The Words of the Youn Family
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The Words of the Youn Family |
In 1956, Miss Youn joined the Unification Church. Her entire family had joined before her, except her uncle. She was a devout Christian and an active member of the Methodist Church, and she spied on our family and the Unification Church activities for many months, reporting everything she saw and heard to the Methodist Church. Finally, after a desperate internal struggle, she abandoned the fiance whom her uncle had selected for her, and on the same day as her intended wedding, she married the Unification Church.
After meeting Time Father and hearing the Divine Principle, my soul was filled with Heavenly Father's grace and I had the confidence in myself to do anything with wisdom and ability received from God. I studied Principle more systematically, and after I understood it sufficiently, I started to teach children. I taught Divine Principle to children for three years in the church. During summer Bible school, I taught dance and drama. Once True Father himself visited where I was teaching; he saw the children dance and encouraged me, and also interpreted my dreams.
When the 40-day pioneer witnessing campaign began, church members from all throughout the country gathered at headquarters in Seoul and heard Father's inspiring address. He divided us into several groups, each group composed of young people and old people, or very capable people and less capable people; these heavenly soldiers started to our destinations. My elder brother went out with my father, my sister-in-law with my mother, and my 17-year-old sister with me (I was 22 at the time). Since we were following True Father's desire, we went out willingly. And because True Father himself was eating barley, we also took one "mal" of barley with us for food.
My sister and I went to Song Woo Ri Pochun, about 70 kilometers from Seoul. First I visited the village chief and greeted him. I rented one room to stay and teach in and then I climbed to the top of a mountain to pray to God.
I came down again to the village and went to the police station to report that I was from the Unification Church; and there I got some official stamps on our posters so that we could put them up on the walls. I visited all of the churches and greeted each minister, giving him a brief introduction to Principle. When I suggested to them, "There is no word in the Bible that says you will go to hell by believing in the Unification Church," they were taken aback. But after they heard I was the granddaughter of the minister Seung Kyung Youn, they helped me a lot because most of them knew him
At night, 70 or 80 people came for lectures because of the posters. After teaching Divine Principle with all my effort, I was so hungry that I couldn't fall asleep. It was very common for me to sleep just a short time around dawn.
One thing that bothered me so much was that I couldn't take a bath, because the small town had no public bath, and I couldn't take a trip downtown to bathe because it cost too much money. The only way to solve this problem was to take natural baths with rain on rainy nights after midnight. For my younger sister and me, this was kind of an adventure.
Thinking of True Father, who was worrying so much about us and had given us so many detailed directions, we determined strongly to give back the beauty and glory to God. After ten days True Father came to our town. Mrs. Won Pok Choi, who accompanied him, asked us how we were enduring all these difficulties. She said she was confident we could overcome them and encouraged us to pray a lot.
Then Father took pictures of us and said, "Take good care of yourselves." He encouraged us with eyes filled with love and concern. My younger sister hung onto him and cried, "Let me go with you, please." Soothing her, he replied, "You are a good girl; I'll be back," and left waving his hand.
I scolded my younger sister, saying, "Why are you so childish? How painful our Father's heart must have been! We are in the position of returning comfort to his heart and virtue to God. You made him rather anxious about us."
After preaching all day long, night came so quickly. It was hard to sleep comfortably at night because we were young unmarried girls. Young women did not live alone in Korea during those times. If a young man arrived after 10:00 p.m., even though he was one of our church family members, I refused to see him before daylight.
After 40 days of pioneering life had passed, my younger sister returned back home, and I stayed to work on alone. Sometimes one of the brothers from headquarters would come, and I would always sleep in the owner's kitchen. Usually I woke up earlier than anybody else, but when occasionally I slept later than the owner's wife, she woke me up; later she told the village women, "The relationship of Unification Church members, between men and women, is very clear!"
