Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words
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Sun Myung Moon’s Life In His Own Words |
Father
gives a prize to the winner of a lecture competition (1960)
Those who attended just in the evenings continued for seventy days, until March 16; 164 members completed the course.
What is important is that we invest our whole mind, to give everything for the will, to dedicate ourselves fully. You must do this whether you are asleep or awake. God wants to uphold those who do this in front of Satan and to say proudly, my sons and daughters did this.
Until now we have been fighting to defend ourselves. However, from this year on we cannot take that position. So far we could not help taking a defensive position, because there was no one who could stand as Heavenly Father's representative and fight on His behalf. Now the times are changing and I must give the order to charge forward. In giving this order, matters of the heart are important. You must feel in your heart that even if Heaven and Earth disappear, your relationship with Heavenly Father cannot be changed. With that kind of heart, you finish the battle and become glorious sons and daughters of the Father. You must receive what belongs to Heavenly Father and fight against Satan. All you workshop participants must inherit Heavenly Father's great achievements of heart. You must go out, inheriting all that belongs to the Heavenly Father and also his great accomplishment. You must fight as his representatives.
Because He had no one He could give this task to, He has been accused by Satan. Now this is our time, we must think that we cannot tolerate Satan any longer. If we go out with such an attitude, we will be able to conquer any mountain with ease. Only if we do so will we be able to establish our honor in front of Heaven.
Today, we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Seunghwa Youth Association. The fact that five years have passed corresponds to the moment in God's creation when the fifth day of creation was concluded and the sixth day, when God created human beings, was about to begin.
What is it that we should feel to our bones? First, you must be equipped with a heart that says, "I am not the same as all of you" and "You cannot accomplish this? Well, I can!" You must always have this spirit.
Under any difficult circumstance you must be able to say, "I am not the same as you in any respect -- not from the viewpoint of history, or of the current age, historically or horizontally." You must be determined to take action whenever difficulties occur. You must act in a way that will worry Satan.
Father
speaking at the fourth workshop for witnessing leaders; on the
blackboard are three lists of members' names matched with locations,
probably for witnessing.
When I hear members who have gone out witnessing say upon their return that they were insulted by others, on one hand I feel mortified but on the other hand I feel happy and offer a prayer. Why? It is because the member who was insulted has formed a strong relationship in his heart, not with the heart of a person, but with the sorrowful heart of God. There will come a time when those members will feel proud of that.
Today, with new resolve in our hearts, we are meant to pour out every passion we have as representatives of all the world's people. With heavenly sorrow harbored in our bodies, we need to explode in hell, shedding our blood. I believe that when we do this, the tower of victory will be erected at that very place.
I hope that at the end of the forty- day course You have entrusted to us, we will meet again and hold hands with one another and share our experiences and talk about how much we were persecuted by the people, and how much we have wept for them. If members have cause for sorrow and lamentation, I pray that they will cry out "Father!" and wish nothing but blessings for the people, and then return with living proof in their hearts that they have done nothing but love the people. Heavenly Father, I beseech You to help us feel this way.
In the world, if we sow seeds in spring, we can harvest in autumn. However, God has been unable to have His day of harvest. Moreover, he has been unable to have a day of sowing the seeds from what He has harvested. What parents have harvested must be sown and harvested by the hands of children. This is the day when God can forget all other days and manifest Himself amid joy to heaven and earth. After parents have lost their children, they would not mind following even the path of death if only there were a way to find them again. Children's Day is the day when the Parents, representing God on earth, can report to God and declare that they have found the children having the value of their sons and daughters. This Children's Day is when you have achieved victory as children and are able to stand in the place of cosmic glory.
From now on, this day must be proclaimed as one to be commemorated throughout the whole world. On this day there should be a banquet in which fifty cows are cooked and to which all people in the neighborhood, including those walking on the street, are invited. You must celebrate that day in your homes so that your children will look forward to that day as they do Christmas and New Year's Day. You must make preparations for the celebration of that day so that your children may feel they cannot wait. You must commemorate Parents' Day and Children's Day with all your heart and sincerity.
