With representatives from all six continents and from over 50 nations gathered with True Parents in Seoul, and with True Parents exuding both excitement and determination for the future, the celebration of God's Day 1995 was a very special moment. My wife and I were privileged to participate.

Underlying all the celebrations, education and training sessions and competitions, which I will describe below, were two predominant sentiments: Father's seriousness over the inheritance of his tradition and his excitement about the great future possibilities of his work, including nation building.

The God's Day celebration began as always with Father's midnight prayer. What was striking here was not only Father's mention of his life-long struggle to liberate the heart of God, but also his unusually tearful pledge to continue that struggle in 1995.

Thereafter, Father gave the motto for 1995 and his Midnight Address. While there were many facets to the guidance that Father offered during his Midnight Address, I will emphasize three themes in this report. First was Father's focus on absoluteness as a goal of spiritual life: absolute faith, absolute loyalty, absolute heart. It is through absoluteness in these areas that God, humanity and Parents can ultimately be liberated. Absoluteness is the standard by which we are ultimately measured.

The second was Father's continued emphasis on the role of conscience. Conscience is not only the internal voice of God, it even comes before God, before the Teacher. (On another occasion Father has emphasized that conscience is the ladder by which we ascend toward Heaven).

Thirdly was Father's continued emphasis on self-mastery. Expressing his traditional teaching on the mind-body relationship in a slightly different way, he stated at one point that the mind and body must be harmonized according to the same standard.

Finally, in this Address, as well as on several occasions during our stay in Korea, Father mentioned that the inheritance of True Parents is to include not only the glorious side, but the difficult side as well. One does not receive a crown of glory unless it is preceded by the way of the cross.

At age 74, virtually age 75, Father now frankly states that he is in the declining phase of his life. Therefore, he is now particularly concerned that his tradition be understood and inherited. Accordingly, he is encouraging all Unificationists to understand his heart and way of life and to carry these things fully into our own lives.

At the January 1 pledge service, True Parents asked Reverend Kwak to present a summary of some of the major developments in 1994. This report covered six major areas, including unifying activities in the relations between North and South Korea, the ascendancy of the Washington Times in the context of the new political alignment in Washington, the establishment of a national Parent's Day in the United States, the impressive progress of the University of Bridgeport, the education of 160,000 Japanese women by True Parents in Alaska and Korea and the recent developments in South America centered on True Parents, especially the possible acquisition of an enormous amount of land in the nation of Paraguay. While the Paraguay acquisition is yet to be finalized, Father seems very optimistic and envisions that this land can be used for the construction of what would be equivalent of a model nation.

This same report was given prior to Father's attending a God's Day address to a congregation of approximately 5,000 Korean members gathered in a room accommodating that number on the premises of the Il Hwa Factory in Seoul.

January 2 was of course celebrated as the day of Victory of Love. The ceremony at Father's home in HanNamDong was again memorable. With True Parents sitting by and with Mother occasionally shedding tears, Reverend Kwak as President of HSA-UWC in Korea gave a substantial and tearful summary of the significance of the death of Heung Jin Nim.

After Reverend Kwak's talk, Father also spoke largely on the topic of inheriting True Parents victorious realm. He explained that to inherit this realm means to liquidate all aspects of satanic life and to inherit a "true love tradition". Father stated that each family represents Adam's family and each one should have the attitude to restore any problems that Adam's family made.

Father further explained that what he dislikes most is a self-centered life style, primarily because it was a self-centered attitude that caused the Fall. Originally, 5% of a person's life was to be devoted to private matters and 95% to the public. Through the Fall, the area that was to occupy 5% came to occupy 100% of the parties' attention. To restore this, we should have a 100% public concern.

Finally, Father emphasizes that the role of Unificationists is to impart hope to those in their environments. He stated that Unificationists should become "hopeful subjects" to those around them.

On January 3, approximately 50 continental directors and national leaders joined True Parents at Cheju Island. There we enjoyed True Parents' generous hospitality at a very nice training center that has been built in conjunction with the Il Hwa Orange Juice Factory there. At Cheju, continental directors and national leaders gave reports on developments in the world-wide movement, elder members presented interesting and challenging lectures, we watched a videotape of the championship Il Hwa soccer team playing - and defeating - a German all star team, we were provided instructions and spiritual guidance by True Parents and we participated conditionally in the second International Hunting and Fishing Competition for World Peace.

The Hunting and Fishing Competition was established by Father initially to foster relationships with residents of Cheju Island but ultimately include sportsmen from North Korea and to lead sportsmen world wide to connect in their "hobby-type" activities to higher values and goals.

The competition was sponsored by the Japanese Unification Church. The one day hunting competition focused on the "bagging" of the largest (heaviest) pheasant and the fishing competition focused on the largest fish. Winning prizes in each competition were approximately $2,500.

At Cheju, Reverend Kwak gave a further report on the developments in 1994, focusing particularly upon the inauguration of the Family Federation for Unification and World Peace. As is explained elsewhere in this issue of Unification News, Reverend Kwak explains that the era of HSA/UWC as a representative of the Christian tradition is over and we have now entered a time that is beyond religion and that focuses on the family, rather than the individual, as the real object of God. As such, the Family Federation comes on the foundation of the Family Pledge and is intended to support families in their fulfillment of the goals and ideals of that Pledge.

Upon returning to America, one may ask: what was learned? Frankly, one distinct experience for both Betsy and me was the frustration of not speaking Korean. We are all involved in an historic movement whose origins are Korean and the core of whose spirituality is expressed in the Korean language and is connected to Korean culture. While the opportunity to learn Korean may have passed by some of our first- generation members, I come away from the experience in Korea with the sense that it is imperative for all of the second generation to master this language. In my view, this should be a major internal objective for our Movement in the future. In the meantime, I would encourage each family to do whatever it can to introduce the Korean language to its children.

Secondly, I learned again how much Father has done and how much he has accomplished by reason of his faithfulness, the large scope of his thinking and his persistent sacrificial dedication to this larger purpose. Under the influence of these qualities, new things too numerous to describe are percolating worldwide. Such qualities are, of course, available to us all. Embodying them will allow us on our own level to do great things for America as True Parents have done great things for the world.

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