Winter came and the fuel problem became very serious for me. Old people chided me asking why I didn't marry and escape such a hard life. I explained to them that I had come to preach the truth of Heavenly Father. As winter deepened the weather became very cold. I didn't have enough money to buy both food and fuel to keep the room warm. Nevertheless many people came to listen to my lectures every night. After much consideration I went to the mountains to get some wood. Then people accused me and yelled at me saying, "Unification Church must be very poor!?"
From the next day I cut wood in the mountains during the day and hid it in the cemetery where it wouldn't be stolen, bringing it home at night. This way, I kept my room warm so that people could listen to the lectures without shivering.
I gave lectures in three sessions: from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. for high school students, from 7:00 to 8:00 for young people around the age of 20 to 25, and from 8:00 to 10:00 for adults. The most difficult group for me to handle was the second group, the young people. They always tried to find something to tease me about. When I used soap in the morning they said, "Teacher, I smell perfume on you." When I changed clothes, they said, "Teacher, you look so much prettier in that nice dress." Therefore, I wore only white and black clothes from then on. After finishing lectures at 11:00, I went to the cemetery to pick up the wood and bring it back home. Later some young men found out about this and offered to help me.
Several mothers of young men had plans to make me their daughter-in-law. I showed them clearly my attitude and would not even let them talk about it. Then they developed strong resentments toward me and tried to kick me out of that town. They criticized me saying, "What a terrible woman she must be; we never see her eating. She must be a goat."
I prayed for such people, "Father, I pray that you can still love those women because they are ignorant. They persecute me and have a plot to kick me out. I'm not afraid of being persecuted but how sad You must be looking down and hearing how they want to make me leave this town and leave my mission unfulfilled. You destroyed some tribes, even some Jewish tribes, who didn't accept Your words and who persecuted the messenger with Your word. If possible, please let them avoid these catastrophes. Please let them avoid committing such foolish sin."
Two rows of tears dropped from my eyes as I prayed to God. I thought about Jesus' prayer on the cross, asking God to forgive the people who crucified him. I could understand the heart of Jesus somewhat because of my personal experience.
The cold was getting more severe and the wind was very strong. It was impossible to overcome my hunger in such deep winter. Since I was too hungry, I used to drink some cold water. One night I fell asleep, leaving the water container at my feet. By morning I was very cold; when I tried to pull the blanket over me, it wouldn't move. The water had spilled and the blanket layers had frozen together.
One evening, as I had expected, the village chief came and he asked me to leave the village by the next morning. I explained, "It's not hard to leave here, but I'm very worried about catastrophes God might send you for persecuting me without understandable reasons." He asked me where God is, stating that if He really lives, then He would have to show Himself to this unbelieving village chief.
After he left I began a three-day prayer. "Heavenly Father who guided the Jewish people with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, I believe in Your omnipotence; now let me show Your power to the village chief. Haven't You showed me Your might when You lead me from the Methodist Church?"
It was strange, but the village chief didn't come to visit me the next day. Even after a week he didn't appear. And then on the eighth day he came to me with swollen eyes. As soon as he saw me he said, "Please, dearest Miss Youn, save my life. I intended to come earlier but I didn't want to humble myself to a young lady. I am so late to come to you in spite of the fact that I should have repented much earlier. I was on the way home after I met with you that day and a good-looking young man approached me and covered my eyes with a pair of sunglasses. Then he disappeared. Since then I can see only in the morning time, but in the afternoon my eyes are very cloudy and it is just impossible to see, just like on a foggy day."
I said, "Oh, thank You, God," and asked him with a prayerful mind, "Will you receive our teaching and join our church if I take off those glasses?"
He answered, "Yes, surely I will and I'll establish your church on my land and provide all the necessary materials to build it."
With his answer I prayed and his eyes were healed completely. He became a very good church brother.
Later I brought him to headquarters. When True Father began to speak, I asked the chief if he knew the man who was speaking.
He was very surprised and said, "He's the one who put the glasses on me." After he came back to the village he said, "I'll devote the rest of my life to the church."
