Early Years Chaos and the birth of True Father

Father speaks of his Early Years

Grandfather Moon Ji-kook

(9.2, 1870 -?)

My grandfather was illiterate. He didn't go to school or to a village study class, but he knew the story of the Three Kingdoms from the first to the last page. Once he started something, he would continue nonstop until the end. He had the ability to hold listeners spellbound. Once someone started to listen to him talk, he would never leave until the story ended.

Our house is located just along the village's main road, and if you visited grandfather Moon's house, sometimes you could find about thirty guests in the guest room. My mother had a strong character, but she attended my grandfather her whole life without a single word of complaint. Because of my great-grandfather's influence, my grandfather, who occasionally drank and smoked, finally stopped smoking. After my great-grandfather passed away, my grandmother started smoking because she was lonely. She also stopped, though, because she was spending money on cigarettes instead of on feeding the hungry.

Great-Uncle Rev. Moon Yoon-kook

(1.30, 1877 – 1.2, 1958)

My grandfather was one of three brothers, the youngest of whom was a minister. He was in charge of the North Pyong-an Province organization during the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement. With other leaders throughout the country, he helped decide on the movement's plan of action. He led demonstrations against the Japanese government with the teachers and students of Osan School and his church congregations and other local citizens, waving flags and marching throughout the streets of Pyongyang. Eventually, he was arrested by the Japanese police for leading a demonstration. He served two years in prison. After he was released, he could have lived with his family in his hometown, but instead he wandered in a part of Korea that was unfamiliar to him in order to avoid Japanese police harassment. He died in Jeongseon in Gang-won Province.

In those days, W70,000 was a very large sum of money, but he sent all that money to the provisional government in Shanghai. To carry on such activities, he had to wander until he finally passed away in an unfamiliar province.

With such lifelong achievements, he could establish a foundation on which God could work. He sacrificed his family -- in fact his church and his own life -- for the purpose of saving the country, and he carried a heavy burden throughout his years as a wanderer.

When I came to South Korea, he was the only relative I had here. My cousin Yong-gi later had a dream in which my Great-uncle Moon Yoon-kook appeared to him and told him how he had passed away and where. My cousin went to that place and found that it was just as Moon Yoon-kook had said in the dream.

Moon Kyung-yoo, my father

(7.11., 1893 - 10.11, 1954)

I would say my father was a very honest man. If he borrowed money in an emergency, he couldn't do anything until he had paid it back with interest within the time he had promised. In any case, he was a man who kept his word. I'd say he was a champion in being as good as his word. He had a clear conscience.

My father had a four-hundred-page hymnbook. He took good care of it but didn't carry it with him when he went to church. One day I asked him, "Why don't you bring your hymnbook, father?" He answered, "It's a bother to carry that book. Also, I'm afraid I might lose it. It's better to leave it at home." [Laughter] "How can you sing without it?" I asked. "How? I sing with others who are singing. If I don't know a song I can look at it in the page of someone else's hymnbook," he replied. He had, in fact, memorized the words to all the hymns.

My body is tough and strong. Really, I am strong. My father was strong enough to go upstairs carrying a bag of rice like this. I am from such a strong line that I am healthy even though I am already over seventy.

Mrs. Kim Kyung-gye, Choong-mo nim: (Loyal Mother] 

(10.15, 1888 - 1.7, 1968)

I'd say my mother was a female general -- yes, a woman general. She was considered an enterprising person. I am afraid that doesn't accurately describe her, but in every situation she did play an active part. I am like my mother in many ways. At first glimpse, I am a man with a large, sturdy build. I am a man of great strength and a man of muscle.

My mother was a woman of strong character. When she flogged laziness out of a boy with a switch, she didn't stop halfway. I am a stubborn, unbending person like my mother. Once I have made up my mind, I never give up. Indeed, that's what I'm like.

