The Words of Yeon Ah (Lee) Moon (wife of Hyung Jin Moon)
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The Words of Yeon Ah (Lee) Moon (wife of Hyung Jin Moon) |
Good afternoon brothers and sisters! (Good afternoon!). Thank you. This week we went to Hiroshima in Japan and Hyung Jin Nim shared our vision with Japanese members. We are always honored to have you here in this sanctuary, and for those who are joining with us via internet; we are also welcoming you as well. Welcome brothers, and welcome sisters.
Welcome brothers and sisters. Good to see you again. We've been out of the country so frequently this month. We feel like we haven't been able to really pay attention to what's happening at church but we're so blessed that we're finally able to come back. This time we did visit Hiroshima and it was so amazing to actually see the history there.
I've heard a lot about nuclear debate and all these kind of discussions about atomic bombs but I've never experienced a place that was actually devastated by such an event. When we went to Hiroshima, we were able to visit some historic sites, places where buildings still remain. Also, we were able to visit the peace museum where it is displayed what kind of history that is there and also what kind of power human beings now hold in the hands, what kind of destiny and responsibility human beings have, when looking at this whole situation with the nuclear crisis. So it was just such an extremely eye opening experience. I've never actually felt so moved by the whole discussion about nuclear technology, but this was just extremely eye opening.
Brothers and sisters, today I want to look at a passage from Chung Seung Gyung, page 479, and here Father is talking about the relationship of husband and wife, and he says, "When a husband and wife become one in God's love on the foundation of becoming completely one in love, they can advance all the way to God's position as well as going up to God's position. All that God owns comes to be my possession. The power of God's love is so amazing. God allows them the authority of participation and at the same time, they come to inherit the entire ownership of God."
We can really see the power of True Father's words about the family, about true love, about creating strong relationships, powerful spouse relationships, husband and wife relationships, parent and child relationships etc. And here Father really is showing us the divinity of those relationships, how precious they are, how sacred they are. They are not just passing human relationships, these are divinely ordained, these are very sacred relationships.
Brothers and sisters, it is always so essential to see ourselves and our relationships with our precious ones with the eyes of God, so to speak. To see ourselves with that vision, to see our children, to see our spouse, to see our parents with that type of vision. If we're able to do so, then we are truly able to manifest, actualize and substantialize in our lives that kind of amazing ideal world.
Brothers and sisters, I would always like to remind you at the beginning of service, we are not only to observe but really to participate together. We will be here together, singing together, and we will be praying together and we will be listening to a very special minister today but I'll get to that a little later.
Brothers and sisters, I invite you all to participate today and let's really give the glory and happiness to God and True Parents. Welcome once again.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that You have blessed upon us. Father, today on this beautiful autumn day, we gather here before You in the glorious historic sanctuary, Father, where True Father directly ministered for over 10 years.
Father, we thank You for this time that we may come together as brothers and sisters from all over the globe. Father, we find ourselves here in this nation of Korea, maybe permanently, maybe temporarily, but, Father, we are joined here in spirit. Father we are joined here as brothers and sisters.
Father, we thank You for this beautiful joining of hearts that You have prepared and we pray that You may be with us today from start to finish, from Alpha to Omega. Father, we pray that You may be able to inspire in our hearts a new life and a new vision for ourselves that we may truly be a blessing towards this world, towards the people around us, to our communities and to our families.
Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us the refreshing everlasting life that You are constantly pouring down upon us. Father, as we breathe in and breathe out new life today, Father, we pray that You may bestow upon each family here the blessings and abundance that You have prepared for them.
Father, let each and every one in the families joining us via internet across this world be blessed today. Let their families have more joy today. Let them bring more joy to others today and let them have a more blessed life today.
We thank You so much for the blessings that You prepared for us and, Father, we will actualize and reach those blessings, we truly will.
We thank You for all these things. We pray with one heart, one mind and one thought as brothers and sisters here today, as blessed central families, in our names. AJU!
