Will Jeong

Foster City, California, USA

+1 (650) 245 - 7898  mobile

contact me

In Defense of Jeong Myeong-seok (정명석)

Jeong Myeong-seok (정명석), pronounced jong myong-sock (officially Romanized until 1999 as Chŏng Myŏng-sŏk and after 2000 as Jeong Myeong-seok) is the controversial leader of a new religious movement generally known as Providence (religion).  His Korean name is not 중뮹석, as the old Romanization of his name, Jung Myung Seok, would suggest, but 정명석.   His Western name is Joshua Jeong, or, using the incorrect Romanization, Joshua Jung.  He is also known as Seon Saeng Nim (선생님), the Korean word for teacher, as R for Rabbi, the Hebrew word for teacher, or as Pastor Joshua. 

My Testimony

My name is William Jeong.  I came to Providence when I was 20 years old, and I am now 25.  When I look back at how I came to Providence, and what it took me to get here, I am truly amazed, and thankful to God, who has been with me all along.  I was born and raised as a Buddhist, who fervently believed and diligently carried around my Buddha beads and went to temple.  Eventually, life brought me to my first Christian church, where it took my friend 4 years of prayer and me a year of going to the services to accept who Jesus was, and what he meant to me in my life.  I believe I’ve always been someone who had a strong conscience, and strong convictions.  I knew what was right and wrong inside, but there wasn’t anything strong enough at the time to keep my body from following the path of righteousness all the time.  So I stumbled, I questioned, and I fell away.  Throughout that time of darkness, I always believed in God and Jesus still.  I believed that if they truly wanted me, they would lead me to a place where I could strengthen myself, and be the person I wanted to be, but wasn’t strong enough to actualize at the time.  I finally found myself moving away from my home in San Francisco, and going to Long Beach State in Southern California.  There, I felt something different, and I started to believe that God had a greater plan for me.  It was there that I met someone named Peter, and began learning a bible study that revolutionized my thinking, answered my prayers, and gave me a sense of stability in faith, that wasn’t just theory, but actual reality.  What I came to realize at the time, was that the only thing that can keep me from stumbling, was the true words from God.  Because within those words, lies all the direction and secrets of living a heavenly life.  I became a member of the Providence church 2 months afterwards.

Providence is many different things to many different people.  To some, it might be a weird religion, to others, it might be just another different denomination, and still to others, it might be a cult.  But for me, in my years of Providence, and from all that I’ve seen, experienced, heard, and lived, it is a place where God is manifesting himself on the earth every single day.  Joshua Jeong, who I now call my teacher, has never showed me anything contrary to what I believe him to be.  I consider myself rational, reasonable, and sane.  But for me to follow the man that certain people have portrayed as a bad person, would be very irrational, unreasonable, and insane of me.  I am not a stranger to all the things that have been said about Joshua Jeong.  I am also not unaware of all the ways these people who are saying such things, have tried to physically, mentally, and socially harm him.  But it is in those times, that I take an even closer look at him, and see his response.  See his actions.  See what he says.  Despite all the negativity that is presented before him, he acts and conducts himself with dignity, with humility, and with much grace. 

Joshua Jeong is someone who has prayed for years in the mountains, read the bible thousands of times, fasted for up to 70 days, and evangelized countless numbers of people.  If there is someone who has maybe done the same things, who has maybe prayed in the mountains for even more years, read the bible millions of times, fasted for maybe 71 days, and evangelized half the world, then maybe this person might have something valid to say.  Joshua Jeong always says that the scariest person, is the person who has set the greatest conditions.  Because unless someone has set the same or greater conditions, what can anyone really say about this person?

So I continue to follow this path that Joshua Jeong has paved with all of his life, all of his will, and all of his heart.  I continue to live by the truths that he speaks of, and see how my life has changed, improved, and become even more blessed than I could have ever of imagined.  In Providence, I can finally say that I’ve found a place where I truly belong, with a teacher, that has taught me more than the world, more than the heavens, but about me, and God himself.

contact me

back to top