My mother gave birth to thirteen children. My wife had thirteen children too. It seems to have been transmitted from one generation to the next. Having many children is a family tradition. Many of my siblings died early, but eight brothers and sisters out of thirteen managed to live. [Including Yong-soo (Daehyung-nim), Hyo-soon, Yong-myung (the name Father was born with), Hyo-shim, Hyo-su and Hyo-sun (Father's sister who is still living in North Korea)]

Can you imagine what a difficult job it was for my mother to marry off her six daughters? I thought it was such a pity for a bride to get married into another family while burdening her family members and relatives with preparing the wedding. Though she had to get married, the bride may, I thought, be full of rancor on her wedding day against having been born a girl who is compelled to go into another family, leaving a heavy burden on her own family.

In marriage, the status of the bride's family is evaluated by the gifts that are prepared for the groom's family. In my hometown, they are called "courtesy gifts." Clothes and a lot of other things had to be prepared to make up a bundle of presents. In Pyong-an Province, they used to count how many yards of first- class cotton cloth the bride brought to her new family. Every family had to try to send good gifts in order to establish good standing with the groom's family.

People have to eat food and wear clothes. Food and clothes are essential and so these are usually prepared for a daughter's marriage. In the case of a woman marrying a man of noble birth in a home with many elders... Women didn't have nylon stockings in those days; all clothes were made by women who picked and ginned cotton, spun it into thread and then wove it on a loom. My mother was a champion in doing those tasks. She was tough and strong. The average woman wove three or four fangs (sheets) a day, but my mother did twenty jangs in two days. When my elder sister married, my mother wove one pil (roll of cloth) per day. The situation was so urgent that she couldn't let a second slip away. She did the work in an instant. I was born with such a gift of being good at doing things quickly, as you know. [Laughter]

My mother and father loved me very much. It is natural for every mother to love her children, but for my mother I was very special. If I were to go on talking about this subject, you would cry many times.

Mr. Moon Yong-soo, elder brother

(3. 5, 1915 -?)

My older brother was so deeply spiritual that he knew ahead of time that Korea would be liberated and that the Korean War would break out. He had the attitude of solving all problems he faced according to guidance from the spirit world. He suffered from ill health, but he had never even dreamt of curing himself with the help of medicine. He tried to overcome it through prayer and faith. Finally, through his religious life, he recovered. For my older brother, I was somebody. He thought highly of me as the greatest younger brother in history. Whatever I asked him to do, he never failed to do for me. Whatever I told him, he absolutely believed.

I was forced to part from this affectionate brother. The country was divided into North and South.... I think all my family and relatives must have lived through a series of ordeals and disgrace before they died... From a historical viewpoint, it was an essential course for them to pass through because of me.

God prepared the eldest son

I have a different origin. To say it once again, my origin, I think, is different from those of you here in Korea. Our ancestors were special. Are you upset? Are there any Mr. Moons among you? Raise your hands!

You might say, "How dare you neglect us? We are also the children of blessed families." Yet my birth was on the basis of stronger conditions, under Heaven's plan. The standard necessary for God to allow me be born was on the basis of a preparation of the lineage beyond that of those of you born from blessed parents.

For decades, I struggled to uncover absolute truth. Along the way, I suffered more than you or anyone ever could imagine. Such blessing cannot be inherited without a foundation. It is contrary to reason. If you were born in a family, you have to love the representative -- who might be your parent or the king of the country -- to the point that the mark your love leaves is admired by your descendants forever. Then you can be a family heir. That is the principle of inheritance; so it cannot just be done any way you think fit.

Therefore, the day will come that people will love the Moon tribe. I mean, the day will come when they will respect the Moon tribe and attend other members of that tribe as you attend me. You should stand on God's side and pray to God. This practice should be set up as an unchanging tradition.

There should be the eldest son with the birthright of Heaven. The heavenly birthright! In order to connect to the world the Moon tribe had to go beyond the national level. The eldest son of the Moon tribe with the birthright is like the high priest and should become a leader of all the world's representatives.

What will become of a man who is making effort for others' sake? He will become a central figure. If you keep on working in your country's public interest, you Moons will come to constitute the central tribe, and the day will near when the Moon tribe can inherit heavenly blessings. [Applause] Any volunteers who want to live like that with me, raise your hands and let's pledge to do it together!

