God’s Will and the Ocean: Episode 04

God’s Will and the Ocean
True Father Speaks on: The Way of Tuna, Pg 7-10
July 13, 1980, Belvedere

No one thinks I will build boats, but you will see that our boats will be 21st century boats. Once our boat is proven the best for tuna fishing in this contest, there will be a great market for them. I know the advantages and disadvantages of different styles, and through design, I compensated for all of those things. Mr. Henry Masters is our brother from England, and I have guided him directly in completing the plans. Our boats will win the prizes in the tuna tournament.

You wait and see. The fact that we bought some property in Gloucester was world news, reported in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Time magazine devoted almost an entire page to it. When the media finds out that Ocean Church boats win the world tuna tournament, that will really be news. They will wonder when a religious leader became such a fantastic boat designer.

Many thought it was just throwing money away to offer $100,000 for the tournament, but there are specific reasons. That prize brought more than $200,000 worth of publicity. The people who were anxious to get rid of the Moonies have seen the excitement build in Gloucester, and now they are embarrassed to be seen in public. The tournament will last seven days, and whoever does the best during that time will win.

This tournament is not just an exciting event in America, but in Japan as well. Japan is a great consumer of tuna, and the major Japanese tuna companies are represented in Gloucester. They will send their best people, and everyone will watch to see what happens. The major seafood companies will see that Reverend Moon's boats and people are winning, and they will know they can't help but deal with us in the future. The big Japanese companies are backed by their government, but we are backed by heaven. We will compete with them, and in the next few years we will beat them. 

There are four major fishing areas in the world-one is in Norway, but the other three surround the United States. One is the Bering Sea, in Alaska; the other is the Gulf of Mexico, and the other is along the East Coast, especially in the Gloucester area. A few years ago, the American government set up a 200-mile limit for off-shore fishing by foreign boats. Foreign governments are trying all kinds of strategies to get inside that 200-mile limit to fish. There is a great deal of diplomatic pressure to use these fishing grounds which are monopolized by the American government.

However, we are not foreigners. The Japanese companies see that Reverend Moon has a base in the United States, and furthermore,  has so many Japanese people working with him who are engaged to Americans. They realize that we are their only link to America. We are becoming the best bridge for Japan to trade in sea products with America, and vice versa.

The American and Japanese governments are fierce competitors, but by using our organization as a link, we can smooth out the bad feelings and work for the benefit of both countries. I am interested in marketing strategy. Mitsubishi and Marubeni have to use many middlemen, and each level needs to get some profit. My strategy is to send the product straight from the factory to the retailer, bypassing the middlemen. Then the product can be provided much more cheaply to the consumer. This is why I have created mobile seafood stores, which are converted vans fitted with refrigeration. We are good at preparing fish; the Japanese in particular know how to fix fish in many ways. Once we prepare the fish, all the people have to do is enjoy it at home. Many Americans don't know how to prepare fish, so we do it, and all they have to do is eat it. The lines will be blocks long outside our mobile stores. One van will be responsible for twelve home church areas, roving around, serving 4,380 homes. The vans will have special theme music and special signs so that people will get to know you when you come to their homes.

We will also cater and start seafood restaurant chains which will provide fresh, cooked fish for banquets. If you have the reputation that in a few hours you can provide good food for one or two hundred people, you will get an incredible amount of business. More and more the American diet will include seafood, because people are realizing that eating large amounts of red meat isn't healthy. Seafood provides much more healthy forms of protein.

My plan for marketing in Japan calls for 7,000 seafood vans to cover the whole country. Once they are in operation, they will make twice as much as the MFT fund raisers. When B and C members see how successful our A members are in the fish business, they will want to do it too, instead of their own jobs. Once we demonstrate reliable income, we can buy vans on credit, and when bankers see what the Moonies are doing, they will want our business. Whoever does well in this business will rise to ever higher levels in Japanese- American trade.

We have ordered 100 vans and thirty have arrived. Right now, three members are working in one van, but in six months they will branch out, with one person per van. I want to see it expand, from one van to three, then three to nine, and nine to twenty-seven, so\ that in three years, Japan will have 7,000 vans. If we have 800 by the end of one year, there can be far more than 7,000 by the end of three years. We will use exactly the same system in America.

Home church will be developing side by side with the marketing plan, so we will offer service to the people as well as income, and in this way, the home church providence will prosper. All the experts trained in this system in Japan will come to America and install their system here. At the same time, through a fellowship organization, we can make friends with wealthy people who are interested in tuna fishing. Through the tuna tournament we can organize them into a club and then expand it throughout the world. Tuna travel the world, so when the season ends in Gloucester it begins somewhere else. If we sponsor tournaments in five places around the world, that is $500,000 in prizes. That investment will lure tens of thousands of influential people. Their boats are capable of crossing the Atlantic or Pacific, going from one tournament to another. Once this plan has momentum, the government will have to be supportive, and they will organize all the necessary supplies. Also, since there are already many marine facilities around the world, we will create a system so that the major vessels can provide fuel to the sport fishermen. As the club's influence grows, these things can be arranged. People will certainly see that Reverend Moon is the king of the ocean, not only in generating healthy sea sport, but in generating trade and commerce as well as good food to benefit the people of the world. Eventually we will have our own capacity to supply our boats. The tournament fleet will be moving from one ocean to another, with an oil tanker accompanying it. The major corporations of the world will want to participate because the worldwide publicity will be so great. Imagine tens of thousands of boats coming to Gloucester for the competition; they will bring tremendous prosperity to that small sea town. All those people will have to eat and sleep somewhere and get supplies, so the economic impact will be tremendous.