Mother of Peace: Episode 10
Mother of Peace: And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears from Their Eyes
A Memoir by Hak Ja Han Moon
Chapter 2: I Came Into This World As The Only Begotten Daughter, pg 38-42
God calls those whom He chooses
On the foundation of 6,000 turbulent years of God’s providential history, the only begotten Daughter came to this earth. Innumerable people waited impatiently, ignorant of what it was they were waiting for, having no concept of the only begotten Daughter from the teachings of the world’s religions.
It was my husband who discovered that for God to bring forth His only begotten Daughter, He needed to find a nation that had endured injustice for over 5,000 years and was now filled with devout Christians. That nation is Korea. From ancient times, Koreans loved peace and wore white clothing out of reverence for God and their forebears.
The spirit of filial piety, loyalty and chastity, which are the fundamental virtues of human life, lives and breathes in the history of Korea. Moreover, historically speaking, Korea is a place where the world’s religions have borne fruit. Even though its history of Christianity is not long, God chose it as the nation and people to whom He would send His only begotten Daughter. Father Moon realized that God would work through a family in which the hearts of three generations of only daughters were connected in sacrificial faith. The Holy Spirit guided Father Moon to discover this in the Bible—no one else saw it. As these conditions were fulfilled, only then could the Mother of peace, destined to bring about a peaceful world, be received on this earth.
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Every one of us needs to feel deeply grateful for being born. There is not one person whose birth is meaningless. Moreover, no person’s life is his or hers alone. Heaven, earth, and all things in the universe interconnect through lines of latitude and longitude. Peace means that all the energies in the entire world, and in the entire universe, are in harmony. Therefore, no one should belittle his or her life. We should deeply realize that everyone is a precious being, born through the sacred workings of the universe.
As for me, I was born in the midst of a world consumed by chaos, in which no light of hope was to be seen. The Second World War, set in motion in the autumn of 1939, was growing ever more intense. German fascism and Japanese imperialism were staining Europe and Asia with blood. With the exception of Britain, most nations in Europe had been trampled by Hitler. And even Britain was suffering constant air raids from Nazi Germany.
The plight of Korea, a Japanese colony, was just as wretched. My warm childhood experiences notwithstanding, Koreans endured a tremendous struggle just to survive and find food to eat and clothes to wear. As the end of the war approached, Japanese soldiers raided Korean homes and confiscated everything metal, even the brassware used in ancestral rites, to create weapons. All rice went to feed Japanese soldiers, with the Korean people left to starve. Farmers who harvested rice with their own hands did not get to eat even a morsel of that rice.
Japan went as far as to ban the use of hangeul, the Korean alphabet that encompasses the spirit of its people, and to force us to renounce our Korean names and adopt Japanese names. All young Korean men were drafted, either to fight on battlefields far from home or to work long hours in coal mines and factories.
Even in the midst of such hardships, our people set forth to reclaim our nation. In 1940, Koreans set up offices of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Chongqing, China, and established the Independence Army. These patriots believed that the expropriation of Korea was only temporary, and had a firm resolve to liberate their fatherland.
While the war raged on, in April 1941, Korean independence movement organizations abroad came together at the Christian Academy in Kalihi in Honolulu, Hawaii. At a Rally for the Korean People, representatives from nine organizations, including the Korean National Association in North America, the Korean National Association in Hawaii, and the Korean National Independence League, pledged with one heart to fight the Japanese military for the liberation of their homeland.
On January 1, 1942, one year before I was born, representatives of 26 allied nations gathered in Washington, D.C. They signed a declaration pledging to end the war and then work together toward peace. This created the opportunity for Korea, which had been invaded and colonized by Japan, to regain its independence. From the viewpoint of God’s hand that rules history, this was His preparation to insure that the only begotten Daughter would grow to maturity in a nation with its own sovereignty.
Decades earlier, in March 1919, Grandmother Jo Won-mo took to the streets carrying my mother, Hong Soon-ae, then five years old, and desperately cried out for independence. She did so knowing only by faith that she was making preparations for the birth of the only begotten Daughter. The world and its people endured great suffering in the year 1942 for the same purpose. In a late spring week that year, my father and mother finally spent some time together, and I was conceived.
Christianity and the only begotten Daughter
From the moment of the Fall, God worked His providence to send His beloved only begotten Son and Daughter to humankind. After many foundations were laid—some bearing fruit, others claimed by Satan—His plan developed dramatically in Korea. From the early 1900s, spiritual fires flared up among Pentecostal Korean Christians who received guidance about God’s providence. Many groups believed that the returning Lord would appear in Pyongyang. Exemplary among these was a particular lineal succession of churches: the New Jesus Church, led by Rev. Lee Yong-do; the Holy Lord Church, led by Rev. Kim Seong-do; and the Inside-the-Womb Church, so named to emphasize that the returning Lord would be born of a woman, led by Rev. Heo Ho-bin. All three overcame oppression, on one side from the non-Christian government and, on the other, from the mainstream denominations. Amid such pressures, these churches completed the Christian foundation to receive the only begotten Son and only begotten Daughter.
The eastern Korean Peninsula, upon which the sun first rises, is a region of mountains, and the western peninsula, where the sun sets, is a region of valleys. Following the principles of geomancy, spiritual works led by men unfolded in the mountains of the east, at Wonsan in Hamgyong Province, and spiritual works led by women unfolded in the valleys of the west, at Cholsan in Pyong-an Province. Representative among such women were Kim Seong-do of the Holy Lord Church and Heo Ho-bin of the Inside-the-Womb Church. Representative among the men who ignited spiritual works were Evangelist Hwang Gook-ju, Rev. Baek Nam-ju and Rev. Lee Yong-do of the New Jesus Church.
My mother grew up in the mainstream Presbyterian Church, but my grandmother connected to various Spirit-led groups and, when the time was right, introduced her spiritual life to my mother. Long before Korea’s liberation in 1945, my grandmother and mother both offered fervent devotions, lived a life of self-sacrifice, and served others with perseverance, with their sole focus being on receiving the Lord at his Second Advent.
In those days, Hwang Gook-ju, with some 50 followers, set out from Jindao, northeast China, on a pilgrimage across the Korean Peninsula. They witnessed to their faith, ate nothing but flour mixed with water, and performed miracles at revival meetings. The Holy Spirit often came to the evangelist’s sister, Hwang Eun-ja. She, as well as Rev. Lee Yong-do, a local pastor whom she had met at one of their revivals, deeply impressed my mother, who joined their pilgrimage. Mother walked with them on their witnessing journey, from Anju all the way to Shineuiju near the border with China. They preached God’s word as they went. Politically speaking, it was a fearful age, for anyone who so much as alluded to the existence of the “Korean people” could be arrested by the Japanese police. But the group’s services were so powerful that even police detectives sent to spy on the meetings would be deeply moved.
FFWPU, USA