Chaos and the birth of True Father

Modern history since World War I is composed of a succession of imbroglios and wars throughout the world. You have already learned that history does not proceed in an accidental manner, but moves in relation to the indemnity conditions people set. Judging from that viewpoint, it is natural to conclude that God surely does prepare for a new age in the middle of this chaotic situation, the Last Days. Therefore, World War I was a challenge to humankind on the global level, a matter of life or death for all the people of the world.

Usually everything becomes clear within three years of a major incident occurring. From that point of view, the fact that I was born in 1920 is... I was born three years after 1917, in 1920. Even though I am now known as Rev. Moon, I was not Rev. Moon then.

Our trials and the March 1 Independence Movement

Korea was then Japanese territory. It could be said that I was born in Japan. Japan ruled Korea for forty years. So I was born under Japanese sovereignty. Because the new Adam was to be born in Korea in the near future, Japan desperately persecuted Korea.

The 1920s was a time of privation in Korea. The country was experiencing difficulties because of three years of bad harvests. And an uprising, the March 1 Independence Movement, of Koreans fighting against Japanese domination, occurred around that time. I was born in the second year of those three years of poor harvests, which began in 1919 when the March 1 Movement broke out. In the middle of that severe trial, on the foundation of my family's suffering, connected with the March 1 Independence Movement, I was born.

The leaders of the March 1 Movement were religious men. They were, for the most part, Christians. They had an eye for a new direction, not toward Imperialist Japan but toward America, and followed America. Going through the process, Korea soaked up Christian culture rapidly and deeply.

The patriot Yoo Gwan-soon, who died a martyr for the cause of Korean liberation at the age of sixteen, was in the same position as Eve before the Fall. She was Eve in Adam's country. The corpse of the patriot Yoo Gwan-soon, who was in the position of Eve, was divided into six parts. The number six belongs to Satan. The patriot Yoo Gwan-soon was actively engaged in the Independence Movement, sacrificing herself out of loyalty. I was in the body of my mother as the 1919 Independence Movement swirled into motion.

I shouldn't emerge in a country that wasn't independent. There was a war with my life at the center. Ten months from that time, I was born in 1920. [In Korea a woman is said to be pregnant for ten months.] It was on behalf of all Korean women with the heavenly heart to indemnify Eve's sin and to preserve the land of Korea that Yoo Gwan-soon died. From the providential viewpoint, God carried the providence to Japan on the basis of the national foundation created.

Troubles in the family

I often heard stories of my family having to live on pine tree bark... That pine bark was the food they lived on while I was in my mother's womb. It seems that God loves me nowadays. But why was He so harsh in the days when I was born? He pushed my family into a deep ravine and harried them to death, all the members of my family... That is our history. Because I am aware of the law of indemnity, I can understand the real state of things. If I wasn't aware of it, I should say that everything must be a lie. All the relatives in my family -- from my cousins to my third uncles -- paid indemnity. With my birth, my house went to ruin. Until I was fifteen years old, my family and relatives experienced trouble.

Birth of the heavenly baby 

(1.6, 1920), Gregorian calendar: February 25, 1920

When looking on at True Parents' birthday party, with people from countries all over the world filling a hall, does God envy me, or not? [Not at all.] Why should He be happy? Because I am God's son. Therefore, far from envying me, He must love it that you are celebrating my birthday. Just as you are happy when preparing for your child's birthday, God is also happy to celebrate His son's birthday.

Who knows if the children not born due to the practice of birth control could have become the representatives of all their ancestors or have taken care of the heavenly will on behalf of their nation? If my father and mother had practiced birth control, would I have been born? [Laughter] My mother gave birth to thirteen children.

I might be identified as the little kid from the "Osan House." Because I had small eyes, if anyone said "Osan House Little Eyes," all the villagers knew that meant me. My eyes were so small that, right after she gave birth to me, my mother examined my face to see if I even had eyes. [Laughter] Finding my batting eyes, she felt relieved. [Laughter] Such eyes are necessary for me. My small eyes show I have the aptitude to be a religious leader. When the lens of a camera is contracted, the focus is on things in the distance. Take a look at my nose. From its shape, you can see I will not listen to anyone. [Laughter]

I seem to have been a handsome baby. When I got on the train on my mother's back, people would gather around me and want to hold me in their arms.

