Alumni Story John Chae '02

By The Strategic Communications Department

John

Chae grew up in Korea, and attended SFS until graduating high school in 2002. He attended college in the United States before returning to Korea. Today, John runs the orphanage his father started in the 60s, and maintains a close relationship with SFS. We asked John to reflect on how service became an important focal point for his life.

TB: How was your time at SFS?

JC: I only have positive memories of my time at SFS. It’s really helped me with my self esteem, and I'm really big on the values of the school. It's not something that I was aware of, exactly what the values were, when I was a student. But it's permeated with how everyone treated each other. And so, saying my experience was positive, a lot of it had to do with the friends that I made and the faculty. But a lot of it also had to do with learning about who I am. Molding my character was a big aspect of my time here, a big influence on me. I went to a lot of different public schools before I came to SFS, in fourth grade. A lot of my self esteem was based on how people understood my parents work, my family background. And there were times when running an orphanage was thought of kind of negatively. One thing that people always misunderstood, or a follow up question I would get is, was I an orphan myself. So I lived a lot of my life feeling that shame of being thought of as an orphan.

TB: Why was that shameful?

JC: At that time, it was shameful to me. Because in Korean society, being an orphan is looked down upon, even today. So even when orphans graduate today, it's hard for them to find successful careers. So many things are based on network, who you know, and a lot of it's hidden. But your family class still matters in life today. And so to be associated with orphans, was something that even our kids today try to hide. And as some of our kids come back from school, they'll take a roundabout route back to the orphanage because they don't want their friends to see them and decipher that they live in an orphanage. When I was young, that was a part of my psyche, too, that I didn't want to be mistaken for an orphan. But when I came to SFS, the way they looked at my parents, what my parents did, was so different. It was something that a lot of people respected. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was the son of the best parents anybody could have. And I think a lot of that has to do with the values of the school. And when my teachers found out, the first thing they asked me was, Oh, can we do service projects with the orphanage? They wanted to get involved. So a lot of my good memories are based around the fact that the school was so supportive of what my family did, that it became something that I was proud of. It used to be something that I was ashamed of, and it became something that I was most proud of. It's funny, because when I was in adolescence, I always told my parents that I'm never ever going to do this work, don't ever think I'm gonna grow up to take over this orphanage, because I just wanted to get away from it all. And it's funny now, because I did eventually take over the work. That's what I'm doing now. And a lot of that is due to SFS flipping my understanding of what this is, from something that I'm associated with, to something that I can be proud of.

TB: Reflecting on those values, how do you think the school shaped them?

JC: If I compare SFS to other schools at that time in my life, serving was not something that was emphasized in other schools, serving others that are less fortunate, or caring for the community. That was de-emphasised. It's interesting because SFS is also an academically ambitious school. The students that come here and the parents expect that it will lead to good academics. And sometimes, the level of the families that send [their kids] to SFS, because it's expensive, they're higher up in society. But the way the school functions, it's not arrogant. It's just all about academic school. And so, faith was emphasized, which was interesting because I had gone to public schools, and to have the Christian faith be an integral part, that was something that I wasn’t used to. That really stood out to me. Just the emphasis on service. You would think, at such an ambitious school, that that wouldn't be a point of emphasis. But in the British school they're doing this huge thing. They're inviting me to speak, and students are preparing projects to help orphans. That's unheard of in a lot of schools that have an equal academic reputation as SFS. So those types of values, building character, a lot of that stood out to me.

TB: Do you have any memory of a service project you did while you were here?

JC: Once people found out that my parents ran an orphanage, we did a lot of service projects for our orphanage. The student council would just have a school dance, or a fundraiser for something. But once the teachers found out that my parents ran an orphanage, we started going on an annual basis to my orphanage. We'd clean, do laundry there, or do a lot of weeding. And we would do these service projects. That made me very, very proud. The first one in particular when we took students there. When our time was up, the whole council wanted to stay longer. And I remember as a kid thinking like, wow, why do they want to stay longer? Because it was something that was a part of my daily life. But everyone had so much fun, and they wanted it to last longer. If you look at my middle school yearbooks, the page that's dedicated to the Student Senate, that whole page is filled with pictures of us serving at our orphanage.

TB: So you vowed never to take over the orphanage, and yet here you are. When and how did that happen?

JC: The first part of that is really my SFS experience, becoming proud of that work. And then the next part of that is that I went to UC Berkeley in California for college. My first major was economics. I was trying to go the business route, and actually ended up doing an MBA as well. I worked at a publishing company for a couple years. And what I realized was that the work really didn't fulfill me, so it got dry really quick. The concept of making money by working for a company that's trying to make money wasn't doing it for me. And I realized that pretty early. It wasn't even a year, I think, when I realized I needed a purpose. And I think there are businesses out there that do have a purpose. But what I was involved in wasn't giving me a sense of fulfillment. And the way I escaped it was, I ended up going to seminary. I always had faith, but the reason I went to seminary was I felt like I wanted to do, as a job, something that would really give me that sense of fulfillment. And I wanted it to be doing good or investing in people rather than products. And so I spent a lot of time in the States as a youth pastor or as an English pastor. But at some point, my parents asked me if I wanted to come back to Korea and take over. It was a big challenge, because I'm an American, language-wise, network-wise, and understanding how social welfare works. I had learned none of that before I got here. It was a big stretch, but I wanted to give it a shot. I came in the summer of 2018, so it's been a little over five years. And God really helped me because I never thought I could actually lead the thing, but now I'm leading. So far, no big major issues.

