Working With Dae Mo Nim

Interview of Young Ho Ha
October 2011

Rev. Young Ho Ha is the director of the Chung Pyung Heaven and Earth Training Center in Korea. As such, he works closely with Dae Mo Nim as an administrator. We wanted to know something of his impressions of her as a person, in the context of her work to support True Parents.

Question: Is Dae Mo Nim here, in Chung Pyung, at the moment?

The dedication ceremony for the Ocean Cheonjeong Palace Hotel will take place on 8.15 by the heavenly calendar [September 12, 2011]. Dae Mo Nim went to set up conditions for the dedication. She went to three cities and some other areas in the southern part of the peninsula to straighten out some spiritual matters to help ensure that this dedication, which True Parents are overseeing, will be a success.

She departed two days ago and came back last night. I was amazed she offers these conditions in advance of such events.

Because she had been doing conditions, she hadn't slept for two nights. I spoke to her by telephone and her voice sounded hoarse, as if her throat were swollen.

Question: Does she make many conditions like this?

Yes. When church members are told that a dedication ceremony is going to be held on Geomun Island, we simply go there, prepare an offering donation and attend True Parents for two or three hours at the dedication ceremony. However, Dae Mo Nim is preparing the spiritual foundation by getting rid of negative spirits, thus facilitating the offering of the Ocean Cheonjeong Palace Hotel; through the absolute, good spirits she prepares for manifestation of True Parents' glory. I believe she prepares in ways even we, as members, are unable to imagine. Yet, she does not go around telling others what she has done. Even if True Parents talk about it, she just smiles and says nothing. That's why people cannot fathom the quality of devotion that Dae Mo Nim offers.

Question: There are new developments in Chung Pyung....

In keeping with preparations for the Day of Origin [Foundation Day], Dae Mo Nim has been preparing the Cheongshim Peace World Center. After receiving a permit to build a small sports stadium, she prepared it for True Parents because they are now elderly and it is not as easy for them to travel or to hold events in unfamiliar venues -- such as when Father spoke at the Songdo Convention Center in Incheon. That's why we are preparing a venue where the audio, lighting and atmosphere will be familiar so that True Father can freely deliver the message he has in his heart to blessed members, ambassadors for peace or others. It is a place to which True Parents can invite presidents, parliament members, scholars and economists and freely and assertively speak to them.

Question: How big is it?

When Father has events at Cheonjeong Gung, he usually calls 2,000 people, but when the Peace World Center is completed he can invite 25,000 people from Korea and abroad. At a stretch, the Peace World Center can accommodate up to 30,000. So, we are making preparations to shift from 2,000-people events to 20,000- and 30,000-people events.

I could see that Dae Mo Nim's preparations were in line with True Father's international stature. It usually takes four or five years to complete a building that size. If True Father had said we would need to build a building because of a particular event, it would take five years to complete, including time for obtaining the building permit. If we had waited for Father's instructions, that providence would have passed us by. Thus, in preparation for the Day of Origin [Foundation Day], Dae Mo Nim began construction even before True Father said anything. She prepared this for the Day of Origin [Foundation Day] event so that True Father could conduct the global providence on a larger scale. I believe such things are possible because of the unity and cooperation between the spiritual and physical worlds. I believe Dae Mo Nim is able to prepare because she goes spiritually to a higher place and looks far ahead.

We will have the dedication ceremony for the Ocean Cheonjeong Palace Hotel. I think she saw in the spirit world what would transpire in Yeosu and on Geomun Island and what True Father is preparing.

Question: Could you say a something about Dae Mo Nim's personality and heart, given that you have worked closely with her on a daily basis for some years?

She understands me better than my own mother does. My mother gave birth to me, raised me and educated me. You would think she would know me better than anybody else does. Yet, I feel Dae Mo Nim understands me and knows me better.

If I reflect on the dream my mother had for me and the effort she made so that I could fulfill that dream, I can say that Dae Mo Nim, even more than that, encourages me to have a big providential dream and to fulfill that dream. Once Dae Mo Nim told me that I should be able to go higher than she and see farther than she, so that I can think about the way Chung Pyung should go and what it should do for True Parents, and that I should then plan and prepare to carry out these things. Hearing those words of blessing, I felt that she was guiding me with greater love than my own parents.

I cannot imagine my rising higher or being able to see farther than Dae Mo Nim does. Yet, she blessed me with those words. It is like True Parents love that expresses the desire for their children to be better than they are. We should allow those below us to rise higher than we are, to look farther, to broaden God and True Parents' path so that their glory can manifest.

Without the heart of a parent, you would not be able to say this.

Whenever I face a great challenge in my line of work, she tells me that my brain resembles God's. God has creativity; in the same way, my brain also has creativity. God is all-knowing and all-powerful. She says that in the same way, we have these qualities in our heads. Just as God is omniscient and omnipotent, we are given God's creativity and power. That is all inside our heads.

Dae Mo Nim added that when I confront a certain fact, I should look above and below it, look to its right and left, look at what lies in front and behind it, to turn it upside down and look what is inside and outside of that fact. She said that then 1 will find an answer; I can figure it out with my head.

