The Words of the Choi Family
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The Words of the Choi Family |
Kyung
Jun Yoon and his wife Moon Sook Choi with Father and Mother.
Eldest daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Yong Seuk Choi
When I heard there was matching going on in Korea, Sung Sook Kwak and I stayed up very late in my room at the World Mission Center. We were both very excited. That night I called my mother in Korea and she told me that Father had matched 14 couples that day -- April 8, the day before Parents' Day -- and was planning on matching six more starting at 10:30 the following morning.
I decided to make a personal condition on Parents' Day, to pray at the exact same time as the second matching was to start-8:30 p.m. my time, corresponding to 10:30 a.m. in Korea. I said to myself, "One hundred twenty minutes, containing the number 12, should be enough for True Father to finish matching six more couples. Therefore, I will pray for two hours. If I don't receive a phone call after two hours, I'm going to assume I did not get matched:'
During those two hours I prayed like this: "Heavenly Father, I don't care whether I get picked by you or not, but in case You're going to pick me, I want to express only one small thing. I don't care if my husband is crippled, and I don't care if he is dumb. But I hope he is a son who has strong faith and loyalty and filial piety. Then I would be happy. Still, don't listen to my words. I was just asking. I will let You take all responsibility and do as You wish:'
When I stopped praying at 10:30 p.m., there was no phone call, so I said to myself, "Okay, everything is over." It didn't matter to me that I hadn't gotten picked. I knew it was all God's will. I started to get ready for bed and totally stopped thinking about it.
Then about 30 minutes later, the phone rang. It was my mother telling me I had just gotten matched to Kyung Jun Yoon [son of Mr. and Mrs. Young Taek Yoon]. Father had started matching late and my couple was the first one he chose that day. I was shocked, but then my feeling was nothing but appreciation. My mother said she had made a bow to Father in acceptance.
I felt very grateful, because I had already given up hope that I would be matched. I put True Father's picture in front of me and made a deep bow in acceptance and gratitude myself. Somehow I couldn't stop crying.
My father had been a pioneer most of his church life, which caused our family to move around a lot. Since I was born, we've moved more than ten times, and my family was often apart from my father. In 1968 True Father asked my father to establish VOC in Japan. So he went to Japan and once in a very great while he would come and visit us in Korea.
Then in 1974, when I was 11 years old, my whole family moved to Japan to be with him. Most of the Japanese are beautiful people, but I experienced living in hell -- not spiritual hell but external hell. Because my father was working for VOC, we received many phone calls from communists who told my father, "If you don't stop what you are doing, someday your wife and children will be kidnapped
My parents wouldn't let us go anywhere by ourselves, because unfortunately one of our next-door neighbors was a communist; so it was very dangerous for us to be out on the streets alone. For two and a half years, I never experienced getting into a public bus, taxi, or subway. Even if I had to buy something for school, or if I wanted to just go out for a walk, I always had to wait until somebody could come with me to be my bodyguard. It was total hell. I was always driven to school by church members. But because they were usually very busy with church work, they couldn't always make it on time to pick me up; so I had to wait around in the school playground until six or seven o'clock. The teachers would stare at me. I couldn't explain anything, because they wouldn't have understood.
I went to an international school where classes were held in English. I could have gone to a Japanese elementary school, but at that time there was a lot of tension between the Koreans and the Japanese. Korean kids at Japanese schools were greatly persecuted. One of the Korean kids I knew committed suicide because of the persecution he felt.
In 1977 we came back to Korea and I felt I was living in heaven. My father still went back and forth to Japan, but then in 1982 he went to Germany to be the regional director of Europe. After only two months, when Tiger Park passed away, he came to America and worked with CARP.
The whole family moved to America in 1982. Right now I am going to the Manhattan School of Music, which is five blocks north of Columbia University. It's a pretty good school, and my major is voice.
The first time I heard the Principle was when I was seven or eight. I knew that True Father was a great man, and I never had a shred of doubt about him. If he gave some direction, I just said, "Well, I can do that. Absolutely." I was completely confident about everything that Father was doing, especially about matching.
I heard many stories about how Father matches, what people's reactions are to their match, and how some couples abuse and fight with each other. When I learned that some members refuse their matches in front of Father or argue with Father, I thought, "That is a terrible thing to do. How dare they do that?"
I somehow trusted Father completely about the matching. It just grew in my bones that whoever Father would match me with, I wouldn't mind. Whether he was crippled or stupid or ugly wouldn't matter to me at all.
While I was growing up my mother always made a lot of conditions. I remember she sometimes did a special 100-day condition for the sake of her children. Every morning right after she woke up, she would pray hard and then put one grain of uncooked holy rice in her mouth. She would do this every day for 100 days. It was a symbolic offering, to show to Heavenly Father her constancy and loyalty.
True Father taught us that saying "I love you" is not important. Anyone can say "I love you," but the most important thing is to show sincerity. That is the most difficult thing to do, because sometimes when you are busy you can easily forget you made a condition. Sometimes you miss it and then you don't even remember it. So I think that through the conditions they made, my parents were showing me their sincerity and faithfulness.
Father said that Western people want to make sure all the time that they are loved, so they ask their spouse or their children, "Do you love me, do you love me?" But in the Orient, especially in Korea, there aren't going to be many times when the children hear from their own parents,
"Honey, I love you," but they can sense it; they can feel it in their heart. Whatever my parents did I always accepted. I knew that whatever they were doing, they were doing it for True Parents.
Inside I always felt sorry that I couldn't help them more. I wished I could even forget about school so I could help them. I felt strongly that I should always control myself and never go off the track.
And one more thing. My new husband is neither crippled nor ugly nor dumb. He is totally opposite of all that. I believe I got everything I ever wanted -- and more.