TB: How many children do you have in the orphanage? How does the system work?

JC: At any given time we have between 40 to 60 kids. Right now we have 44 kids. That's actually an all time low for us. A lot of that is due to the birth rate being very low in Korea. The country's wealthier now. So there's a lot fewer disadvantaged kids. Some of our kids who are children of teenage moms, for example, who have a lot of shame in their family for having a child and so they abandon their child. Those kids get registered through the government, and the district sends us these kids. We have a lot of kids who have abusive parents, and we could get kids whose parents are maybe in prison, or alcoholics or drug addicts. We have kids of North Korean defectors. We have a set of twins whose mom escaped North Korea. She was trying to get to South Korea, but it was a long journey, through China. And along the way, she had two twin girls. And then when she got here, it's not easy for defectors to assimilate into society. So her kids were left in our care. Some kids have parents who are going through extreme financial hardship. Some parents might have mental issues. We have a boy who came because he lived with his dad and his grandmother, and his dad passed away in a work accident. And then his grandmother got cancer. He couldn't live with them anymore, so he came to us. Whatever circumstance that puts these kids in a position where they can't grow up at home, we'll take them in, and it's all done kind of through the government. They'll distribute kids to us.

TB: So the orphanage is government subsidized?

JC: Well, there are two elements to it. There's government subsidies, which have been really good in recent years. And the best part is, the government will cover a salary for most of our staff. It's like a ratio, depending on how many kids we have, they determine how much they will subsidize us for, how many people you need in the cafeteria, people you need in the rooms. If there are a lot of younger kids, they'll subsidize more teachers, because the younger kids take more adults to care for them. About 70% of all our basic expenses come from the government. Part of it is that, and then part of it is we fundraise on our own. 30% of our support comes from fundraising, especially if it's something that we want to pursue that's religious, or beyond the basic needs that the government provides. We're a Christian orphanage. So our mission is really important to us. And it's not just to raise the kids in a home, but it's to raise them in a Christian home. At a financial or resources level, our goal is for them to not be at a disadvantage, but also we want them to meet God, if possible, in their time there. We want to raise them in a Christian home, where we love them as a family would. We'll have service or a youth group or Vacation Bible School. We'll do all these things that give them an exposure to God. And our hope is that by the time they graduate, they'll have their faith to lean on as well. A lot of that component comes from fundraising. And we're lucky that we have a lot of churches from the United States support us as well. There's a lot of pressure for us to forgo our religious emphasis, because that's kind of a big thing now, freedom of religion. But that's our main vision.

And another big thing is a lot of graduates of orphanages struggle in society once they get out. Like I said, family backgrounds are an important thing. But financially, they just don't have something to rely on. So a big thing that we do is seed accounts, where we'll have sponsors that save up money in their own personal accounts. And then once they graduate, we'll give it to them so they'll have a big lump sum of money. They could get sick, something might happen, or they might need help with housing, whatever. That's another thing that we do to try to make sure that the kids' futures are insured. But even then, kids have a hard time.

TB: What happens when they grow out of the system?

JC: So, a lot of them struggle. What's been interesting is that lately, the government has been good about designating a lot of money, especially towards that 18 to 23 age group, because that's right during that transition. So the government is very good about that. They can get free housing, possibly free tuition. They'll get a stipend, a monthly stipend to help them live. There are actually a lot of benefits.

TB: So the Korean government is aware, and it’s doing something.

JC: It’s doing something. But actually it's had a negative impact overall, because once these kids turn 18, and they leave our home, they feel like they're in plenty. It's like a five year period, where they’re going to school for free, they get a free apartment, they get a monthly allowance, things are really good. But it gets them used to things being really good. And a lot of them will slack off, or they'll spend money freely. They won't save. And there's no adults, because they're adults now, so we can't control how they live. We can encourage them, but we can't control it. And all of that ends at age 23, once they graduate school or once they hit 23 years old. All of that goes away suddenly. That's when they struggle, because they're used to living a certain lifestyle, and then they can't uphold it. So I think the first part of the government addressing it was "okay, we're gonna throw a lot of money at that risk phase." But it's not nuanced.

TB: It doesn’t come with support.

