The Words of the Salonen Family
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The Words of the Salonen Family |
At noon on Sunday, March 7, Doris Walder and Maggie Compton arrived in Tampa to prepare the way for the Master's party. A few minutes later Mr. Pak arrived from Washington, DC, and our little Tampa Center became richly blessed with joy and thankfulness as we all shared experiences, Principle study, and intense anticipation.
The Leader's party arrived at midnight. We were then twelve: the Master, Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, George Norton, Gordon Ross, Douglas Burns, Ernie Stewart, Doris, Maggie, and Tom Robinson and myself.
We had dinner together and then the Master spoke to us and talked with us about our work until about 4:00 in the morning, when we all somehow got a few hours sleep in our 2 1/2 rooms.
At 10:25 the next morning a site in Tampa's Lowry Park was sanctified as the 15th site in the United States to become Holy Ground. It is a lovely park, full of tall pines covered with Spanish moss, Tom and I then accompanied the rest of the party down the Gulf of Mexico coast of the state and the Florida Keys to Key West -- which is the southernmost point in the United States -- back to Miami, where Ernie left us to begin the Center in that city, and back up the Atlantic coast of Florida to Ft. Pierce, where Maggie, Douglas, Tom and I Separated from the party to return to Tampa and thence westward for Maggie and Douglas.
To the last days of the fulfillment of the dispensation, I will remember the Master as he stood with Miss Kim and Mrs. Choi and waved goodbye to the four of us leaving them to return to our own mission fields. Again and again I looked back down the long highway through my own tears, and as long as I could see him he was still waving.
Through my spiritual eyes I see him waving yet, but it is not goodbye, and I am not looking back. For our True Father is also the mighty Leader of the Father's army, an army which he waves ever onward down the bloody and tear-stained path which leads at last to that Homeland for all mankind. He leads us with the Father's love and the Father's understanding, sharing deeply the trials and difficulties, as well as the joys, of each of his children -- but he leads also with the Father's absolute will and firm determination for victory, whatever the cost. Because he has given everything to free the world, this army and this blessed Family are possible. My brothers and sisters, let us also give without reservation everything we have and are to the Father's battle and follow His Son's truth and example.
I am certain of this. Wherever the battle with Satan rages because of his words, there the Leader is also, encouraging his soldiers and children to follow him fearlessly to victory. Wherever one of us suffers in this battle or cries to shorten the distance to our Heavenly Father, there our Leader is also; for there is no suffering in this war which he does not understand, and there is no love for the Father which he does not share. I am incapable of expressing even a small degree of the gratitude to our heavenly Father and the way I feel for such a Father and such a Leader and such a Master.
The end of the world has come, and our True Parents have given birth to the new world of glory and devotion to the Father. Let us rejoicing serve them with our whole hearts and minds and wills, and achieve an eternal victory and fulfillment.
In his beloved name, your sister, Rebecca Boyd.
P.S.: Since we left the Leader's party I have been in an intense state of I-cannot-describe-how-I-feel. I am sure the whole Family has had a similar reaction. I feel rather like an engine running without the clutch engaged. I also feel that my cup is running over. Clearly, that clutch must get engaged, and that cup must grow, The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of use!