The Words of In Jin Moon from 2010
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The Words of In Jin Moon from 2010 |
It's truly my honor as the senior pastor to welcome all of you celebrating 40 years of faith, loyalty, and perseverance. As a member of the True Family, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of our hearts because your faith, loyalty, and dedication have accomplished something that the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ could not do 2,000 years ago. Your love, faith, and dedication have kept our True Parents alive. So, for that, the True Family and my parents thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Here, standing before you, is actually a little girl who came to this beautiful country of America many years ago, when I was eight years old. I remember growing up with Dr. Salonen, Dan Fefferman, Mr. and Mrs. Farley Jones, Dr. and Mrs. Ang, Dr. and Mrs. Spurgin, Mr. and Mrs. Sugiyama, and so on. All of you have been giants in my life of faith. I, along with my brothers and sisters, always looked up to your life of faith and your dedication to our True Parents. We said to ourselves, "I wonder if we can ever live up to these American, Japanese, and Korean giants that our True Parents call their sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters?"
I know that Peter and Phyllis Kim very much wanted to be with us tonight. I met them last night in the lobby of the New Yorker and they are also being honored tonight. I remember that we gave Peter and Phyllis Kim a lot of hard times when we were growing up because they were in charge of the True Children.
Actually Phyllis Kim was one of our first English teachers. Whenever it was class time, for Phyllis that meant to gather the children, but, for the children, that meant to play hide-and-go-seek. I remember many times in East Garden Phyllis would be riding around the circle in front of the old house looking for True Children, calling us. In Jin Nim! Hyo Jin Nim! Heung Jin Nim! She was riding a tiny bicycle, but pedaling really vigorously, trying to find all of us. That's my memory of Phyllis Kim -- always after the True Children with a lot of energy, riding a bicycle that was a bit too small. But nevertheless, because it was her job to educate the True Children, to teach them the English language, she really dedicated herself to the task.
The fact that I can stand here before you and speak the language in our mother tongue -- because I am now an American citizen as well -- is really in honor of her and of the other people who have graced my life and the lives of my brothers and sisters. These people are not nameless faces; they are all of you being honored here tonight. So on behalf of my brothers and sisters, thank you once again.
For 40 years you have been loyal sons and daughters of our True Parents. Earlier, we were watching a video about the golden olden days and some of the experiences that you had with our True Parents. Those kinds of experiences will never come again, ever. You experienced True Parents in a way that even we, the True Children, never had the opportunity to do. Those personal moments -- the sharing of McDonald's Big Macs, quarter-pounders, French fries, and apple pie -- these are stories that will be told over and over again as our movement continues to grow.
As the senior pastor, I told Kevin Yoon that one of the things we must do is to capture these great stories of what the giants of the American, the Japanese, and the Korean movements, and of all the countries around the world, experienced as they lived and worked with True Parents. These will be the most precious stories that will be shared, not just with the Second Generation but with my children, the Third Generation, and so on and so forth.
I said to Kevin that I want to create a website called HOT -- H for "Honor," O for "Our," and T for "Tradition." You guys are the hottest commodities we have in our movement, exemplifying what our True Parents have told the children over and over again, "You have to be internally excellent as well as externally excellent." Father really pushed all of us to academic excellence -- to do the best in our careers; whatever we do, try our best. He always propelled us to build a gigantic skyscraper that could be a testament of what True Parents are all about, what our Heavenly Parent is all about, what our community is all about.
But Father always reminded his sons and daughters that the higher we go and the faster we grow, we must always be cognizant that a skyscraper sits on the lower part that grounds it and permits it to attain and maintain its great height. As high as it is up, so it must go deep down. As we move on through successive generations -- third, fourth, fifth, and sixth -- and really transform this world into one family under God, I feel that it is extremely important for the young people of our community -- the generation of peace -- to remember and honor where we come from because the higher we go, the deeper we must be grounded in our faith, in our tradition, and in knowing where we come from.
