Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 48

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 2: The Birth of True Parents
Chapter 4: True Mother’s Childhood and Youth
Section 2: Education and Encounter with Father, Encounter with Father
Section 2: Education and Encounter with Father, Paragraph 20

Encounter with Father

Rev. Kim Seong-do, the founder of the Holy Lord Church, gave these last words to her first son, Jeong Seok-cheon, “If I cannot fulfill the mission that God gave me, it will be fulfilled through someone else. That representative of God will also be misunderstood, like me. The church he leads will be misunderstood and persecuted as a church of fornication, and he will suffer imprisonment. If you find such a church, know that it is a true church, and go to that church.”

Mr. Jeong went down to the South with his older sister Jeong Seok-on. They carried with them the belief that the Will of God that was not fulfilled in their mothers generation would definitely be accomplished in the next generation or a future generation. They continued worship services in their own home and looked around for where that was being realized.

One day, they read a newspaper article about an incident at Ewha University in which many students were expelled from the school. That is how Jeong Seok-on and her daughter came to visit the Unification Church, thinking it might be the church their mother, Rev. Kim Seong-do, had spoken of. At that time it was located in Jangchung-dong in Seoul. On October 4, 1955, True Father was released from Seodaemun Prison with the verdict that he was innocent of all charges. After True Father heard what Rev. Kim had told Jeong Seok-cheon, Father visited Mr. Jeong’s home on Dongseong Street in Daegu. Jeong Seok-cheon then wrote a letter to Hong Soon-ae about his encounter with True Father and encouraged her to meet him. That is how True Mother and her mother Hong Soon-ae came to meet True Father.

10  After True Father was released from Seodaemun Prison he traveled to Daegu, where he held revival meetings to inspire the members. Around that time my mother, who was then living in Chuncheon, received a letter from Jeong Seok-cheon. His letter said, “I found a church that is just like the Holy Lord Church. The founder of that church is speaking here in Daegu. Come as soon as you can and listen to him.” However, my mother’s circumstances were such that we could not immediately go to Daegu. A month later, in December, she went there and visited Jeong Seok-cheon. He told her, “I finally found the one we have been looking for, the Lord at the Second Advent. He came to Daegu, and I heard him speak.”

He told her that Father had returned to Seoul. He also said that Fathers teaching was the same as the teaching of the Inside the Womb Church. My mother was happy with the thought that when she went to Seoul she would finally meet the person whom she had yearned to see for so long. Yet for some reason she also felt unworthy to see him. That is why she invested her efforts to prepare her heart. Then that night she had a dream. In the dream she saw a pair of golden dragons; they were hunched over and looking in the direction of Seoul. My mother thought to herself, “When I was preparing to come here to Daegu, I had a dream in which I saw one white dragon. Now, as I am about to leave Daegu, in my dream I see a pair of golden dragons. How strange!”

Immediately she set out for Seoul. There she visited the former headquarters church, which was located in Cheongpa-dong, where she met Father for the first time and paid her respects. She was surprised, for he was the very man whom she had seen in the two dreams she had while attending the Inside the Womb Church. There he was, the Lord whom she had yearned to see and whom she had dreamed about. My mother told me she was so overwhelmed that she did not know how to behave in his presence.

11  I did not meet True Father in North Korea. The first time I met him was in Seoul, after I came down to South Korea. At that time I was 13 years old and had recently graduated from elementary school. The meeting happened shortly after my mother and I joined the church. I was then living in Chuncheon, far from where True Father lived in Seoul. My mother held me by the hand and brought me to the Cheongpa-dong church in March, 1956. That was when I met True Father for the first time. After that first encounter at the church, my mother and I continued attending that church on Sundays. During that time I graduated from middle school and went on to high school.

12  I can still vividly recall the moment True Father saw me in my student uniform and closed his eyes in gratitude to God for guiding me to him. I always had the feeling that God prepares everything that He deems necessary, especially when I think of how He shaped my character and guided the way I had been living my life. When Isaac went up the mountain with Abraham to make an offering to God, he asked his father where the offering was. Abraham simply replied that God would provide. Yet, although Isaac was just a young boy, he had already figured out his situation.

Likewise, from my childhood I intuitively sensed that I must fulfill something important in the future. I would say that subconsciously I understood that I was being prepared to become the Bride of the Returning Lord. My path was already decided, and I was born with the destiny to go that way. Other women could not have borne the weight of my position, but I could because of all that I had faced previously and overcome.

13  I guess you are curious about the conversation that True Father and I had at our first meeting after he decided to accept me as his Bride. In those days our church members loved Father, but they were scared of him as well. Yet I had no fear of him. I felt that True Father was exactly like my maternal grandfather and would not get upset with anything I said. I suppose some people around me might have thought, “For such a young lady, she is incredibly bold.” Yet at that moment I felt as if True Father were my grandfather, father, groom, brother, and even my son.

14  Adam and Eve fell when they went against God’s Word. Yet I thought of it this way: Even if God had not warned them, they should have had the thought, based on the working of their original minds, to observe God’s Word, since they were living at a time when they could directly converse with God. I grew up already thinking about God’s providential history. So when I met with True Father at the age of 17, I had already made this resolution, “I will end, within my lifetime, the history of restoration through indemnity that God has walked in suffering; I will do this myself” I did not think this way because someone taught me to; I made this resolution on my own. The reason I could do so was because I knew God.