We made plans to build our church. Because we didn't have enough money we decided to make earthen bricks for our church. It was the rainy season so it was difficult to begin work right away. Several days passed without our being able to do anything and the village people asked me, "Teacher, let's start working instead of only looking up at the sky waiting for the rain to stop."
Although it was a small church, for me as a young woman, it was not easy to build. It was very difficult to bring the bricks to the church site, because they were on ground far away. I worked very hard carrying an A-frame, bringing bricks to where we needed them. I didn't eat very much, and all of the young men were inspired and did their best to help. I, who had never even seen a house built, leveled the ground and laid the foundation day and night. In this way we could finally finish constructing our church building and making the village, "Village of Unification."
I went to Ji Kyung Li, Kang Won Do, at the request from headquarters, when I was 26 years old. I greeted all the ministers in the village and visited each home personally. One old man around 80 years old said, "You look like minister Youn who died a long time ago in this village."
And so it was, I, his granddaughter had come again to the same place where my grandfather had died preaching. "Grandfather, please, help your granddaughter. I will accomplish what you couldn't finish," I prayed. The existing church there had been established by my mother.
This town had many soldiers because of an army base, so I couldn't go out alone, especially at night.
Due to these worries I finally tried to wear men's clothing. To hide that I was a woman I bound my chest up very tightly and instead of wearing women's shoes I put on men's.
I used to pray before going anywhere. Each time, my grandfather taught me (spiritually) in detail what to do and how to do it. For example, when he asked me to visit a family's home, I accepted his direction and they were sure to be inspired by my visit very much.
One day 50 soldiers came to me. Most of them were already Christian but hearing that one young lady had come from the Unification Church to preach, they were curious and came to test me. I was somewhat embarrassed by so many young men visiting but when I gave lectures I became courageous. After they listened to me, they offered me many different kinds of things, such as rice, soap, and so on. Even though I didn't want to receive those things, because of their sincere attitude, I accepted them.
That night I prayed and went to bed, and my grandfather appeared again in my dream. He said, "Don't touch any of those things which were given to you. Give them back to the owners." Then next week when I met them again I did as my grandfather wanted me to do. They came to my church every Sunday for service and helped me through many difficulties. My grandfather always stayed close with me, and gave me many directions every time it was necessary. My spiritual eyes were opened gradually, and I had many spiritual experiences.
The next spring, 1963, headquarters sent out notices for everyone to plant at least 30 trees. However, because I didn't have any money to buy trees, I went to the town chief and asked permission to cut branches of the Italian poplar trees and plant them on the mountain. Fortunately he willingly accepted my suggestion, because Italian poplar trees are a very strong tree which can grow with just planting a cutting. Some young men gathered the branches as I was cutting them and tied them up with string. They said, "Teacher, you even cut the trees well. You are rather like a man." "My Lord, please let them grow well as your true sons and daughters," I prayed, as I looked down on the young men who were laughing with joy.
The next day as I continued cutting branches, someone said that a telegram had arrived for me. It read, "Come to Seoul for the Blessing."
The members there couldn't understand what it meant because they thought I was too old to get married. I pretended it was nothing important and kept on working until I cut 3000 branches. I planted them on a bare mountain. Finally I prepared to go to Seoul, asking one brother to take care of our family during my absence.
I arrived in Seoul very sun burnt from planting the trees every day on the mountain. Mrs. Won Pok Choi called those of us who had a strong sun burn and gave us each ten eggs. I ate two eggs each day with a thankful mind toward her.
Even during the matching, my mind was always back with the family in my area, worrying about them, wondering if they might fall to Satan or if they were suffering because I wasn't there. Thirty days after the engagement, the 72-couple Blessing ceremony took place.
Soon afterwards we all went back to our areas Family members were so happy to see me again that they didn't even know how to express their feelings. I comforted them, saying, "There won't be any more of these affairs so don't worry about it anymore." I told them what had happened to me and heard their reports. By then the faith of our family members had grown so much that I no longer had to be anxious about them if I had to be absent again.
