When you first heard Principle, weren’t you delighted to discover that the purpose of God’s great Creation was joy? Well, it’s time to get happy again. The Garden of Eden, the meadow of joy, has been restored. This is not a metaphor. This is New Hope East Garden, True Parents’ land of settlement in South America. Would you like to help build God’s Kingdom here? Only joymakers need apply.

You are, perhaps, already familiar with the leader of the training in New Hope East Garden, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. And you may have heard of his desire to welcome you into the True Family, and to take a picture with your couple for his family album, and to register you as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. But you may be put off by the registration fee, and the request to visit one more remote location in one more corner of the Earth. Don’t worry. Be happy. Let’s look at the experiences and inspirations of some of the participants in the most recent, fifth workshop, coordinated by Umberto and Marilyn Angelucci:

Most of the participants in this 40-day training had some difficulty to get here, but if you ask them how many regret coming here, no one is going to raise their hand. Why? For some, it’s a True Family atmosphere. "I felt the size of my family increased greatly upon coming here...my four daughters meet friends in church on Sundays in Korea, but here they are spending 40 days with them," said Mallory Leece, Professor of English at Sun Moon University, "Coming with my whole family from Korea was difficult, but on arriving here I could feel so much freer." Another native of England, Tessa Hodson Squizzato, said, "It’s the joy and rebirth that I experienced as an individual in my first workshop, but on a family level. And on a substantial level as well. After learning the Principle, we went out and fought hard for many years to make it real in our lives individually and as families. Living here with other families like this is like the harvest of all those efforts. I’m planning to move to this area in the future." Indeed, the director of True Parents’ projects in this area, President Yoon Sang Kim, is encouraging any and all members to migrate here. "It doesn’t matter how many people come here, there’s no problem for space," he told the Western workshop group here on January 25th, 1999. This "Western" workshop group was very international. We had French, German, Italian, African (Lesotho), English, American, Mexican-American, Chinese-American, Filipino, Austrian, and four Japanese wives. These Japanese wives chose to do hoon dok hae in their own language but with our group. Speaking of the people you might meet here, there seems to be a steady stream of Church luminaries through this place. The fourth and fifth workshops heard the testimonies of such elders as Won Pil Kim, Young Whi Kim, Mrs. Socrates, Rev. Ken Sudo, and Mrs. Hamasaka, to name a few. Our international, "Western" group was considered the most creative and interesting in the entertainment we presented on cultural nights.

Pres. Kim and Rev. Hideo Oyamada are always in the front row for the entertainment and they give their comments on each act afterwards. They are really determined to win the hearts of the leaders of this area and state, and eventually, this nation and region. So they are paying a lot of attention not only to the internal and external aspects of this workshop and the larger project, the "Pantanal" project, but also to the atmosphere that we can generate here to inspire the local leaders. To this end, all members are encouraged to participate in the Sunday sports and entertainment programs wholeheartedly. If your favorite musical instrument is smaller than a piano, you might want to bring it. They have an electric keyboard here, anyway. True Father is looking forward to hearing the love songs that will be written here. He wants to make them the new Holy Songs. The Kingdom of Heaven is a world of art, isn’t it?

President Kim often gives exciting reports about the progress of the Pantanal project. The nearest city to our New Hope East Garden is Jardim, which, of course, means "garden," in Portuguese. By the way, there was a local prophesy that the Messiah would return to Earth in Jardim. Jardim is a rather small city on the southern edge of the Pantanal area. This area is one of the least developed places left on Earth, which makes it a perfect spot to build a model of the ideal way of life on a grand scale. But before you begin to have visions of burning rainforests, let’s look at one of President Kim’s life experiences that he related to the last workshop. Pres. Kim was once stung on the nose by a bee. There is a Korean remedy that involves bee stings, but this sting was an accident, not a therapeutic occasion. Then, because of a language mix-up, someone gave him an insecticide instead of the treatment that he was seeking to relieve the bee sting. Not being able to read the label, he just trustingly sprayed the poison onto his nose. Immediately his body started to twist and turn, then he fell down and lost consciousness. True Father was looking on and said, "It looks like he’s going to die." Of course, he lived, but he suffered many side effects. The point of the story is that President Kim shares True Father’s thinking regarding living in harmony with the creation, including the insects. He plans to develop the agricultural projects in this area without the use of chemicals. In addition to the health benefits this brings, and the better taste of the products, there is a significant economic advantage as well. Certified organic products bring a much higher price in the marketplace. However, the greater part of the Pantanal project involves the processing and marketing of these and other products and developing the tourism and hobby business; these are the fields that will require a lot of our members’ manpower in the near future.

