Ruby Whang, an MSIA minister who turned 80 years old in October of 2003, gives of herself, many times when she is ill and when a lesser person couldn’t go on any more.
Working on an Oregon farm which her parents settled after leaving Korea, Ruby grew up working the land, carrying 100-pound sacks of potatoes, driving an 18-wheeler truck, later working in The White House for the late Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and being highly successful at owning and operating restaurants.
After returning to San Francisco from Washington D.C. in 1964, she found her mother, Nan S. Whang, running a family welfare project, assisting Koreans coming to the U.S. from the home country, to get themselves situated in America.
Ruby’s mother was tired of the welfare operation, and Ruby took over, years before she even thought of the Movement of Inner Spiritual Awareness (MSIA), much less becoming a minister in MSIA.
Renting a tiny, studio apartment in the western ghetto of San Francisco, Ruby began opening the doors at 8 a.m. each day, assisting not only Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, and Europeans but also Americans who were homeless, hungry, sick, out of a job and many just out of prison.
Ruby finds housing for the homeless, food for the hungry, jobs, medical and legal assistance. She writes letters, fills out governmental papers and is permitted by the local, county, state and federal judges to act as an attorney pro-tem, representing the unfortunate in court on a no-fee basis. She spends three to four days a week in San Francisco doing all of this, and returns to her home in the Los Angeles area to spend her time filling out more legal forms.
Ruby has also compiled an English-Korean alphabet form, and has taught classes to help the Koreans learn English.
Ruby has faced many challenges in her service work. She has been held up at gunpoint, had her car stolen, and had her laptop computer stolen by someone she was ministering to. She then had to go find it in one of the area pawn shops, and buy it back from the shop keeper.
“Since experience has taught me that government bureaucracy is very time consuming, and since most of my cases are emergencies and require immediate attention, the best way to work with the government or social officials is to meet them outside the office and take them out to dinners and luncheons that they think befits their status and importance, and then to lay out what I need from them. As a rule, the commitments they make at these affairs are far more binding then any agreement made in their offices, and result in a closer bond,” Ruby said.
Her ministry sometimes takes her to other states, and she is frequently asked to perform weddings and funerals for family members of those she has helped in the past.
She is now beginning to look for someone to assist her in her ministry/charity work.
In 2002, she was given the “Minister of the Year” award at MSIA’s Annual Conference.
