind of education opportunity that I could do.”

Kim said she began praying over the invitation, and in February, she had her answer: she was ready to be a part of the team.

Thinking that her time at Liberty had come to and end, she shared her calling with other faculty members from the English and Modern Languages department, and found that they were just as excited as she was. And they still wanted her to teach at Liberty.

This past March, a proposal was drafted that would allow Kim to teach linguistics residentially one semester per year, while spending the rest of her time in Vietnam. The proposal was accepted by the university this April, and Kim will return to Liberty in early January 2016 to teach.

As a member of the BBG team, Kim will be assessing the educational needs of the Vietnamese people, specifically working on the development of a K-12 school and the creation of an effective English education curriculum.

To Kim, seeking the Lord’s will means being proactive “When God calls you, do not hesitate,” Kim said.

Monday, Sept. 7, Kim will travel for a total of 23 hours to Vietnam, the country she will call home for the next few months.

“I’m excited about this opportunity, but since I’ve never done this before, I feel like I’m stepping into this great unknown,” Kim said. “And yes, I am a little bit scared, but I think God is in control. It’s not me. So I just depend on him.”

GRAF is a feature reporter.