Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 70

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 3: The Beginning of True Father's Public Course and the Founding of HSA-UWC
Chapter 3: Founding the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity
Section 4: Pioneer Outreach to 120 Areas, Witnessing atmosphere
Section 5: Missions to Japan and the United States, Paragraph 01

Witnessing atmosphere

When True Father dispatched witnessing teams to all parts of Korea, he allowed them to take only two changes of clothes and only enough money for a one-way fare. Not only that, he also instructed them not to eat anything other than steamed barley rice. Members who went witnessing survived on a drink made from mixed grain powder dissolved in water. Sometimes they even ate the scraps and bones that were to be fed to dogs. They carried out their pioneering work in the most miserable conditions possible. In those days, a day’s wages were not enough to buy even one meal. At times these members, suffering from hunger, stumbled on the road.

They could not even say that they were from the Unification Church. Instead they woke up early in the morning and swept the village streets or helped the villagers in their fields. That is how they made connections with them. In the early days, our members sacrificed and abandoned everything when they joined the church. This resulted in intense opposition from their family, neighbors and friends in the secular world.

Beginning in 1960, members carried out witnessing activities on the streets of all the cities across Korea, as well as in the major parks in downtown Seoul.

8  All of us, young and old, have been waging bloody battles to this day. Many trials have blocked our path, but we overcame them by focusing only on God’s Will. We did not have decent food to eat or fine clothes to wear. We put everything into our struggle, shedding blood, sweat, and tears to lay the foundation for victory.

When you started out on your first three-year course, I asked you to go the path of a repentant sinner. In those years, we who were not sinners walked the path as if we were sinners. I know how hard you fought to protect your area from being taken away by Satan, and how you would not retreat. I know some of you sold your blood for money to protect your assigned area. You worked hard in limited circumstances. However, there was also incredible spiritual effort behind the scenes to support you. Your toil prepared you for the future, and it is a foundation for advancing toward a new world.

9  When the Unification Church started witnessing for the first time, the members did not have to witness with words. People were witnessed to through their dreams. In dreams, people were told, “Go to the Unification Church!” When people did not follow the direction given in their dreams, they were hit with a bat. The spirit world witnessed to many members this way. Ancestors said to their descendants, “If you go to such and such a place, you will meet a person called Mr. Moon.” This was how witnessing occurred. When people resisted, their ancestors kept pushing them and driving them until they went to that place. This was how the members of the Unification Church were gathered.

10  During the early days of witnessing, persecution was severe and people who went out to do outreach were extremely lonely. Members had no way of knowing each other’s situations and yet they really wanted to stay in touch with each other. Eventually, some would find a high school or college student who would link them together and through them, they could pass messages back and forth to arrange a meeting.

The members’ areas were some 20 to 40 kilometers apart, so they would make an appointment to meet at a point midway between them. They would choose a landmark that was easy to find, for example at the crossroads, under a bridge, or at a monument. When they met, did they have anything to eat? Normally when two friends meet after a long time, they eat lunch or dinner together, but these members could not enjoy that luxury.

The members were as close as any brother or sister could get. Who can describe the aching hearts they carried back then? They were not able to express their love and heart toward their own parents or siblings. So they would invest themselves for each other. One of them might resolve, “The next time we meet, I will definitely treat you to a chicken lunch.” Then, to raise money to buy that lunch, the member would work for one whole week. But he or she would not say how the money was earned.

Later, when those who were treated to a meal learned about the hard work their brothers or sisters had done, they felt as if their bones were melting. Generally we try to keep our composure, but when we are about to cry our chins tremble first and finally we burst into tears. It was like that. From that time on, whenever they met each other, they did not need to speak words. They just hugged each other and prayed for God’s Will while crying their hearts out. You cannot imagine how loudly they wailed. They prayed in tears, paying no heed to the local people who might be staring at them. All those experiences became their personal history, which they could share later.

11  When the members of our church were doing outreach in their pioneering areas throughout Korea, they would work all day long and barely earn enough for one meal. Sometimes even young members would be so hungry that their legs would buckle as they walked.

The members did not receive any money from our headquarters. They needed to make money to eat. However, if they had worked in their area, the townspeople would have accused the church, saying, “The Unification Church does not even take care of their own members.” If such a rumor had spread, the members and the church would have been persecuted even more. So they had to go to another town as far away as 40 kilometers, work there and then return. Many members did that, but they never spoke about it. Six months or a year later, when the students they were witnessing to came to know the situation of our missionaries, they burst into tears. Then they started to give them lunch boxes.

