Cheese Priest of Korea

 

In the recent Catholic Times View From the Ark column, a college professor expresses his appreciation for the missioner known as the cheese priest of Korea.

Father Ji-Hwan Jeong (池正煥, Didier t’Serstevens) was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1931. Upon graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the Belgian Missionary Society (La Société des Auxiliaires des Missions) founded by Father Vincent Lebbe (1877-1940). He wanted to go to the poorest country in the world and live among them as a brother of the people, learning from them and doing with them what they wanted to do through what they knew.

Father Jeong Ji-hwan was ordained a priest in 1958 and arrived in Busan on December 8 of the following year. Since then, he has performed his priestly duties at Jeondong, Buan, and Imsil parishes in the Diocese of Jeonju, especially accompanying poor farmers. In the process, he lost his gallbladder in Buan and acquired other medical problems in Imsil. These were the medals he received for living as the 'light of God' and the 'rainbow of Caritas' sent by God to the poor people of this land.

In the process of developing Imsil cheese, he began to detect symptoms of paralysis in his body as early as 1976. Then, in 1976, his right leg became paralyzed, leaving him unable to walk. Due to his discomfort, he ended his activities at the Imsil Cheese Association and went to his hometown in Belgium in 1981 to receive treatment, but it was eventually confirmed that he could not be completely cured. When the doctor advised him to leave the hospital, he suggested, “If you stop working, it will get worse.” He took this as a message of hope, and on October 13, 1983, in slightly better condition, he returned to the Diocese of Jeonju, Korea in a wheelchair. I'm back.

“This is my hometown.” These words naturally came out of Father Ji-hwan Jeong’s mouth as he returned to Jeonju Diocese and met the people who had been waiting for him. “Okay, now let’s bury the bones here!” He decided where he would live in God and return to Him.

When Father Ji was recommended to minister to the disabled by Bishop Park Jeong-il (Michael), he responded immediately. "yes." In February 1984, he took on the role of pastoral guidance priest for the disabled in the diocese. In July of that year, with the cooperation of Kim Young-ja (Martha) and others, Father Jeong Ji-hwan accompanied the first disabled community. They expanded and moved the community in March of the following year, and the community later received the name ‘Rainbow Family.’ In 1989, Father Ji, a witness of God’s hope, moved with the ‘Rainbow Family’ to today’s completed village, ‘Soyang-myeon’ (所陽面), a sunny village, where he continued to spread joy and hope to many.

Father Ji, who accompanied the Rainbow Family for nearly 20 years, received the Ho-Am Award for community service in May 2002, and retired the following year in July 2003, leaving the Rainbow Family. After receiving his Ho-Am Award, he established the Rainbow Scholarship Foundation to provide education for people with disabilities and their families. Even after retirement, he lived as a priest of God, living in a house 'under the stars' in Soyang-myeon, not far from the Rainbow Family, working for the Rainbow Scholarship Foundation and restoring materials left behind by missionaries from the Paris Foreign Mission Society in France in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He passed away on April 4, 2019. 

This year marks the 5th anniversary of his death and the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Rainbow Family. He acquired a disability in the process of spreading God's hope to the people of this land, and used his disability as a sacred opportunity to serve the disabled, helping countless disabled people live new lives. At the bottom of his ministry with the disabled was an understanding of human beings centered on their being as ‘children of God’ and as ‘a person from God’ as they were before they were disabled. We hope that the 'existence-centered' tradition of accompanying the disabled, which Father Ji testified to with his entire being, can be truly embodied and sublimated in today's Rainbow Family and all the institutions accompanying the disabled, in the world. The columnist is deeply grateful to Father Ji.