"These are my True Parents, the eternal King and Queen of Peace and Liberator of God's Heart. They have saved me from my past, they have blessed my future, and they give me true love, forgiveness, and happiness today, and I choose to receive it. My mind is awake, my heart is open wide, and from this moment I change forever. In my name, Aju."
Brothers and sisters, we have a very special minister today who is going to speak to us: The Reverend Yeon Ah Moon. I initially asked her to speak to the congregation in the very beginning, but from the very beginning my wife said, "You know what? I want to let all the True Children speak first and I also want all the in-laws to speak first, and then I want to speak." From that, truly we've been able to see with kind of heart she practices her ministry. Brothers and sisters, we have been married now eleven years. Come on, give it up, brothers and sisters -- eleven years! [Enthusiastic applause] But we have not even started yet! Watch out, lifetime, and watch out, eternity -- we're coming for you!
It is truly a joy and truly a blessing for me to be able to introduce my better half. For the last eleven years we have had the blessing of having five beautiful children, children that teach us every single day what it means to be parents, what it means to be a leader, what it means to be a student and to truly be able to live that life where we're able to experience the incredible wisdom and joys of being able to parent and try to nurture beautiful lives.
For us, it is a tremendous blessing that we're also able to attend True Parents, be with them at this time while they're here on earth, that we're able to directly support them, work with them, and work for them. It is truly a tremendous blessing that we always hold close in our hearts, that we are always grateful for.
We are also so thankful and grateful for all the brothers and sisters from the very beginning, from East Garden, our Japanese sisters and our Korean onnis there that have always been there for us. When we were young or in the kitchen trying to steal the next Twinkie or cookie from the jar, they caught us and would say, "Hey, could you bring that cookie back? OK, you can have it." We're so grateful for all the brothers and sisters that we were able to know during our life, all the brothers and sisters that have been able to contribute to the wisdom, the strength and joy that we were able to receive and hopefully be able to contribute positively back to the community and to help expand and grow the movement and the foundation.
Brothers and sisters, it is a true joy that I am able to stand here and introduce the very person that has truly made me into the person I believe that I am today, and I know that I am growing every day -- we're learning new things every day. Truly, my wife is my best friend. There are not too many people I can share everything with. She is one of the unique people with whom I can literally share everything I think of, I feel; everything I can share with her. She has been my rock, has been able to be my salvation. From her, I have learned the meaning of what a messiah can be. From her, I have learned the meaning of what it means to be led, to be taught, and also I have learned that it is great to have a minister like her leading your life.
Brothers and sisters, good afternoon again! I really feel so nervous. Can you give a round of applause for me again? Thank you so much! This is the reason I love you guys so much!
It is a great joy and honor that I can speak in front of you today. The first thing I would like to say to all the brothers and sisters is, thank you so much. Though I am much younger and more inexperienced than most of you, I am always grateful for your support and love and in receiving me like a daughter, actually. My father served as a pastor, even before I was born, and currently he is helping the workshop being conducted in Yeosu, ministering to the Japanese sisters who come to the workshop there.
When I was young, I loved the A-frame churches. I don't know if you have ever seen that before. A couple of you are nodding, so I'm sure some of you guys have actually seen that building. At that time, they were built a lot around the nation in Korea. I remember playing hide-and-seek and taking naps in the chapel a lot, and especially I loved to discover bats sleeping in the corner of the attic because the A-top church has such a high roof that they were often bats living there. I loved to find them.
My mind was at ease whenever I laid down in the long chairs that were in the chapel, just like the ones we have here. I was feeling a bit sorry for doing that because I was supposed to pray in the sanctuary and not sleep in the sanctuary. [Yeon Ah and the audience laugh.] And then I would sing a couple of holy songs. God might be watching me, so I'd better make up for it. I sang a couple of holy songs and then played a little more in the chapel again. That's basically how I spent my years as a child.
