Notes from an average dad to his above-average daughter who is joining STF. The names are fictional, in order to spare my daughter a world of embarrassment. I share this with all parents and young people out there on the streets day after day, fundraising with MFT.

Dear Martha: So you are entering into the toughest time and the most wonderful time. Each day will be a huge challenge, to get up out of the sleeping bag in the morning and hit the streets again and again. Like I said when I gave you the books, you will narrow down your life until there is nothing but you and God. And, oh yeh, Satan. But basically it’s you and God. [The books refer to a Divine Principle and Bible that I gave her when she left.]

You will see how the Principle works. It’s a living principle, it is the way that events and actions and decisions play themselves out in life. When you are fundraising, you see it unfold in front of your face as you walk up to people. You will realize that their response isn’t just up to them; it is determined mostly by the conditions you have made (plus their ancestors and their own condition, but mostly it’s your conditions). Then you find out that suffering, or accepting defeat, rejection and persecution gratefully and maintaining your steadfast determination, is the key to success.

So the best result days always begin with NO results, and with lots of troubles. The days that started out with a lot of results right away always made me anxious. It’s the opposite of what one would think, but in the black culture it’s called paying your dues (or it used to be).

Focus your mind and feel God in your body. Well, I used to, once in a while, on MFT. Once I felt as if I were a horse, galloping around the parking lot. It was so easy to run, I could run forever without getting tired. Someone shouted to me, what’s your name? I shouted back, Tommy. And he said, "Tommy Moon?" I’ve always felt as if Satan were saying that I’m part of Father’s family, ‘cuz he gave me the same last name.

There will be incredibly beautiful mornings, but the best time is the evening of a good day, when you have an hour to go before pick up and you’ve done well and are just picking up the last few sales. And you’re in a pleasant neighborhood, or peaceful parking lot, and everyone seems pretty happy about life, and you are part of their life in a natural way and of course, they give money. Money is love. Money is love. If you love them, they will love you back through giving you money. Now, they are giving you money not just out of love for you, or in response to your love to them, but it is the cosmos giving you money because of they way you’ve loved everyone all day and they way you loved God and the creation. To love means to appreciate, value, enjoy it all, including enjoying your own mind.

Then you get in the van and count up and there is such easy, beautiful give and take between brothers and sisters, because you all went through the same thing and are offering 100% of everything to God. The most holy sanctuary I ever was in, more holy than EG or Chung Pyung Lake, or Father’s house in Korea, was a motel room somewhere in South Carolina. I guess it was a holy day; I’m not really sure. But the team mother had put out a sheet from the motel bed, and made an offering table, and we prayed there and heard a little sermon from our team captain. It was so holy; I’ll never forget that white sheet in the motel room.

Everyday, for a while, I would wash my feet—just my feet—before the closing prayer meeting in a motel or wherever. I did so to purify myself. Purity—it goes far beyond the PLA marches and chants and cheers. It reaches into your soul’s relationship to God. Purity is to have one single focus of your mind and life. Soren Kierkegaard wrote an essay called "Purity of heart is to will one thing." That sounds abstract, but it is real on MFT. What is the one thing that you will? To love everyone and everything, centering on your task—fundraising. You don’t get involved with the people, because they take up God’s time. You belong to God; your time and life and mind are not your own; you are the hyung sang of God. So you fundraise, and that’s all you do, and in that condition, that environment that you have created, you love people. They can enter into that environment for a few moments, and if they donate, then a piece of them stays in that place forever. God really never forgets the person who donates to True Parents’ work, through you. That one moment may be their only foundation to be in Heaven in the next life. Even if they refuse you (maybe out of anger, or maybe because they really don’t have money), if you forgive them, even that may save them.

This is testimonial, but I hope you experience it and much more.

ITN, your good old dad

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