Instructions came from headquarters for me to go to Dae Chun, Choong Nam to be with my husband. I had stayed in Ji Kyung Li for close to three years, from 1960 to 1963.
Arriving at my new mission I found the situation very difficult. The church was only a little wood-framed house, and it was hard for outside people to believe that it was really a church. I prayed, "Heavenly Father, You tried to save this whole world through one person, Jesus, who was born in a stable as the son of a carpenter. Although this is a humble house, I believe that You can come and work through us to realize Your providence in this city of Dae Chun. Please let people see the internal power and not just the external form of this place. Let us be wiser if we lack wisdom, and let us be capable if we lack capability. I really believe in Your mightiness, please let us show Your glory in this city." When I prayed my eyes got wet again with warm tears. I planned rallies everywhere I went and I actualized those plans.
One year after arriving at Dae Chun, I was ready to give birth to a baby. However, our financial situation was at that time very difficult; we could only manage to eat one bowl of soup a day. Needless to say, we couldn't afford diapers, clothes or a blanket for the coming baby. So, unwillingly, I had to go to my husband's parents' home.
My mother-in-law was a country woman, uneducated and conservative; she couldn't understand our life and mistreated me very much. Finally I became a mother by delivering a baby boy. I decided to be a model daughter-in-law and persuade my husband's mother that a bride from the Unification Church was the best bride. Therefore, I decided to separate from my husband and live with my mother-in-law until she changed her opinion completely.
We farmed, as most of the people in the countryside do. I worked as hard as I could. I brought firewood from the mountains and weeded the crops, even though I didn't have any experience doing many things. I just watched the farmers work from a distance and imitated them. I did men's work as well as women's duties because I only had one brother-in-law, and he was still very young.
Within one year, the concepts of my mother-in-law and neighbors began to change. I thought, "This is my chance," and I gave the villagers -- children and adults alike -- medical care and injections, as I had been trained to do. Finally the people praised me saying, "This family got a very good daughter-in-law from the Unification Church."
After I changed their misconception of me and our church, I and my son left for Dae Chun, where my husband was waiting for me. Father named our son Yong Sam. It was always hard financially so I started to sell bread. As I baked bread I would pray. "May those who eat this bread be blessed by God."
One day a person came to me to confess that he once stole my bread. After that, for reasons he didn't understand, he felt like repenting for what he had done and started going to church. Besides him, many people became connected with me through the bread sales.
I became pregnant with a second baby. The church was growing day by day. More people came and their faith became stronger and deeper. Finally I gave birth to another son, whom Father named Young Seuing. Before Young Seuing was one month old, my husband was called into the army, because of a mistake with the army papers.
So I went pioneering to Po Chung, Kyung Ki Do. There I found one family who wanted to join after they heard lectures. They were worrying about having a church. I prayed very hard, and many brothers and sisters joined and we built our church building easily.
One thing that was troublesome was that my baby cried whenever lecture time came. I tried to appease him but without success, so I had to preach while nursing my six month old baby. Where can we find a preacher who gives a lecture while nursing a baby with mother's milk? Nevertheless, all of the family there remembers receiving lots of grace through me.
I realized how hard Heavenly Father was working at this emergency time when I saw the spiritual phenomena happening around me. More members were joining the church, and its foundation was becoming stronger and firmer. I picked out some smart young men and sent them to a workshop. After they returned from workshop I sent them out on pioneer experiences to let them grow. They obeyed me as completely as a baby does his mother. Now they are all grown up and most of them are blessed. Some of them are in position of center directors, and others are working for companies or went abroad as missionaries.
In the meantime my husband finished his service in the army and I came back home, leaving my position of leader for another to fill.
It was 1970, a significant year in God's providence and the church headquarters ordered all blessed women to go out preaching. In town we started for our new locations, in groups of ten. We left our children who were more than 100 days old at home. I went to Wha Chun, Kang Won Do as the 65th team captain. We were supposed to spend three years serving in a public life preaching Principle to the people.