My younger brother was born with an oxygen deficiency in his brain when I was five years old. He was not able to walk, even after his fifth birthday. My mother went around the entire country looking for some kind of remedy or effective way to help him out. She tried everything from spiritual healing to Korean herbal medicine to acupuncture to chiropractic medicine. Hearing that the internal organs of certain animals were effective, she went to special meat markets to inspect the meat of cats, dogs, snakes, and frogs and all sorts of animals.
Once my father heard that there was a special medicine that cleans blood in the village where leprosy patients live, so actually my father went into the village. I still remember waiting for my father to come back inside the car in front of the village. As soon as my father came back, I cried a lot, and my father said, "Oh, it's OK, Sweetie. I'm fine, I'm fine." And I said, "No, Father, I'm actually crying not because of you, but because if you get the leprosy and then I get it, too, that is what I am scared of." I was too young to think of my father before me. I don't know how my father felt at that time. I should ask him.
As young as I was, I came to think, "Wow, the world is really filled with people who are in pain and suffering." I came to view life in the words of my mother, "a sea of suffering." After becoming a member of True Family, I came to learn many things. I always regarded myself a kind and quiet person, but through Hyung Jin Nim I came to realize how much I have suppressed my true self and how narrow-minded I was in my life.
Although it has been ten years now, I still remember the day when I first met Hyung Jin Nim. Even now, I feel really sorry for what I said to him. [Laughter] OK, here you go: When I first met Hyung Jin Nim, I curtly asked him, "Hyung Jin Nim, what would a True Child like you, who has everything, know about how miserably our blessed families have lived?" Yeah, I said that. Can you believe that? I don't know what got into me at that time, but that is what I said to him. [Yeon Ah Nim turns to Hyung Jin Nim} Appa, I'm sorry. [Laughter] That's how I was before, but now I came to call Hyung Jin Nim my spiritual father. I truly have changed a lot since then, as you can see.
When I came back to Korea after living in the United States for ten years, I could vividly feel how so much has changed. Of course, during those ten years, Korea went through many changes. I left Korea as a teenager and came back as a woman of thirty. Yet, what changed about me most was how I viewed the world, actually. If I had remained in that "sea of suffering" and if Hyung Jin Nim hadn't made me realize that I was making my life that way and that I believed it to be my reality, I probably would live like my mother who passed away five years ago, slowly diving into that "sea" without even knowing it.
I don't remember, actually, seeing my mother beaming with laughter, but I have memories of her crying a lot, silently, through several nights when my younger brother came back from middle school with all his hair and eyebrows shaved off by his classmates. They were actually very cruel. At the time, when my family had to leave the house and my father was released from his position as a pastor, my mother cried so bitterly when my brother wasted a month's worth of our family's living expenses at the museum arcade. Reliving those painful memories, I expected my future would be dismal; thus, I was driven deeper and deeper into myself. [Weeping]
Once Hyung Jin Nim told me that in Buddhism there is the first noble truth -- the reality of life, which is the inevitability of suffering, old age, sickness, and death -- and he said, "Everyone, everybody, whether you are high or low, whether you are scared or not -- those things will come, so let's not dwell on it." That's what he told me. Hyung Jin Nim and True Parents have faith in my possibilities than I had faith in myself. I am convinced that True Parents and Hyung Jin Nim believe in the strength inside of each and every one of us, that we may not be aware of.
Someone told me that whenever I say something, it is always about how great Hyung Jin Nim is. It was supposed to be a joke. So, I told that person, "Well, I can't help it because it's true."
There was a realization I have come to in my life. It's that Hyung Jin Nim's intuition and judgment have always proven to be right in the end. No matter how much I express my personal concerns or nag my husband about certain things, in the end he is always right about the particular thing. Therefore, although I'm Hyung Jin Nim's wife, I truly respect him as a person. He does not have any selfish motivation in all that he does. I know that he is someone who would rather be happy living quietly in the countryside, and I'm sure you guys all agree with that. [Laughter] Yet, he's here for True Parents; he's here for us, brothers and sisters. As a member of the Unification Church myself, I truly thank him for that.