Yet for the older pioneering members, to eat the lunch offered by these pure-hearted students made them feel miserable in their hearts. It was painful for the pioneers to have to rely on these young students for food, and make them skip meals, when in fact they felt responsible to take care of the students. Under these circumstances, the pioneers and the students helped each other overcome their difficulties, and with the determination, “Let’s realize God’s Will, even if we die,” their hearts connected.

12  We have the Sung Hwa Student Association, made up of junior high school and high school students who gave food to our missionaries. When their parents severely opposed this, they began to take turns giving them food. Thus, if there were 30 students, each of them would give up their lunch only once every ten days. In this way the missionaries could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was their contribution to support our witnessing activities. When their parents realized what was going on, they were upset. Even so, we had to use this means to move forward. Those lunches were the students’ offering to the missionaries who were serving God’s Will for the nation and the world. To this very day, those former students praise those glorious days when they could make such an offering.

13  Before those students joined the Unification Church they used to have good lunch boxes, better than other students. But after they joined the church, instead of taking their lunch, they would hide themselves away on the school grounds, walk around, and then come back to class. Their classmates figured out what they were doing, and when their parents found out, it made big problems. This did not happen just once or twice. Some of them were constantly skipping lunch, so their classmates told their mother, “Your child brought lunch boxes before but now that they have joined the Unification Church, they do not have them. Why are you not making lunch for them?” Then their parents would say to their children, “I heard you did not eat your lunch at school. What happened?” Then the students had to admit they had given their lunch to the missionaries, which caused the parents to oppose our church even more severely. This happened often all over Korea. Christians would oppose us especially severely, saying that a pack of wolves had come to steal God’s sheep. How do you think I felt as their leader, having placed the missionaries in that situation?

14  We have been walking a suffering path to remove the nation’s wall of bitter pain that has blocked us in external areas. I want to dissolve this bitterness of the people of Korea. Also, I know the Will of God. Therefore I willingly and gladly accept any kind of hardship. If someone asks, “Who shed the most blood and sweat, and who embraced God’s heart and offered loyalty to Him?” we are the ones who can confidently assert that we have the truth and have offered conditions of devotion centered on God. That is why I am saying that we are the only ones who can receive the heavenly fortune that is coming.

 

Section 5. Missions to Japan and the United States

Overseas missionaries

After outreach work in Korea began to take root through the 40-day witnessing campaigns, True Father was able to turn his attention to other countries. In 1956, the year after his incarceration in Seoul’s Seodaemun Prison, Father offered prayers at Gapsa Temple, a famous Buddhist temple on Mt. Gyeryong in South Chungcheong Province. While praying, he sensed that Japan would soon once again be in a very important position in Asia. Because the Soviet Union and China were supporting North Korea, Father knew that if Japan stood on the side of communism, Korea would be seriously endangered. Hence, he realized that he needed to send missionaries to Japan to begin to deal with this potential threat. By loving Japan, formerly the enemy of Korea, he would establish it as an object-partner nation on God’s side. Herein lay the reason he sent missionaries to Japan, despite the difficult circumstances.

At the same time, he also determined to send missionaries to the United States, which was in the same position as Rome at the time of Jesus. He planned to establish the United States as the central nation in his worldwide mission work.

1  I have truly attended people with the same devotion as I would show if I were attending my own father and mother. Furthermore, in order to make a foundation to restore the society and nation, I have done the same for people I do not even know. According to this principle, I cannot worry only about my own country. Even under the most severe persecution, my prayers and interests were not for Korea alone. I also had to work hard to send missionaries to Japan and America.

When I sent the first missionary to Japan, there were no diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan. Unable to go through any normal entry procedures, this missionary had to be smuggled into Japan on a small boat. As for America, you cannot imagine how hard it was to send even one missionary there. No one could imagine that we could send missionaries to America at the time. Even under such difficult circumstances, I decided to send someone to America to sow the seed of the Principle. I worked day and night to make this happen. The principle of providential restoration works from the outside in. For a country to receive glorious blessings from God, I needed to create a situation whereby the providential Will would come into that country from the outside.