JC: I think the next step is to find a system that's actually good for the kids, where there's accountability. Not just, here's all this money, but give it to them in a way that kind of educates them. Not just free tuition to go to school, but how to live. It's that weird gap where we don't have any official supervision over them. And then the kids are 18, and suddenly, for the first time in their lives, they have all this money. And a lot of them are spending 1000s of dollars on their games and stuff. They haven't been trained for that. So a big thing for us now is before they leave our home, we want to train them. We have this one room that we were using as a quarantine room during COVID. It's called the Self Reliance room. It's basically like an apartment within our orphanage campus. And we want to be able to help 18 year olds, once they get close to the age of leaving the home, to be like, "Okay, why don't you guys go live there and practice living on your own? Cook for yourselves, take care of yourselves." They get that practice so that when they go out, they're not just completely lost. So we're trying to do different things to address that issue. I heard a statistic where the suicide rate is so high in Korea. But they say even among kids that have lived in a facility like ours, the suicide rate for the kids aged 18 to 23 is even higher. That's just a tough transition time. There's not enough fundraising for it because supporters love to see pictures of a little baby. It's easy to give money, to care for them and pray for them. No one's looking at a picture of a 20 year old and saying I want to help this guy.

TB: How can the SFS service community help?

JC: There's a lot of support. I think you guys actually work closely with a friend of mine who does a mentorship program for the kids who age out, John Miko. He gives them a scholarship, as long as they have a close relationship and stay in contact with their mentors, that there's a lot of accountability that's established. But I think, at this point, what's most important is these kids have to have a lot of attention. Before, even in the 90s, it was financial struggle that was the biggest thing. But now, we're much better than before. It's how do we use that money to make the kids feel like they have a community around them. And so I think the investment that's needed is, in a way, more difficult now, because there has to be a more personal investment, where the kids have a community input. Because of their lack of family, they need something that is like a federal support system for them. And so I love anything that has to do with mentoring. And it's even harder because the kids now, the emphasis is on their rights. We're not allowed to even post pictures of them on anything, because it's a privacy issue. So it's even harder now to connect them with mentors. But I think that's a lost opportunity. Because not only the young kids, but even the older kids and the kids that age out, they really need those adult relationships. A lot of the kids that leave, that's what they say is one of the hardest parts about being an adult, is they feel alone. They love it at first. They're like, "Oh, no one's telling me to go to bed or how I spend my money." But then, a couple years in, they realize "Man, I really have no accountability." I think mentorship is the key word, just finding ways that we can provide community for that.

TB: Switching gears, did you stay in touch with your SFS peers?

JC: Some of my best friends are still my SFS friends, and the most humbling aspect of it is that a lot of my SFS friends support our work. I send out newsletters to people, like my supporters, and recently I put out a newsletter that said I started a magnet collection at the orphanage. Basically, wherever I go, I'll buy a souvenir magnet. And I realized the kids were loving them, because they will come and look at them, and they're like, "oh, where's this from?" And I thought it was good for their psyche, because it's showing them how big the world is, and giving them a curiosity to travel and explore. And so I wrote in my letter, if you guys have any magnets from wherever you are, wherever you visit, if you send them to me, I'll put them up, and it'll be great for the kids. And when I write these letters, I don't know if anybody reads them. I get letters from other missionaries, and sometimes I just delete them, because I'm busy. But the outpouring of support that came from it, and a lot of it from my SFS friends, people I wasn't even that close to read my letter and sent me magnets from Europe, and all over the United States. And so my magnet collection that I had five or six of, I have a whole wall full of magnets now. And a lot of them are from my SFS friends. I think that all goes back to their values, the way they were educated. They grew up understanding that helping those that are helpless, like orphans, is something that they want to be a part of. And so it's not particularly that they like John Chae, or we were best friends. It's more like, "Oh, here's a guy that I knew that does something for this group of helpless folks. And so I'm going to help in any way I can." I almost feel bad. I wish I was better when I was a student. I wish I was more generous and better to them when I was in school.

TB: Clearly you must have done something right.

JC: Or it’s the work. I guess they think it's good. I wasn't the meanest, but I wasn't the nicest. And they've been so gracious to me. So yeah, I will always have love and gratitude towards the SFS community. I can't donate much to the school, because I don't have that much money. But anytime anyone asks me something, anytime the British school asks me to come and speak, I'll definitely make time to do that, because I just want to give back to all of them.

TB: And that's what we emphasize, that there are many ways to give back. And we don't mean financially; just what you're doing is giving back to the community. And it's so valuable, that kind of transmission of values from former students to current students and the cycle goes on. And that's what makes the SFS community so wonderful.

JC: It is wonderful. It's funny, because I'm applying for my son, my oldest son. He's actually coming in for his interview tomorrow, to get into first grade. We think he might not get in because his English is not very good. So I don't know if he's at the level where he'll be accepted into the school, but I hope so. Because the school has had such an impact on my life, that when I moved here, I only imagined sending my own kids to SFS to get what I got. It's always been my dream. Obviously, there are more factors than just financially. School is expensive here, all that stuff, but I always felt like if there's a way, I would love for my kid to grow up here with this community, with this set of values.

Thanks a lot to John for taking the time to talk to us.