Russell Jeung - At Home In Exile: Finding Jesus among My Ancestors and Refugee Neighbors

Displacement and longing for a home are not only a contemporary reality for many, but also an interweaving thread throughout the Biblical Narratives. Russell Jeungs account of his family history and diasporic calling are profoundly moving and inspiring to all Christ followers. In these stories we learn how to journey like Jesus and make sense of our own wanderings and hope for our eternal destiny.

Dr. Sam George, Executive Director, Parivar International,
and Co-editor of Malayali Diaspora: From Kerala to the Ends of the World

Russells life long journey to live incarnationally will tug at your heart, fill your mind, and convict your soul. The story of Oak Park is a gritty life-on-life ministry that shows how a lived-out calling can bring personal discovery, multiplied disciples, and community transformation.

Tommy Dyo, Strategic Partnerships and Development,
Epic Movement, a Cru Ministry

I cant remember the last time that I read a memoir where I was laughing hysterically and weeping uncontrollably in back-to-back paragraphs. With much talk about justice among evangelicals these days, Russell Jeung offers the real story of an honest, embodied life of justice. If every student I have ever taught said they wanted to be the next Russell Jeungnothing would make me more proud. Please read this book.

Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church
Growth and Evangelism, North Park Theological Seminary;
Author of The Next Evangelicalism and Prophetic Lament

I've gotten to know Dr. Russell Jeung these past few years. I've stayed in his home. Ive visited the men and women he has served. I've witnessed his sacrificial love for the Cambodian families and other refugee families in Oak Park. He is an inspiration to me and to those who know and respect him. His book about his life with Cambodian refugees reveals the strength and depth of my people.

Ken Kong, Director, Southeast Asian Ministries
The Navigators; Director, Southeast Asian Catalyst

Russell Jeung is a rare person who embodies courage, authenticity, and integrity in a culture of consumption and assimilation. Unlike other books, At Home in Exile is a page turner because the author, as one of the residents, narrates the stories of Oak Park community of refugees and migrants. It is among the poor and broken, in which Jeung, a fifth-generation Hakka Chinese American, experiences the beloved community that resonates with the early Christian community under imperial Roman culture. Jeung takes the readers on his intimately courageous journey who enter into his world with a sense of belonging and ancestral roots. This is a must-read book for the homeless mind on this shore that longs to retrieve buried memories and roots for social change.

Rev. Young Lee Hertig, PhD, Cofounder/Executive Director,
ISAAC/AAWOL (Institute for the Study of Asian American
Christianity)(Asian American Women On Leadership)

Many times, it is so easy to get severed from ones root and faith along the way of pursuing the American Dream in the US. It is heartening to read the life of one whom God blesses with many achievements and yet does not get disconnected from one's faith and root. I am confident that this book will inspire many others to participate more in their exile communities and find it at home there.

Kenneth VanBik, PhD, Lecturer, Department of Linguistics
and Language Development, San Jose State University

An important biblical theme is that God speaks to His people while they are in movement, migrating or in exile. Russell Jeung invites us to recognize that we learn about God and about what God is doing when we live into our own experience of exile and choose to live and minister among migrants and exiles. At Home in Exile is autobiography, theology, and missiology. This book challenges us to see that exile is a unique place to serve God and to learn about how God is at work in the world.

Juan Francisco Martnez, Professor of Pastoral Leadership
and Hispanic Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary

At Home in Exile is more than exploring Asian-American identity, although that certainly undergirds the story. Russell Jeungs journey is also one of deep Christian faith, committed urban life, and community activism, which together convey a compelling challenge for all followers of Jesusnamely, to embrace our ultimate identity as exiles in Christ who can speak truth to power in all cultures.

Al Tizon, Executive Minister of Serve Globally, Evangelical Covenant Church

Russell Jeungs memoir of life in East Oakland is warm, humorous, and challenging. He wears his learning lightly, but its obvious that he can teach us a thing or two about the way faith affects life.

Tim Stafford, General Editor, Gods Justice: The Holy Bible

Russell Jeung writes with great compassion, insight, clarity, and humor about his remarkable faith journey as an Asian American Christian. This book is required reading for anyone interested in race, religion, and social justice. Prepare to laugh, cry, and transform with Russell Jeung!

Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor of Ethnic
Studies, University of California at Berkeley

I know Russell Jeung to be a world-class academic, but he is quite unlike many scholars in that he lives out his resulting convictions in his daily life. That by itself is highly noteworthy. However, as demonstrated in this remarkable book, Jeung is also unlike the typical scholar in that he is a masterful and compelling storyteller, taking the reader not just into the daily lives of impoverished immigrants in Oakland, CA, but also inside his own struggles and transformation as he comes to identify with the poor. His talent for narrating these intermingled stories caused me to think more deeply about my own story as a grandson of immigrants from China. And as a devout Christian, it also made me question many of my own choices to avoid regularly intersecting my life with poor immigrants, especially those from parts of Asia that are in my own backyard. By showing himself to be a flawed and humble example of someone who clearly wants to follow Jesus, Jeung manages both to inspire and instruct the reader to take concrete steps in the direction of the least of these.

Rev. Dr. Ken Uyeda Fong, Executive Director, Asian American Initiative and
Assistant Professor of Asian American Church Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary

Activist. Theologian. Hakka. Chinese American. Follower of Jesus. These words describe Russell Jeung and yet do not fully comprehend the story he has crafted in this masterful book. Part autobiography, part community history, and part liberation lived theology, At Home in Exile captures the heart and soul of following Jesus through living in community among the poor in Oakland. Follow and be transformed.

The Rev. Dr. Frank M. Yamada, President,
McCormick Theological Seminary

At Home in Exile is the incredible story of a committed Christian disciple living in a poor, drug-infested, and refugee-ghetto neighborhood of Oakland, CA. As an evangelical Stanford-educated professor and a fifth-generation Chinese American, Jeung has tried to live out Jesus in this neighborhood as an exile in the US, suffering alongside refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Burma and undocumented Hispanics. He sees the church as a mother and a home providing hope for compassion for the downtrodden, the disinherited, and the disheartened. His autobiography is truly captivating, inspiring, and moving, challenging all of us on a fundamental level to re-examine our lives of following Jesus.