I was born in July 7 1979 Los Angeles. I was raised by successful hard working parents. Only bad memory I have in my early childhood is that my father was an alcoholic. I moved to Korea when I was 6 yrs old. Due to my uncle being a secretary of defense in Korea, we lived very good life in Korea. At the time Korea was considered 3rd world country and if you’re related to a royal family you were treated with special treatment. When I was 8yrs old my family and I moved back to US.
I remember having hard time at school due to sudden changes. But up until my high school year, I lived good life but in the high school year I was getting into trouble and fights. I was sent away to military school because I was expelled from regular high school.
I was accepted to Univ. of Washington Because of my great performance in military school, but I had to drop out due to my family situation. I couldn’t focus at school because my parents were going through divorce and due to habits of my father's drinking problem. I started to associate myself with bad friends and started to abuse drugs again. My father started a new business in Korea after selling his old business which he operated in the United States, and I moved to Los Angeles to my mother’s place. About two years after, my father was murdered after being cheated on his new business venture by his business partner. I feel bad just thinking about him going through hard times and pains. I remember being mean to him because only time he called me was when he was drunk. I remember last time he called me drunk I hung up on him and that was the last time I’ve spoke to him. That hurts me until now because I never knew that was going to be the last time talking to him, it would have been different if I knew that was the last.
However, I was just hopping him to stop drinking... but now I think of him, he was going through bigger pain than anyone else. He lost his family and his money, literally everything... I don’t to know what I would do if I was in his situation. Well, I know who killed him but there was no justice for them because I think the killers were working with police. So the case was unsolved and dismissed. During that period, I was working for this company called flash page, which is a wholesale company selling pagers to cellular phone companies.
I have built myself up and started my own company in age of 24 with one of my business partners, who have cheated me out on my business. I’ve tried several other businesses, but every time I was cheated by my partners and now I’m in a law suit against my business partners for my last business. Even though I was running business, I was still addicted to my criminal lifestyle and drugs. I’ve done many crimes such as selling drugs, credit card fraud, and involved in many gang activities. I was so called enter-criminal. I was arrested 2 times for selling drugs. First they gave me probation, which was just a slap on the wrist. When I got caught for the second time it was no joke. They gave me six years in prison. That was the wakeup call for me and I stopped selling drugs.
At the time everything was going bad, I lost my business due to my partners cheating me out and also getting arrested which didn’t help at all. I was heavily addicted to drugs as well. One day when I was sitting at home miserable I have experienced spiritual awakening. For some reason I was feeling wired that day, getting goose bumps all day and tingling feeling on my head and my body. At night time all of sudden I started to cry because I was realizing that what I was doing was bad and I was living my life wrong. All of the sudden I felt so much at peace... Everything I was worrying about was gone… Some reason I was confident that god was going to take care of everything if I changed. I was so overwhelmed and happy. That was my happiest feeling I ever felt in my life. I thought I was in heaven.
Next morning when I went out side, all of sudden I’m hearing birds and it sounded like they were singing to me. Mother Nature looked so beautiful even the sound of the wind was just so peaceful. I was so overwhelmed about just being alive in this world and I was constantly thanking god for giving me the chance to live in this wonderful world. I have realized that living in this world was a privilege and I was realizing many things about life and the truth…. I knew everything was going to be good from that point. Due to help from pastor name Han. I was only sentenced to prison for 1 year instead of 6. I was blessed…. It was god working… While in prison I did lots of soul searching and try to find out where I stand. I have read bible and also many other spiritual books. I wanted to be a Christian but now I just want to be a spiritual man.
I do believe in god but I don’t think just believing in Jesus Christ will send you to heaven. I think the work is more important such as being kind, showing compassion, love other and helping others is the key to heaven. I don’t like the fact that Christians and many other religions are focused on recruiting people and calming that they have the exclusive rights to god. I think the purpose of the religion should be making this place a better place to live and making people into a better person instead of recruiting.
Well now I got out from the prison and still trying to find which path I need to go. I know one thing for sure I’m not the same person as before anymore. I do believe that I will be successful in life but it kind of hard to adjust to new life style from having everything to having nothing. I never thought that I would be in this position. I never thought that I would ride a bus to go around. It’s just new to me and hard. But I do have faith in god and this difficult life shall pass soon. Well there are many more details but this is best I can do to tell my story short…..
Just want to share my story…..
