The Words of the Fernsler Family

World Day 1965 With Our Leader

Diane Giffin (Fernsler)
May 17, 1965
Washington, DC
New Age Frontiers - June 15, 1965

On Monday, May 31st, we of the Washington Family had the privilege of celebrating World Day with our Leader! I can well imagine how envious the rest of you must be of our position. How blessed we are to be with him for so long?

We arose very early to begin the ceremony at 7 am. We dressed all in white; many of us wore the long white ceremonial robes, The floor was covered with white sheets, giving the entire room an appearance of great light and purity. We sang hymns until our Leader came downstairs.

He was dressed in a magnificent gold robe, The ceremony itself was quite brief, with prayer, the presentation of offerings, and recitation of the Children's Oath. Our Leader explained fully the significance of World Day. (Essentially, this is the day on which all things of creation were reclaimed for God; that act made possible the blessing of the Holy Grounds.) Finally, we all rose and gave three cheers of Monsay! -- Victory!

This year is the first time the Washington Family has been asked to make financial contributions on World Day, although that tradition has been established already in Korea, Japan, and other parts of the United States. We pulled up chairs while Jhoon Rhee counted the donations from Washington and Cleveland combined, Our Leader surprised us all by putting one-third of the money in a kind of raffle for which we drew lots.

The seven who won thought soberly of the use they should make of this heavenly prize money. After this, our Leader talked with us for hours about customs and courtesy, of the role of the wife, of morality in the Kingdom, and many other things. We will be pondering some of those insights for a long time to come. The age we are entering is so far removed from this one, so absolute in its perfection, that is seems almost like a dream. How can it be? This is the end of the world in truly every respect.

After a long-awaited Korean breakfast, Col, Pak showed some films. One was of the trip to New York City and the World's Fair, which is by far the best film strip made since our Leader's arrival in the US. The second was a movie on the Little Angels a group of Divine Principle children who perform traditional Korean dances. After that viewing, we are more eager than ever to see the Little Angels on their tour of the US this fall.

We parted for the afternoon, to meet again that evening at the Holy Ground in front of the White House. There we prayed and talked informally until time for Mrs. Hurd to catch the bus back to New York City, The Yuns stayed on for another day. We drove to Arlington for a lecture by Joe Badra and for cake, We sang and sang that night. There were humorous touches in the competition between spouses (who sings better - subject or object?), and admiration at Ronny Hagbert's out doing of his own record of physical strength in the name of our Father. And there were the wistful songs of parting lovers - for already we miss our Leader. 

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