The Book That Made Me

Itia Tegha
October 2010

Rev. Itia Tegha (in a suit) with Ghanian members recently, shortly after being elected their acting national leader

My journey to national leadership started in 1994 when I found my father. I had grown up with my mother and stepfather. My only vivid images of my father were of when he visited me in our village. I was then just about four or five, living in my maternal grandfather's home.

My father had joined the Unification Church in 1975, a few months after I was born. He was just a young man of twenty-five, booming with life and dreaming of living in New York. He had a music dream and wanted to be a star. I know he would have made it. His old time pictures say it all -- he was so refined. The refusal of the American embassy to give him a visa (an obstacle to his musical career) was actually a blessing, even though at that time, he could have called it a curse. With the appearance of a certain white woman, Kathy Rigney, all his desire to make another attempt at the U.S. embassy evaporated. Instead, fund raising and daily Divine Principle lectures began.

He was the second person to become a member in Cameroon, and preaching of the kingdom of heaven was his new mission. He also gradually stopped visiting me. He later told me that my stepfather had threatened him with a pistol, warning him not to visit me anymore. My stepfather had claimed me and changed my names. He was rich, influential, famous and older than my father. He would have gone to any lengths to stop my father from visiting me.

Even though my name was changed, I knew I had a father who was far, far away. One day, while in school, I made up my mind to look for my father. We had finished taking our final term exams and we had some free time. I went into our classroom and started writing a letter to my father. An aunt had earlier informed me that he had a white woman and that he lived in Bamenda, in northwest Cameroon. The information was scanty. She did not even know his full name. She only remembered a nickname they had given him. I felt that asking my mother about my father would hurt her too much. My leaving would cause problems with her husband. I suspected that she would not tell me much, which is why I sought an aunt's help.

To cut a long story short, I finally met my father through the help of a young friend.

I knew that although my father did not show his feelings, he was overwhelmed to see me. I had only come to visit him to connect to my roots. I hadn't planned to live with him. As things turned out, though, I was going to live with him forever.

I wanted to let him know that he had not treated me well, that I had felt abandoned by him. It was not until he told me his own part of the story and the ordeal he went through that I found a place in my heart to forgive him.

Becoming acquainted with my stepmother wasn't easy, not because she was white, but because her life was surrounded by many principles, principles that nothing could change. At first, I thought I could change them, but gradually, they changed me.

After about a week in my father's home, his wife picked up a small book, The Return of the Lord -- How Soon? and gave it to me. I still can remember that as she was giving me the book, smiling casually, she said, "Read this book. It will inspire you."

That book transformed not only my views on God and Jesus, but my whole life. The understanding that Jesus came not to die but to unite the world was a new concept to me and made sense. I saw clearly through my imagination that if the Jews had accepted Jesus two thousand years ago, the world would not have experienced the tragedies of slavery and colonization. I had just learned the history of the slave trade and its vices. This seriously affected my emotions. I realized that had Jesus been accepted, the world would have witnessed a more civilized colonization -- simply put, evangelization. I could easily grasp that Jewish people would have been the most respected people on earth. I saw that Rome would have become like America. The Return of the Lord -- How Soon? is just a book, but it removed the plank from my eyes.

Rev. Bill Forcha's book, which is currently being used in Ghana to proclaim that the Lord has returned. A booklet produced earlier by Rev. Forcha was given to Mr. Tegha when he was a teenager. It changed his life.

I used to wonder about the publisher, Bill Forcha. He had done a good job of taking something from Rev. Moon's speeches and some Christian testimonies on Jesus' vision and putting them together to make that little book. I thought he was a famous American preacher like Billy Graham. I read the book repeatedly.

At the back of the book it said, "One Easter Sunday, Rev. Sun Myung Moon was praying on a mountain in a small North Korean village when he had a vision of Jesus Christ." According to the book, Jesus asked Rev. Moon to build the kingdom of God. Father had refused at first but finally accepted because Jesus persisted. I looked at a picture of True Father in the back of the book and I caught the whole story -- an immediate revelation that this is a picture of the Second Coming of the Lord.

Though I had just had the most important revelation of my life, it didn't move me much. I decided to find out exactly what this man brings as the Lord. If he is the

Returning Lord, I asked myself, why hasn't the end of the world come as described in the Bible? Why haven't the dead risen and been brought back to life? Did this man come from the sky, or was he born? I very much wanted to know more about his family. Many questions came to mind. Gradually, staying in my father's home led me to join a seven-day workshop where I learned that God's heart and Jesus' heart are suffering greatly.

This reminded me of some of the pictures I had seen in The Return of the Lord -- How Soon? In the book was the story of a woman minister from East Africa, Sister Anne. According to the story in the book, Sister Anne had seen Jesus in a vision and Jesus had revealed himself to her to the extent that she could take pictures of him. I still have memories of those pictures of Jesus. Jesus was crying tears of blood. Jesus left the sister with severe stigmata on the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands. She bled for months until a certain Archbishop Milingo, who was her bishop, healed her miraculously. This was the explanation in the book.

Rev. Bill later told me that since both her life and Father's involved revelations, he decided to present Rev. Moon and Sister Anne in the same book.

When I decided to become an active member of the church, I realized that this small book had been the cause. It was my foundation. The book provoked a revolution within me. Relating to my father's wife was difficult for me but because I was compelled to ask more questions, I could not leave their home without the answers. Even though I now have memories of all the efforts my father and stepmother made to show their love for me, I did not understand them at all at that time. I just could not adapt to the many things that were new.

I held bad feelings and sometimes felt a lack of love. I wasn't yet able to understand that my life course had started. I passed through many health ordeals and many spiritual attacks while I lived with my father. When I finally understood these things clearly I felt so grateful to Bill Forcha for publishing a book that had passed a message so deep into my soul....

I moved from one town to another and traveled out of my native Cameroon on various occasions. Once, I had finished a fund raising program in Nigeria, and I was offered a job in the capital, Abuja. A few weeks later, I had a strange dream. I felt such a strange sensation that day. My brain was signaling that this job wasn't what God wanted me to do. Instinctively

I wrote to Rev. Forcha and included my phone numbers.

He called me and told me he had a video project he wanted me to manage. I did not promise him I would come, but while at a workshop in Benin during one of Dae-mo nim's visits, I decided to visit Ghana. We didn't do the video project but instead launched a health-related product. We also gradually succeeded in starting one of the most successful bottled water companies in Ghana.

Not long after that, Ghanaian Unification Church members elected me national leader.

Rev. Forcha has been and will continue to be a spiritual inspiration to many of us. Many have testified that they have never seen anyone who loves praying as much as Bill Forcha does. I have lived with him for some time, and I can testify that he is a prayer warrior. His books keep on inspiring many young people all around Africa.

Today, his new book, Warning to Christians and Prophets of the Last Days is touching the lives of many, especially in Ghana. Though it might take some time to turn Ghanaians around to True Parents, the hope of having a Cheon Il Guk nation by 2013 is very alive within us in the Ghana family.