Dae Mo Nim has faith in me and faith that since I resemble God, if God says that I can do something, I can do it. She has faith in me and waits for me. A woman gives birth to a child and raises him to resemble his father. Dae Mo Nim truly believes that we resemble God and are capable of manifesting God's glory. She has faith in our ability and waits for us until the end.

After accomplishing something, she is so humble. What she also says is that after the flood judgment instead of thinking he had done everything himself, Noah should have thought that God had achieved it all. Everything from building the ark, successfully carrying out the flood judgment and settling on land were part of God's amazing grace and work. If Noah had praised God's glory, he would not have failed. He would not have experienced Ham's failure. Yet, Noah believed that he had done it all. This is what Noah said to Dae Mo Nim when she met him.

Thus, all of Dae Mo Nim's work is done by God and by True Parents. There is no mention of Dae Mo Nim or Hoon Mo Nim. It is all God's work. True Parents accomplished it all. Her name is not mentioned. She explains that she is just a vessel through which God and the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind are working. When I see her teaching us to be humble like this, it comes to my mind that Dae Mo Nim is carrying out the work of the motherly aspect of God, the Holy Spirit, as it were. I feel that world of heart. Inside I exclaim, "Oh! How does she keep this up?"

Once there was a two-day workshop for developing the husband-wife relationship. I was meant to attend that workshop but to be on time I would have to leave during Dae Mo Nim's speech at the training center. So I was in a dilemma: I should go; yet I could not. But Dae Mo Nim said "I'll take care of the training session here, so don't worry. You can go to that workshop." Even though she said this, I still felt that I couldn't go, so I remained behind.

When Dae Mo Nim entered the small chapel to speak to the trainees, I usually sit beside her. She entered the room first and just as I was about to follow her inside, she stopped and told me that she would not go onstage until I left. She said please go quickly. There was nothing left to do but follow. I watched her go up onto the stage, then I went out to the parking lot to leave. I wept for a short time. It was as if she had taken up her cross yet allowed me to receive further education so that I might do greater things in the future. I realized this was how Dae Mo Nim showed her love to raise future leaders.

At the same time, she makes sure we do not lose our good judgment. Once, I left the office five minutes before the end of office hours. Dae Mo Nim had given each staff member a plot of earth in the hopes that we would do some farming, plant some vegetables. At that time, the first frost had already come so much of the cabbage we had planted had withered. We should have harvested it earlier. If I had left at 6:00 I'M, the usual end of the workday, it might have become too dark to see the cabbages and to decide which to leave in the ground and which to dig up. So I left five minutes early.

I dug up the cabbages, wrapped them in newspaper and put them in a plastic bag. While walking with the bag of cabbages, I felt what seemed like wind blowing against my hip. Then I felt pain, as if I was being whipped. I collapsed to the ground. I couldn't stand up. I sat there for a while and then I picked up the cabbages, placed them in my car and drove home.

After arriving home, I asked my wife to take the cabbages, and then I went into the house with my wife supporting me. I lay down but couldn't move. I was in pain. I couldn't get up but had to lie on my back. I applied some salt and an ice pack to my hip and tried all kinds of treatments, but I couldn't move. The affliction remained.

Morning arrived. At a little past 9:00 AM, I took a taxi to the training center because I couldn't drive. Dae Mo Nim, who was just then in the Korean office, saw me coming in. She asked me why I was arriving at that time. (She already knew. She knew my predicament but asked me anyway.)

She told me that the owner should be the first in the office even if he has pain in his hip and has to crawl to work. Then she scolded me for arriving late. She told me to go to the lunch chanyang yeoksa session to get rid of the spirits.

A little later, I entered the hall to work on getting rid of the spirits as she had instructed. Later, Dae Mo Nim removed the spirit and I became well. I think this happened to me because even though I was the person in charge who should have set the example, I had left work five minutes early. If I hadn't been the person in charge she might not have scolded me so severely. However, Dae Mo Nim was strongly reproaching me for stopping work early, no matter by how few minutes.

Dae Mo Nim is also very strict when it comes to managing public money, which members have offered despite their difficult circumstances. She once scolded me severely for spending W500,000 for Korean corn as a snack for second-generation middle school aged members from Japan. I had thought they would like Korean corn, but they didn't! I found many half- eaten cobs of corn in garbage bags. Because of my misjudgment, I had spent W500,000 when W250,000 would have been enough.

You cannot imagine how much Dae Mo Nim scolded me for that. This happened about ten years ago. The incident still reminds me of how careful we should be in using public money.

These one-time incidents are embedded in my heart. I have been supporting Dae Mo Nim for thirteen years, and I always tell myself that I must be strict on time, when to come to work and when to leave, and about using public money. For Dae Mo Nim these might have been small incidents, but she took them as an opportunity to teach strong lessons!

Like a mother, Dae Mo Nim knows our individual characteristics and thinks about what vision, what goals, we should have. She gives us educational opportunities to receive the continuous education we need. Moreover, Dae Mo Nim gives us her unreserved encouragement so that we believe in ourselves and can develop our own abilities. And then she waits patiently for us to do so.