In those days, there were no hospitals in rural areas. We had to take the train to go to a hospital in Sonchon from Chongju. There was a hospital founded by a Christian Church. One day my mother took me there by train. People saw the infant nestling in his mother's arms, and one lady said, "What a lovely child he is! I wish I could hold him in my arms! If I could, my family would be blessed." Perhaps she was a woman who was really looking for a child, or a barren woman. But she really wanted to hold that baby in her arms.

Meaning of the name Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon is my name. Moon means truth, and sun means to reveal itself clearly. The character for "sun" is a compound of the characters for "land" and "sea." How about the character for "myung"? It combines the characters for the sun and moon. These meanings are relational. Sun and moon must be bound up with truth, as must the land and sea. They should then make one world. Sun Myung, my given names, mean to be aligned with the proper order with the quality of purity that cannot be criticized from any corner.

Then what does "True Father" mean? It is for someone who is everyone's father. What will you become by loving the father of all humanity? You will inherit from the father.

No what am I? At the same time as being Father, I came with kingship. The kingship over the country must be set up and then...

It is said that on the day Chung Do Rung comes, he would receive tribute from seventy countries or so. The book seems to have pointed out the Unification Church itself. [Right! Applause]

And there is another book named Kyugamyurok. It came out after the Chonggamrok. It predicted my name from that early day.

First Months Back in Korea

Sun Gil Choi, Sun Myung Moon's first wife

First Months Back in Korea

September 30, 1943 - May 4, 1944

I had gone to Tokyo to study, but they graduated us six months early so students could do military service. Under the Japanese, students of subjects related with engineering were graduated six months early. By the time I graduated, the war in East Asia was in full swing. Because Japan needed people to support the military effort, they graduated us in September rather than in March.

A ferry that was sunk

After I graduated, I bought a ticket on the ferry from Shimonoseki to Busan. From Busan I was to travel overland to Seoul. I would have boarded the Konlin Maru ferryboat on October 4. En route to Busan, the Konlin Maru, which I should have been on, was sunk. [The New York Times reported on October 8 that an Allied submarine had sunk the ship at 1:00 am on October 5 and that broadcasts intercepted from Tokyo indicated only 72 of 616 of those on board survived.]

I had gone to the bus stop to catch a bus for Shimonoseki, but my legs wouldn't move. If I had been on board that boat, I would have been killed, but Heaven stopped me from catching it. I know about such happenings. My mind told me to go back to my lodgings.

I didn't telegraph home saying I wasn't coming. I went off to the mountains with my friends. It was autumn. I told my friends, "Let's go to Busa Mountain," and we went hiking in the mountains. Our trip lasted several days, and we finally arrived back after a week... My whole family was in a panic, especially my parents. Their son, who had said which boat he would be on and on which date and at what time he would arrive, hadn't arrived. You can imagine what an uproar my house was in. There was absolute pandemonium. My family spent two days in and out of the Chongju Police Station in North Pyong-an Province trying to find out what had happened.

It's about eight kilometers from my village to the town of Chongju. My mother ran those eight kilometers barefoot. Do you think she was of a mind to worry about what clothes or shoes she was wearing? She thought, my son has been killed! She ran barefoot to Chongju and then traveled immediately down to the Maritime Police Station in Busan for information.

She couldn't find my name on the list -- what could she do? She had thought her son was dead. Her heart propelled her toward the police station barefoot; she didn't even notice when acacia thorns pierced her feet. She didn't realize thorns were in her feet until they festered and burst. When I arrived home ten or fifteen days later and heard what had happened, I realized that I had made a mistake.

My mother had gone the 230 km from Chongju to Seoul, which took ten hours by train. From there, she traveled on to Busan. Imagine how frantic with worry she must have been. She is truly a great mother. I was not able to demonstrate filial piety toward her. I believe my mother loved me more than any other mother ever loved a son. I was unable to show her the proper respect. Why was that? I had to love you first...

Thoughts of Japan

When I had returned to my home in Korea, I thought of Japan; I will surely return there in twenty years. "Let's meet again then. I left not yet having evened the score with the Japanese Emperor, still unable to relieve the bitter pain of the Korean people, but the time will come when I will teach and lead the young men and women of Japan. Let us meet again then."