All of you have been champions through this time of the wilderness for the last 40 years. Heavenly Father and True Parents are really smart. Forty years ago, had you met our True Parents and True Father said to you, "My brother, my sister, my child of God, for the next 40 years in the wilderness you are going to suffer like you've never experienced before," I wonder how many of us would have stayed.
But in Father's guidance and wisdom, he kept us going, giving us little deadlines to complete, little time frames to work on. And before we knew it, 40 years have gone by. But because all of you laid such a solid foundation of faith so that our True Parents could live, work, and breathe with us, all of you, our honored elders, accomplished what the 12 disciples could not do. You were successful in keeping our True Parents alive through the time of the wilderness.
How blessed we are as a community that we are taking our first steps into the land of Canaan, into the age or the era of settlement, when our internal excellence is manifested outwardly in everything we touch and do and people around the world can recognize what a precious treasure we have been given in our True Parents.
It is my desire to appreciate those among us who have successfully persevered and dedicated yourselves to a life of faith in keeping our precious True Parents alive and with us, even though your bodies may not follow because some of you are well into your 60s, 70s and 80s. Yet, you don't look your age; your faith has kept you very, very young. We know that regardless of what the body might feel, your spirit is right there with our True Parents. With the magic of technology, not only the 200 of us here in this room, but all of America can celebrate and take this opportunity to honor all of you as our precious elders, as the precious treasure.
All of you have stories to tell. We are putting together a tribute book, a collection of your personal testimonies that you sent in -- and thank you so much for all those precious stories -- in honor of the 40 years of your life of faith. As I was reading through your stories I realized how each of you has been prepared and hand-picked. I read a story about Mr. Ron Pine, quite the motorcyclist back then -- I think you were hanging out with the Hell's Angels -- and then you met True Parents. And I read about a sister who in her dream was taught to look for True Parents.
There are so many moving testimonies of how we came to understand the beauty of who our Father and Mother are. Those testimonies are precious stories that I look forward to sharing with my children and their children and so on. All of you sitting here tonight are the true disciples of our True Parents, and in a sense you have completed your mission in keeping them alive.
Now it is our responsibility as the second, third, and fourth generations to make True Parents real and to make our faith one of loving life. In the time of the wilderness, of indemnity and restoration, there was a great deal of suffering and misery. But as we come out of the wilderness and look upon the shining era of settlement with our children and their children, this is an amazing time when we can stand as proud sons and daughters of God and as proud disciples of our True Parents. This is a time when, together as a community, we need to start loving life. We need to start living for the sake of others in a way that brings satisfaction, fulfillment, and growth as well as prosperity.
I can see a time coming. Brothers and sisters, we have to be prepared because the floodgates are opening. I see signs in ministers who have come to experience our worship and our community. I see signs in students from the top universities in America who have come as guests at a CARP ball or service or participated in ballroom dancing. These people know that our community is different. They know that there's something unique and beautiful about our community and they want to learn more. Since we formally implemented our new membership guidelines in August, we have over 32 new brothers and sisters through our Lovin' Life Ministries. It's only the beginning.
Brothers and sisters, this is an incredible time. The fact that because of your life of faith and because of your dedication we can stand in a beautiful hall like the Grand Ballroom in the Manhattan Center is really a tribute to you, our True Parents, and our Heavenly Parent.
So as we move forward, as our movement grows in height, in magnitude, and in the ability to move the worldwide community to understand who True Parents are, it is my desire as the senior pastor for the young people of our movement to grow deeper in our understanding of the tradition we come from and of the kind of parents that have graced and touched our lives. I want the young people of our movement to be proud of the heritage that we come from. This heritage is made more precious in knowing that it comes from God and our True Parents.
So, brothers and sisters, we have so much to look forward to. We have so much celebrating to do. In honor of you, I want to open up the floor for music, dancing, and just having a wonderful time to enjoy each other's company.
Once again, brothers and sisters, thank you for allowing me to stand. Thank you for allowing the True Family to stand. But thank you for allowing our True Parents to stand as the True Parents of humankind. Thank you.