15  When I met True Father, I already knew providential history. I had not studied the Principle, but I knew about the history of the providence of restoration through indemnity. That is why I thought to myself, “In order for True Father to be able to proclaim that he has completed and concluded his mission as the Messiah, I must offer him my effort in support. I will not shift that responsibility to any other person. As for myself, I will accomplish that responsibility. I will advance the Will for as long as I live and bring it to pass. Without a doubt I will defeat Satan.” It is for this purpose that I have dedicated my mind and body and sacrificed my entire life.

Life of faith

True Mother came down to the South with her maternal grandmother, Jo Won-mo, and her mother, Hong Soon-ae, in 1948. They moved several times—from Seoul to Daegu, then to Jeju Island and then to Chuncheon, where they continued their life of faith. When they were staying temporarily at the home of her mother’s friend in Daegu, right after arriving in the South, a stranger who saw True Mother described her, “She is the most divine young lady in heaven and on earth.” It was this way wherever True Mother went: She caught people’s eye, and people received spiritual messages testifying to her.

16  Rev. Kim Seong-do, founder of the Holy Lord Church, passed away after she was released from prison. Although the remaining members of her family continued in that church, the providential mission to prepare for the Returning Lord passed to the Inside the Womb Church led by Rev. Heo Ho-bin. The Holy Lord Church could not take root under the communist regime in North Korea. Rev. Kim’s first son, Jeong Seokcheon, went to the South and became involved in a mining business. Later he purchased a house on Dongseong Street in Daegu and started a business that sold rice and fuel.

During the Korean War, when we moved to Daegu, we had a reunion with Jeong Seok-cheon. We were gathered with his family at his house and talking about this and that, when they said, “When we were in the North attending the Holy Lord Church, we received much grace from the New Lord (Kim Seong-do). We also experienced great works of the Spirit when we attended the Inside the Womb Church of Rev. Heo. They were preparing for the Lord at the Second Advent to come to Korea. Let us pray continually and earnestly to find him.” Mr. Jeong called his older sister Jeong Seok-on to come up from Busan. She also joined their family gatherings, which were filled with intense prayer. In this way we continued our life of faith.

17  When I was very young and my mother was running a small store in Daegu, one day an enlightened Buddhist wearing a bamboo hat passed by and saw me. He gave the remarkable testimony, “This daughter is so precious that not even ten sons can match her. So please raise her well. When she reaches 17, she will marry a man who is much older than she is. She will live in great wealth, with fortune from the land, sea and sky.” My mother was amazed at his testimony and asked him what it meant. He answered that I was born with that destiny. Hearing this, my mother resolved even more strongly to live a diligent life of faith as she searched for the truth. In addition, she resolved to raise me in purity until we could meet the Returning Lord.

That is why she took me to Jeju Island. There she cultivated her spiritual life and subjected herself to harsh rigors, including eating nothing but uncooked food. Later, when she met True Father, she thought about how she could raise me to be an important worker in the Unification Church. Such are the extreme and tearful stories hidden within the providence before I was brought to God as a pure offering for God’s Will.

18  My grandmother Jo Won-mo led us in daily family worship. She made a point of staying away from evil influences in her daily life. She told me many Bible stories. She read the Bible seriously, and led a sincere life of faith with her utmost devotion, always keeping the Bible within her reach. Naturally, I read the Bible with her and lived a life of faith guided by our Heavenly Parent. We continued this life while we lived as refugees in Daegu, when I transferred to the school on Jeju Island, and later in Chuncheon, after the Korean War. When I was attending Sunday school at a church in Daegu, I often sang for the congregation as a representative of the students at the Sunday school.

19  While living in Daegu as a refugee during the Korean War, my mother met Jeong Seok-cheon, the first son of the founder of the Holy Lord Church, Rev. Kim Seong-do. After speaking with him, she came to believe that the New Lord would come to South Korea. She prayed hard to meet the Returning Lord, while keeping to an ascetic diet of raw pine needles. I was an elementary school student at that time. I was a good student and was very popular with the other students.

However, my mother did not feel comfortable that I had become a focal point, because there were revelations about me saying I would become the Lord’s Bride, the Lord’s daughter, and other similar testimonies. As a result, in 1954 my mother and I moved to Jeju Island. She wanted to protect me for the day when she hoped we would meet the Lord at the Second Advent. I remember suffering from seasickness during the trip to Jeju Island.

20  Because I had been given the blessing to be Heaven’s Bride, Daemonim’s main concern was to raise me pure and untainted by the world. So the year after the Korean War ended, when Korea was in chaos, my mother and I departed from the Korean mainland and went to live on Jeju Island. We lived there for about nine months. Jeong Pyeong-hwa, the second son of Rev. Kim Seong-do, the founder of the Holy Lord Church, was a man of such fervent faith that he wanted to experience the pain of Jesus. He even re-enacted the crucifixion and wore a crown of thorns. Daemonim joined him and led a more arduous life of faith than ever before. Every day she worked in the fields, eating nothing but raw food, and every night she exerted herself to the utmost in prayer.