I did return to Japan twenty years later. On my return, I wondered most about the number of young men and women attending the Unification Church I visited. There were about five hundred young people gathered there. They had all come from wealthy families. I asked them what they wanted to do in the future and they all said they would go wherever I guided them. This was quite moving for me. They don't worry about the Japanese emperor; they just need the Unification Church and Rev. Moon to succeed. I asked those members if they were willing to be guided by me, and they said they would.

Sung-Jin Nim's mother

I married Sung-jin's mother [Choi Sun-gil], in accordance with Heaven's will. [Choi Sun-gil is the grandmother of Shin-mi nim, Shin-il nim and Shin-sook nim. Shin-mi nim was blessed in 2000; Shin-il nim and Shinsook nim were blessed in 2006, in a blessing ceremony for members of the third generation of the True Family.] I did not marry her just of my own free will. I receive the command from the spirit world. She was also following instructions from the spirit world when she met me. Her name was Choi Sun-gil. The meaning of the Chinese character for choi is "high." Sun means "first," and gil means "happy." It's like a boy's name. Why did they name a girl Sun-gil? It was something, the spirit world instructed them to do. Her name meant she was to be the first person to be happy. She was to be the first happy woman. It meant she would be more blessed than anyone else connected with God's providence.

Sung-jin's mother is a very smart lady. She's extremely good, and she is good around the house as well. The Choi clan was quite a famous clan in the Chongju district. She was the daughter of the head family. She was thrifty as well and being extremely strong-willed. She didn't like to be indebted to anybody. She graduated from elementary school, with only seven or eight years of schooling in all.

It was Heaven's will that we met. Even from the worldly point of view, Sung-jin's mother should have realized that there was nothing more important than her husband. Despite her shortcomings in every area she needed to adapt to the situation. She should have willingly accepted any sacrifice that might have resulted from her husband's working for the larger purpose. From the individual point of view, I chose Sung-jin's mother to be my bride because I thought the greater our differences, the more God's will would benefit.

She had a strong Christian faith. She was a model Christian. From that point of view, she represented the world and Korea, not in the position of a male John the Baptist but in the position of a female John the Baptist. The mission of Christianity was to prepare the bride for presentation, connecting her to God's will.

Sung-jin's mother even spent some time in prison because she refused to bow to the Japanese Emperor's shrine. I had found that kind of woman, that kind of virginal woman.

I was the twenty-fourth person to be suggested to her as a potential husband. The person trying to find her a husband had searched throughout the whole district for a suitable man. Sung-jin's mother's family was also spiritually open. They had prayed with my photograph and had been taught by the spirit world. They received many revelations at that time.

They saw two mirrors appear, in the east and in the west. In the center of heaven they became one; from its center, the sun rose and shone its light all over the world, and the moon and all the stars in the cosmos from the east, west, south, and north surrounded it. Under the light shining from the moon, all of creation was transformed into a flower garden. They received many incredible revelations like that.

After praying, they were taught all these things. In light of this, do you think she had some other man in mind? No, she was determined to marry me.

A woman -- a distant aunt twice removed or so -- just appeared one day because she felt determined to find a match for her nephew. She was quite a famous matchmaker. I like joking and I used to like teasing her. [Laughter] If I was hungry she would buy noodles for me. So I said to her, "If you are such a good matchmaker, why don't you go ahead and try?"

Soon after that, I left my hometown. Somehow or other, with this and that, it was a year and eight months before I returned. I thought that since I had been out of town, enough time had passed that the lady might have married someone else; she might not be interested in me. On the contrary, when I arrived home, my aunt yelled at me and said the lady was so charmed by me she had resisted marrying another man. She only wanted to marry me. [Laughter] As soon as I arrived my aunt said, "Let's go," and walked ahead of me. My mother came, too... I became a topic of conversation in my town. As I recall, about five of us, including my uncle, went to the lady's house...

Meeting the prospective in-laws

We arrived from Seoul at night and walked twenty-eight kilometers without sleeping. The road was not even paved; there was a lot of gravel on it. It was horrible to walk twenty- eight kilometers in shoes. When the sun rose, we could see an inn. We went there and asked where such and such a person lived and the innkeeper said her house was the one right in front of his building. The house was a good, tile-roofed house. It was the biggest house in the village.

