Jashil (Ja-sil) Choi epitomizes significant spirituality among Korean Pentecostals.
The evidence of her spirituality was strongly felt from the Yoido Full Gospel Church’s
pioneering year, when it was called Full Gospel Central Church, to its growth into
the world’s largest church. Undoubtedly, Yonggi Cho’s spiritual leadership single-handedly
shaped the church's development. Still, he frequently acknowledged the critical role
of Choi’s sacrificial prayer with fasting in the growth and development of the ministry,
noting: “Pastor Choi, my mother-in-law, is the person whom I would never forget in
my life. If she were not my pastoral companion, I would not be a pastor in the world’s
largest church.”
Choi was born in 1915 in Haeju City, Hwang-hae Province, North Korea, during the Japanese
occupation. When she was still young, her father died. She had to take on heavy responsibilities
and assist her mother, who earned a meager income from a seamstress job. At the age
of twelve, Choi and her mother had a chance to attend a tent revival meeting led by
Sung-Bong (Seongbong) Lee, a well-known Holiness preacher in early Korean Christian
history. During this meeting, they accepted Christ as their personal Savior. Their
great desire was to overcome poverty and become rich. Choi entered a nursing school
to become a nurse and worked as a midwife to achieve this goal. In those days, nurses
earned good money while enjoying a decent life and respect. Choi’s diligence and hard
work led her close to that goal.
In her youth, Choi attended the Sinuiju Second Presbyterian Church, where Pastor Han
Kyung-jik served as senior pastor. At the age of 26, she married Kim Chang-gi, who
was a choir member at the same church and graduated from Chuo University’s Faculty
of Law in Japan after attending Paichai School, which later became Paejae High School.
However, after their marriage, her husband neglected attending church and became busy
with worldly affairs. At first, Choi encouraged and pleaded with him, but later she
herself gradually drifted away from her faith while raising their two daughters and
two sons. However, through a revival meeting, she repented, confessing with deep remorse
the sin of unbelief she had committed over the previous five years.
After moving from the North to Seoul, South Korea, she opened a successful business.
The more money she made, the emptier her heart became. Yet, she refused to go to church.
Then a tragedy befell her: her mother and eldest daughter died about a ten-day interval
from each other. That incident shook Choi so severely that she developed complex illnesses.
She interpreted them as a punishment from God for her ambition, worldly desire, and
life apart from him. Coincidentally, her business declined miserably. In 1956, Choi
attempted to kill herself as she had lost hope of living.
During this desperate period, she entirely turned to the Lord. She headed to a prayer
mountain where Sung-Bong Lee was conducting a revival meeting. There, she came back
to the Lord. Lee’s message strongly ministered to her heart and helped her open to
the Holy Spirit. During prayer time, she experienced fire running through her body
from above, and her tongue became twisted, and she spoke in a strange language. The
Holy Spirit baptized her. She had a genuine encounter with the Lord and committed
to him. She entered Full Gospel Bible College to prepare for ministry.
There, she met Yonggi Cho (the former senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church) and
formed a team, opening the door to their future ministry through evangelism and prayer.
She and Yonggi Cho became co-partners for God’s ministry. Later, she became his mother-in-law.
Her children were Cho Sung-hye (President of Hansei University), Sung-soo, and Sung-kwang
(both ministers with the Korean Assemblies of God).
Her first ministry was directed toward children. Going around the entire village,
she gathered children together, bought them hard candies, taught them hymns, and taught
them the Word of God. She hugged them one by one and prayed over them with the laying
on of hands. As 60 to 70 children gathered, a tent church was established in Bulgwang-dong.
At this place, worship services that began with the children grew as people heard
about Evangelist Choi. At that time, there were many people living day by day in poverty,
sickness, and hopelessness. As interest was shown to them, food was shared, and healing
through prayer took place, revival began to arise. Various miracles occurred as shamans
repented and drunkards were transformed.
The Bulgwang-dong tent church, which began with just five registered members on June
5, 1958—including an elderly woman who had come in to avoid the rain—steadily grew
to 500 members, and in November 1961, just three years after pioneering the tent church,
they established the Full Gospel Central Church on Uiju-ro in Seodaemun-gu. There,
even greater revival took place, with remarkable works of revival appearing through
Cho's sermons and Choi's healing ministry. They hosted global revival meetings, including
the Northeast Asia World Mission Conference; Choi's ministry now reached out toward
the world.
Since the church grew rapidly, they moved to Seodaemun. After moving, the church continued
to grow explosively. As the number of congregants exceeded 10,000, the Seodaemun Church
could no longer accommodate the members. Therefore, the church began searching for
a site to build a new sanctuary. Cho strongly pushed forward the plan to build a church
building in Yoido after receiving an answer to prayer from God. At last, the church
purchased land in Yoido and built a new church in 1958. The church continues to grow, with the current membership being 870,000.
The spirituality of Choi’s life can be captured in two key components: prayer and
fasting. As she was searching for a suitable location for prayer facilities, she prayed
and fasted--sometimes as frequently as three days a week. One night, she clearly heard
God's voice directing her to a parcel of land for a prayer mountain. The place had
been a cemetery for many years, and she might have felt reluctant to bring it to the
Board of the church. However, when she visited the village of Osan-ni, she knelt on
the barren ground, surrounded by graves, and prayed. A woman alone, praying in the
desolate field, must have been a strange sight. It demonstrated her unreserved trust
in God’s promise and commitment to him. Although she encountered financial challenges
and other difficulties, Osan-ri Prayer Mountain was established, later called Choi
Jashil International Fasting and Prayer Mountain.
Choi’s spiritual ministry soon crossed national boundaries and expanded to other countries.
God opened a door for her to reach the Japanese, and church leaders repeatedly invited
her. Before she preached, Choi customarily spent a whole night in prayer for the next
day’s service. Her anointed message, accompanied by the work of the Holy Spirit, impacted
many Japanese churches. Common themes of her messages were repentance, prayer, and
the Spirit-led life. When she visited a place, Choi eagerly ministered in as many
churches as she could and offered a marvelous ministry. The Spirit was at work, particularly
in healing, and often, unprecedented miracles occurred. Soon, many people in Japan
who were sick began visiting the prayer mountain in Osan-ri and spending days praying
and fasting. Various spiritual gifts were manifest, including speaking in tongues
and interpreting.
Many in the United States were called to ministry through her influence. Her ministry
in Thailand, Hong Kong, Germany, and other places produced similar results. Choi viewed
her international ministry as part of her commitment to the missionary call found
in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of
the earth.”[1] She customarily would spend two or three weeks in prayer and fasting
before travelling. Those who knew her noted her legacy of preparing for forthcoming
ministry through prayer and fasting, and making herself a living message of God’s
power.
NOTES [1] International Theological Institutes, A History of the Korean Assemblies of God, 183-84.
For Further Reading:
Julie C. Ma, The Holy Spirit, Mission, & Women (Wipf & Stock, 2026).
Younghoon Lee, "Female Cell Leaders as Spirit-Empowered, Ground-Level Evangelists:
A Case Study of Yoido Full Gospel Church, in Everyone Reaching EveryONE: Portraits of Spirit-Empowered Evangelists (ORU Press, 2026).
Jashil Choi, Korean Miracles (Wonders in Korea?)
Jashil Choi, Hallelujah Lady (KIATS Press/Soul Logos Co, Korea, 2009). Available at Internet Archive.org, https://archive.org/details/hallelujahladyOOOOchoi
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