The purpose of learning God's word, training your character, and developing your level of heart is done so that you can know God's heart, defeat Satan, and bring back those on Satan's side. By doing so, you will be able to enjoy the glory of victory over Satan. The times of chagrin, sadness and bitterness will mold you into victorious people without exception. My purpose is to make you into heavenly soldiers who can unite and fight until the day the Enemy is defeated.
Now is the time to cut off all the bad seeds among those that have passed down until now....
God is searching for His sons and daughters beginning at the most extreme point. He is working His way up from the very end. God needs followers who embrace the philosophy of a humble people. You must all walk the path from the lowest point of our people. Look at the world plainly. The situation of the world is turning round along with Heaven's actions, so you must be filled with conviction.
In order to make you into ultimate victors, Heavenly Father is forging this path and giving you training over a period of three years.
An
outdoor service in the summer of 1960
To bolster the witnessing effort and strengthen the organization, beginning from the forty-day campaigns, lecturers and a support team were stationed in Seoul. Itinerant workers assigned to each province visited their mission areas, conveying strategies and helping pioneers maintain their connection with Seoul. At the same time, teams of three members were dispatched to six major parks in downtown Seoul every afternoon to witness. Members in Seoul's three districts stopped holding Sunday services and began giving Divine Principle lectures day and night in a room in Nagwon-dong.
Activities were not limited to the special witnessing periods, though they were greatly accentuated during those times. Even before the witnessing campaign began, Mrs. Jeong-min Park of Busan had been going to Yongdusan Park and witnessing for two or three hours each day. She was bringing at least three or four people to the church each time. Sometimes she brought as many as twenty. Rev. Yo-han Lee was giving the lectures.
As a result of the forty-day witnessing campaign, the number of churches and meeting halls across Korea topped five hundred. Only three hundred missionaries had been dispatched, however, and as these were also in charge of leading the regional churches, there were still not enough leaders. True Father relocated members of the better developed regions to other places to promote continuous outreach and development.
For example, Moon-gyeong Lee was relocated to Gwansan village just west of Seoul. Before his arrival, the old woman who later took him in as a boarder had already had a dream about him.
Rather than thinking of himself only as a leader, he began from the lowest position, helping others on their farms and in their homes, and spreading the word. The elderly couple in whose home he lodged willingly donated a parcel of their family's land on to build a church.
The children he had taught in evening classes helped him, and young members from nearby churches also came to lend a helping hand. Though it was a simple building, a church dedicated solely to serving God and True Parents was finally established in the village.
Jeong-hee Cho, who was dispatched to Beolgyo in South Jeolla Province for the forty-day summer witnessing campaign, later returned to Beolgyo and built a church there. She faced many problems in witnessing to students. She made a good connection with middle school students in the village and taught them the Principle. Forty students from Samgwang Middle School, a Christian school, joined the church. The school administrators were upset. The principal, who was also a church minister, banned the young students from going to the Unification Church and tried to dissuade them. When that didn't do any good, he resorted to corporal punishment to compel obedience.
He called the students one by one to his office and tried to persuade them, saying that the Unification Church was a heretical and perverse religion. When they didn't agree, they were suspended from school. A third of the students gave up the church, and the principal suspended the remaining students from school. Those who still persisted in going to the church were expelled. These young people chose this path with firm resolve because they would not betray the providence or abandon the honor of being a Seunghwa student member.
Gyu-moon Yim, the regional leader of South Gangwon Province, relates that, at the time he was touring the Pyeongchang district, he was walking fast on a path through the hills in the setting sun when he heard someone singing Song of the Garden some distance away. He stopped in his tracks and listened, and it was indeed "Song of the Garden." His heart beat fast with joy and anticipation. When he turned a corner, he saw a man coming from the other direction, and that man was none other than Won-pil Kim, who had been given the post of the itinerant worker for Gangwon Province. When they saw each other from up close, they embraced each other and could not speak for a while. They burst into tears because they were so glad to see each other, and the tears fell down their frozen cheeks and bodies. All the loneliness and anguish they had felt disappeared in a second, and they were filled with joy. They did not part company until they had talked, not noticing the crowing of the rooster, until the early morning.