06 March 2006

Cash and Christ Join Forces in California

Korean-American businessman Dong Soon Im and his wife of 35 years, Mi Ja Im, recently donated $1 million to UCLA to endow a chair in Korean Christianity.

The Ims describe themselves as "average" Los Angeles County employees and reborn Christians... Both of their grown children work, the daughter as a pharmacist at UCLA.

At a Jan. 24 dinner at UCLA in the Ims' honor, hosted by Executive Dean Patricia O'Brien, Mr. Im thanked God for making the donation possible. He said that he and his wife expect the chair to "provide fruitful wisdom and knowledge to many students for many years to come."

South Korea, a focus for Christian missionaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is now the second-largest training ground for them, following the United States.


UCLA's Center for Korean Studies is also supported by the Luce Foundation. Henry Luce, founder of Time, Inc., and his wife were Christian missionaries in China.

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