After I finished packing my bags, I explained to all my children why I had to leave from home. My big son understood but persuading my little boy wasn't easy at all. He didn't want to separate from me. "Your mother is leaving to follow Heavenly Father's will and True Parents' direction to save the lives of all people. So you shouldn't try to see mother for a while to please True Parents," I said tenderly and left from home asking their grandmother to take care of them.
After I arrived in Wha Chun, I met members who had left babies less than 100 days at home. Their breasts were swollen every night. I bought a milk squeezer and squeezed milk from their breasts with it every day. Who can make mothers separate from babies less than 100 days old? Since we knew God's painful heart, we came here letting grandmothers or husbands look after our children without any complaints.
Every time I squeezed milk from mother's breasts, I prayed, "Heavenly Father please give us courage, great faith and wisdom. We left babies less than 100 days at home." Then tears were going to come out, but I couldn't shed tears thinking that if I cried, the babies' mothers would form a sea with their tears. When I wanted to see my children, I thought of our True Parents who were working so hard even without taking care of their children, for the sake of their race and this world.
We began to restore the number 40 by having 10 members fast for 4 days. Because Moses, Jesus and True Father also fasted for 40 days, we wanted to follow their example. We also went praying early in the morning to holy ground. I gave lectures about anti-communism, visiting each village.
Our situation was much better than before because headquarters provided us with living expenses. I finished my mission of three years in comparatively good circumstances and came back home.
After three years of blessed wives' pioneering life, True Parents gave another direction to preach to 100 homes. I started with fasting and prayed after having planned and picked out a name list. Finally the time came to visit people. But because it was strange to visit people suddenly without having been acquainted with them, I decided to sell necessities of life which I bought with the money I was given on Hyo Jin Nim's birthday. "King of Kings my Lord, Heavenly Father, to preach to people I am going to sell things. Please work through these things and catch their hearts," I prayed. I sold them without profit door to door. The people responded well pleased that the price was very cheap. This way I visited people as usual and said hello to them whether they bought my things or not. Naturally then I became very intimate with the people. After 100 days had passed, I brought them the Divine Principle and the Bible instead of things to sell, and appeared as a preacher giving God's words. People who were touched with the grace of God became members one by one.
I have a ten year plan. My faith is that if I do my best, making effort and praying hard, anyone can become a member of our family. This is my conclusion from my experience. To witness to one person, I always prayed and fasted for three days. Then spiritual world showed me and taught by inspiration how to achieve my goal.
Because True Father was so anxious to realize God's desires, I couldn't want to be comfortable by myself. Father once said, "To save one life is to guide it to God's dominion. Therefore you cannot witness to people without dedicating more effort than Satan. It means you should give anything you are valuing without hesitation." I have always kept these words in my mind and struggled to actualize it. However there were some people impossible to bring as I wanted, in spite of my best effort. "He must be blessed too much to accept another blessing." But Heavenly Father guided me to another person, in a different way. I realized that the prize of our sweat and tears could never be stolen.
Once my younger sister tried to get married in the outside world. Nothing was effective at all in trying to persuade her to change her mind. It was so painful and sorrowful to think of her destiny in the future. It was unimaginable that my younger sister who passed through all the trials in pioneer life and in church life could marry somebody in fallen society. After much consideration, I prayed, crying out, "Heavenly Father, one life is going to be handed to the temptation of Satan. Please give her strong faith and let her go through this test of evil spirit."
To my sister's question in wondering what was happening and who had died at home, I answered, "You are dead so I'm going to bury you." Then she finally understood what I meant and asked for forgiveness, crying. At that moment, a voice sounded from heaven, "It was more painful than when I gave birth to you."
After this event, my younger sister was blessed as one of the 430 couples. I could realize how hard God was working to save even one life. From this I learned that it was impossible to restore one person without blood, sweat, and tears.
With this attitude of mind, I brought 18 lost people back to God in 1976. I'm trying to restore more people than that now.
Since I devoted myself all of my life to God's work, wherever He goes, I'll follow, and whatever He does, I'll do it.