Someone once asked me, "Hyung Jin Nim is the international president of this church, but what kind of true authority does he have? What can he actually do or change in the church?" So, I answered it like this: If he would have aspired for power or authority from the beginning, he would probably have never entered the ministry or worked closely with Kook Jin Nim. He has no desire for that. What Hyung Jin Nim truly wants is for the Unification Church to become a church that he can proudly show to the world, for the people of the world to recognize True Parents, and for the members to be proud of being part of this church. He is waiting for the day when he can gladly hand over his position to somebody who can be a better leader than he is.
Beloved brothers and sisters, do you know why the media in Korea and the former president of Costa Rica, Mr. Carazo, say that our church is the hope of the future? It is because two sons are cooperating together in order to fulfill their father's vision of religion, rather than each of them claiming that he is the only one who can do that. So, I believe Kook Jin Nim is an outstanding elder brother and Hyung Jin Nim is an outstanding younger brother. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.
Kook Jin Nim once said this: "I will make the Unification Church wealthy; you, Hyung Jin, should make this church a place filled with happiness and spirituality. These two elements are needed in the Cheon Il Guk Nation. You excel in what I can't do, and I excel in what you cannot do. So, let us put our strength together so that True Parents and our blessed families can be illuminated and shine in front of the world." [Enthusiastic applause]
Hyung Jin Nim showed me that True Parents were real and helped me learn to love my deceased mother whom I couldn't understand when she was alive. Whenever I feel like I'm the worst mom in the world, he always tells me this: "Yeobo, you know what? They are lucky to have a mom like you, so don't worry about it," and that really helps me a lot. So, please, husbands, when your wife feels depressed, please use these words, OK? This is a tip.
What is more, he led me to love our church brothers and sisters. Reflecting upon all this, I realize that the greatest people are actually True Parents, who were able to raise such sons. I would like to offer my gratitude and all the glory to Kook Jin Nim, Hyung Jin Nim, True Family members, our brothers and sisters, and especially to our beloved True Parents. Thank you very much.
I've really been able to learn what it means to come to love somebody. I never really thought that a profound love could exist. Maybe among brothers and sisters or our children, etc., but the person that has allowed me to believe in the possibility of an eternal love is the Reverend Yeon Ah Moon.
Let's gather our hearts in prayer.
Heavenly Father, dearest most beloved True Parents,
Father, we thank You for this day that You have blessed upon us. We have shared today in this sanctuary. We were able to gather together as one family. Here with You internationally, nationally, personally, we pray that we truly can bring joy to You this day. Today we have been able to sing songs together, we've been able to pray together. We've been able to shed tears and also laugh together.
We thank you for the words that You have shared, Father, that we may understand that our potential is truly great and, Father, that You never give up on us. Let us always know that when we face our futures or our destinies, You have amazing things planned for us and that each day we should be striving to move closer towards those amazing plans. Let us truly burgeon and blossom in our lives, and let us be a great blessing to this world.
We know that each and every one of us has that amazing potential. Let us not forget during the trials and tribulations or the obstacles and the challenges that we may face in our lives, Father, that we have always the hope that is embedded within our hearts. We always have the potential and the wisdom that are necessary for us to overcome those tasks, Father, because You never give us challenges or goals that are too great for us to achieve. You have always put them within the range of our possibility and potential. Let us always know that we can come to greater and greater heights, Father, that we have never seen our best day yet, but that each day of our life can become more great, more illuminated, more victorious, more filled with peace, and a greater blessing to this world.
We thank You for this day, that You have spoken to us, that You have uplifted us, that You have allowed us to share in Your heart, and we pray that we may return that glory to You every single day, return that to our brothers and sisters around this world, next to us in our communities, and our family members who are right around us.
Father, we thank You so much. We pray that You may be with each and every one of these family members, brothers and sisters, joining us today. We pray that we may truly live that blessed life that You have blessed us to live. Father, thank You so much.
We pray these things together in our own names as central blessed families here together. Aju, aju.