{"id":202,"date":"2016-08-03T10:29:18","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T15:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/?p=202"},"modified":"2016-08-30T21:34:59","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T02:34:59","slug":"letter-to-the-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/kilnamcha\/2016\/08\/03\/letter-to-the-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MyI know how to stop<\/em> conversations at market places. This is not a great personal trait in normal circumstances. Yet every time I stopped a conversation at market places, I thought about my colleagues who had honored me by extending their invitation to join them here at ACU and entrusting me with this ability to\u00a0stop<\/em>\u00a0conversations at market places.\u00a0I am grateful to my colleagues for their invitation and am richly blessed to work with them for the common goal of serving God and our students.<\/p>\n

Ever since we had made our final move (We have moved so many times ever since our marriage in 1986, and my wife Kyung says she doesn\u2019t want to move anymore) to Abilene in July 6, 2011, I\u2019ve been to Lowe\u2019s on Ambler so often that I have become acquainted with several employees there. On several occasions I started to carry conversations with some of them. During our conversations, four times I was asked the same question: \u201cWhat do you do for living?\u201d I typically answer, \u201cI teach at ACU.\u201d Then they ask, \u201cWhat do you teach?\u201d My answer is, of course, \u201cI teach the Bible.\u201d That always does it! Each time our conversation was ended right there as if\u00a0they didn\u2019t know how to respond to my answer. Maybe they didn\u2019t want to talk about religion. That was why they stopped the conversation. All four of them? I doubt it. On other occasions a couple of employees tried to guess my vocation by asking, \u201cAre you military?\u201d or \u201cAre you an IT guy?\u201d My perception is that an Asian guy teaching the Bible in the heart of Texas may have been the last thing they expected to hear. A usual case scenario in Abilenians\u2019 mind may be Americans teaching the Bible to foreigners, not the other way around. I could be wrong in thinking that way, but it makes me all the more grateful for my colleagues’ invitation to be part of the Bible faculty at ACU.<\/p>\n

I still remember vividly one day soon after my immigration to America thirty-four years ago: I lamented in Korean, \u201cI wish I could speak English well so that I can talk about philosophy in English.\u201d I did not know what to do with my life at the time. I majored in electrical engineering in Korea, but I didn\u2019t want to do that for the rest of my life. I wanted to do something more meaningful. Soon after my conversion experience I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life \u2013 study the Bible and help young people in their struggle for meaning in life. Then some twenty years later it dawned on me as I was teaching at Cascade College in Portland, Oregon, that God had listened to my lament and granted that opportunity \u2013 I was teaching the Bible in ENGLISH! I love what I do. I\u2019ve told so many people including my students that I have my dream job at my dream school, i.e., ACU. I am grateful to God and my colleagues for entrusting me with this great responsibility of teaching the Bible to our students at ACU, my alma mater.<\/p>\n

Five years at ACU have gone by so quickly, and I now respectfully submit this portfolio so that I can continue to participate in what God does by inspiring and challenging my students with God\u2019s Word, and occasionally stop conversations at market places, but with the hope that my answer will soon no longer stop our conversations but instead lead to more meaningful ones. This portfolio demonstrates that I have made contributions to the University in my unique way and that I have met all university and departmental tenure criteria as described in the faculty handbook. I look forward to continual growth as a Christian and a colleague at ACU.<\/p>\n

Grace and Peace,<\/p>\n

Kilnam Cha<\/p>\n

Teaching<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n