As a visiting student from South Korea, Dr. Bong Rin Ro ’62 spent three months in New York City, where he attended Billy Graham ’43, LITT.D. ’56’s 1957 crusade at Madison Square Garden. 

“Billy Graham really touched my life,” says Dr. Ro, president of the Pacific campus of Asia Graduate School of Theology (AGST), which partners with 11 seminaries in Asia. 

Then a sophomore at Columbia Bible College, he observed that Graham attended Bible college then went to Wheaton for a liberal arts education. 

“I thought that was the model for me to follow,” Dr. Ro notes. 

Dr. Ro majored in history at Wheaton to gain a “wider perspective.” He later received his M.Div. at Covenant Theological Seminary and his S.T.M. and Th.D. at Concordia Lutheran Seminary. 

“On the one hand, I need to have biblical knowledge; on the other hand, I have to know what is going on in the world,” Dr. Ro says. 

Dr. Ro served from 1970 to 2000 as a bilingual missionary with Overseas Missionary Fellowship, teaching at seminaries in Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea. He also served as executive secretary of the Asia Theological Association from 1970 to 1990, and from 1990 to 1996 was international director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Theological Commission. 

“My Wheaton degree gave me the acceptance of the Asian church,” Dr. Ro says. “Wheaton is well known in Asia.” 

His most significant takeaway from Wheaton is his wife Alma Lai ’62. Other Wheaton family includes their twin sons David ’89 and Jonathan ’89 (wife Faith Yang ’87), daughter Robyn ’93 (husband Eun Sun Ahn ’89), and granddaughter Caitlyn ’17.