The author’s wife, Yoko Becker, was very excited to be a part of that manpower during the service portion of the workshop. She helped build tanks for raising escargot in the greenhouse. "I really liked the experience of actually building God’s Kingdom brick by brick," she reported enthusiastically.

The National Messiah to Brazil (from France), Christian Lepelletier, came from Sao Paolo with his wife and two children to spend 40 days here during their children’s summer vacation. (Some couples from the Northern Hemisphere brought their children with their schoolwork and other things for them to do.) "We appreciated spending time together as a family, away from our usual busy life in the city," Christian said. "Sao Paolo is overpopulated and polluted. We will miss the beautiful natural surroundings of God’s Creation. Almost every morning and evening we had a beautiful sunrise and sunset show." He was grateful to have the guidance in the lectures and hoon dok hae on Blessed family life, as well. "True Parents are asking us to...reach the lifestyle before the Fall, so it’s good to have this time together as a couple to study and discuss and make some progress in that direction."

It seemed that everyone was really grateful for the lectures on ideal family life by Rev. Jeung Rho Yoon and Rev. Myung Ki Shin. Rev. Yoon gave a lot of concrete advise on the duty of a husband to his wife and also the duty of the wife. Then he had husbands and wives rate each other’s performance according to these standards. To do this in public was challenging for some, but very useful for all. Here are some excerpts from his talk:

"...In this world, there are so many men who are not interested in their wife’s clothes, food, sleep or the house. And if they have sex, it’s only centered on their own enjoyment. It’s the duty of Unification Church men to take care of there wives like queens...Animals have no responsibility. If we lose our responsibility, we become like animals. First, we must take responsibility for the perfection of our personality. If you don’t worry about your own personality, but tell your wife, ‘Respect me,’ no woman on Earth will do it...rather than reading ordinary books, study the four saints (Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates.) This is the quickest way to perfect your personality. You must become a man of character for your wife to love you."

Rev. Yoon then quizzed each wife in turn. The wives rated the husbands on the interest their husbands show in them; responsibility for personality, family, and work; respect; trying to understand them; and having the attitude of wanting to give first.

After outlining the wife’s duty to her husband, Rev. Yoon had the husbands rate the wives on three points. One point was how well the wife maintains a bright and warm feeling and refrains from comparing her husband to others. "If you compare your husband to another, he won’t accept it. He’ll just say, ‘If you like him so much, why don’t you go live with him?’," Rev. Yoon advised. A perfect score for the wife was thirty points in each category and ten extra points were awarded for each child she had. Most of the wives did very well. Most of the husbands didn’t flunk. We’ll try harder.

Many members’ most striking memories are from the pilgrimages. Every workshop makes three pilgrimages to other Holy Places where our True Parents lived and worked. The places we visit are Fuerte Olimpo, Rio Perdido ("Lost River"), and Salobra Hotel Fazenda, which is Father’s home and "ranch hotel" at the confluence of the Salobra and Miranda rivers. Testimonies about the stunning beauty and deep significance of those places are the subject of another article. There are other interesting and beautiful places to visit in this area, too. If you have the time and a little extra money, you might want to visit Bonito, and swim with the fish, or take a trip to see Iguacu Falls and Itaipu Dam, before or after your 40 days. It’s advisable to try to arrange the side trips before you leave home, however. Here’s another travel tip: Your airline may tell you that your luggage is checked through to your destination. It’s a lie. You have to pick up your checked luggage in Sao Paolo and take it through Customs by yourself. For other practical information about what you need to bring and what to expect, please refer to Betty Lancaster’s article in the October UNews.

In one of his talks to us, True Father referred to this time in history as "the final page". It’s hard even for those of us here to grasp the full value of this time, but it really seems like the time that we’ve all been waiting and working for. So, joymakers, if you would like to register for the Kingdom, the friendly staff of the 40-day Ideal Family Workshop will be very happy to help you.

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Information
Tparents Home