I offered a bright greeting to the owner of the house, "Please forgive our rude intrusion as passers-by." Can you imagine my being so cheeky? Can you be so bold if you have walked all night long? "Could you please give us a room? I have not slept for three nights." My mother and aunt slept in one room and the others slept in a room in another part of the house. Because I was a prospective groom, they allowed me a room to myself.

However, we hadn't even woken up by noon the next day. [Laughter] The owner of the house had already prepared breakfast. What could she do? We finally got up around one-thirty or one-forty. I folded my bedclothes and washed myself, since it was someone else's house and she had already prepared a bowl of water and some salt to clean my teeth. By the time I finished washing, it was already two-thirty, so I had no choice but to eat something. I quickly ate everything they had prepared for me. I didn't leave a thing. I asked her for some water and even some fruit for dessert, which they had not prepared.

A rumor began circulating. News that a prospective groom had come to see and interview the potential bride spread quickly all over the Choi village, which had about a hundred and fifty houses. The villagers talked about all kinds of things, such as how long the candidate-groom had slept...

I wanted to know how magnanimous they were, so I asked them to cook a chicken for me. They had to catch and cook all the hens they had. They even caught a distant relative's hens for my family. They probably caught about fifty hens in all! So many people came to visit and eat with us. One ate and left; then another ate and left. [Laughter]

Then we had dinner. I had gone there to meet the prospective bride but I didn't say anything about meeting her. What kind of person acts in that way? [Laughter] I just told some interesting stories. [Laughter] I told them how Tokyo was and how the Japanese lived. I told them everything. I spoke until two o'clock. I mean two o'clock in the morning.

Engagement

(December 1943)

It was past three in the morning. Past three! I thought that I should not wait to take some action. So, I said, "Though it's very late, please let me meet your daughter." I may have been the first prospective groom to ask to see the bridal candidate at three o'clock in the morning on the issue of marriage. I asked her to come in and had her sit down. I asked everyone else not to leave. Then I led them into a pleasant mood. I spoke about how school is, and other things...

Then I arranged to meet them the next day, when I would test them in earnest. If I stayed with them for two days, which became three days... If someone stays for more than three days, he is sure to be spoken ill of. [Laughter] So, I asked them detailed questions, and told them I would go the road of the Unification Church. I went as far as telling her that she may have to live alone for five years after the marriage and that it might end in five years or seven years. Even at that time, I told her she should be prepared to live alone. Knowing her own situation at that time, she was in the position where she had to accept everything -- that was the price, wasn't it? She had to meet whatever this other person asked. She said she would do anything. In this way, we married. After the engagement ceremony, I returned home.

And so we were engaged in December. Sung-jin's mother was nineteen.

Change of plans for Manchuria

North of the city of Harbin there is a place called Hailar. At that time, I was accepted to a job at an electric company in Jonup, and I planned to live there when I returned from school in Japan. Why did I want to go to Hailar? To learn Russian, Chinese and Mongolian. I planned to go there with the intention of later creating a continental base in Asia, and to spend three years learning the languages.

Jonup was in Andong-hyun in Manchuria. However, while I was planning to visit the branch of the electric company I was to work for, I saw the situation was not favorable and I decided it was not a good idea to go to Manchuria. So I went there to return everything related to the job I had gotten in Andong. I went there with a letter of resignation and all the necessary expenses and met the head of the branch.

A visit to Kwaksan

(February 1944 - 4 Kwaksan is Choi Sun-gil's hometown.)

Kwaksan is a city between Chongju and Sunchon. I remember it was around February. This time I was visiting in order to set the wedding date. Because of the bus schedule, I couldn't get there until it was already evening. It was about six when I got off at Kwaksan. The sun was already setting slowly. It was a fifteen li [a li is equal to approximately 0.4 km] from Miss Choi Sun-gil's house. It was early February and there was snow. It snows until March in Pyong-an Province.

My oldest brother-in-law came out and said to me: "In our family, there is no such thing as a bridegroom-to-be coming and behaving like this before the wedding." He meant his family couldn't welcome me, and I had to go back home. This shows that his family was a good one, because what he said was based on the traditional standard. So, I had to go back down the seventy-li (twenty-eight-kilometer) road to Chongju with the snow coming down in large flakes. It was a poetic scene.

After I left, my mother-in-law-to-be returned and an uproar ensued. From her viewpoint this had created a big problem. Thinking the engagement might be broken off, she criticized her son. "How in the world could you do that?"

That was the situation, and Sung-jin's mother heard about it while visiting her uncle's house. She got dressed and left the house immediately. She caught up with me and insisted that I go back to her house, asking me how I could have just left. She said that she would take responsibility for whatever was happening in the house. I came to understand her character at that time. Oh, this woman was unusual -- most unusual. Nevertheless, how could I possibly return to her house under those circumstances? So I told her I wouldn't go. She insisted she would go with me the remaining twenty kilometers to Chongju. She thus traveled with me the whole night, all the way to Chongju, telling me about her life on the way.

My uncle lived in the rural town of Chongju. We went there and I asked for breakfast for her. My intention was to send her back by bus. Still, she would not go back on any account. She asked my uncle's mother to be a witness and take her along to my father's brother's house, would you believe. There was no choice, so my uncle's mother took her to my house, where she stayed for a week. During that time, my father and mother saw her as affable, sensible and broad-minded. So, everybody including my parents, older sister and younger brother were taken with her. In that way, she mapped out her plan.

Kashima-gumi Construction Co., Seoul

(Around March 1944)

Kashima is a big Japanese construction company. I got a job working in their Electrical Department. I was the earliest to arrive in the office in the morning, and I worked the latest, too. In this way, I trained myself. It's pleasant to be the first one in the office. In the long run, it is a valuable experience. A person who works in that way becomes a successor and a master. Likewise, a person who gets up early in the morning because of Heaven's will and continues to do so all throughout his or her life is a master. That person becomes a master of the heavenly nation.

Marriage

(May 4, 1944)

I married prior to Korea's liberation from Japan. I did so in response to Heaven's command. As you know, my bride became Sung-jin's mother.

Since the marriage was sudden, my mother and father had to prepare more than ten rolls of cotton cloth within two months. There are many stories I could tell about all the preparations. My whole life was pioneering. Everything I had done up to the time of getting married was pioneering. Even finding a horse... Taxis were not available at that time.

In order to fetch a wife living seventy li [28 kilometers] away, one had to go by horse. That was prohibited at the time of Japanese rule, but as I couldn't do that on foot, I got the horse myself.

We arranged the wedding date, but then my father-in-law passed away a week before the marriage...

We had observed Easter on April 17. On May 4, the wedding day, it poured with rain! As you can see, there was a great deal of difficulty in everything. It was a road of indemnity, full of twists and turns.

I knew many famous Christian ministers very well, including Rev. Lee Ho-bin, Han Jun-myung and Park Jae-bong. They were quite close to me. So before I married Sung-jin's mother, I went to the New Jesus Church and got Rev. Lee to officiate for us. We were that close to each other. We were close because every time I dropped by his church in Pyongyang,, which had a Sunday School membership of about a thousand, I taught that Sunday School. The Sunday School students thought I was famous. Since I had become close to ministers in that way, Rev. Lee Ho-bin was well known to me too. That is why he officiated at the wedding.

Endurance and Forgiveness

Endurance and Forgiveness

February 1944 - August 1945

[In July 1944, the New York Tines reported, "Japanese militarists have named one of their strongest men as governor-general of restless Korea." To take up that post, Gen. Abe Noboyuki resigned as president of the Imperial Rule Assistance Political Society, the parliamentary wing of the totalitarian party then governing Japan. This portion of Father's life story opens with him speaking about his experience beginning a few months later (October 1944) when he was incarcerated in a Gyeong-gi provincial jail. Gyeong-gi Province surrounds the city of Seoul and straddles the modern-day division between North and South Korea].

I was routinely in and out of jail even when I was a student. I maintained courage in the face of torture under the Japanese. I am a man with much experience in that area. Their torture methods were very harsh. If young people these days were caught and tortured the way it was being done at that time, they wouldn't be able to control their bowels and would confess to having done things that they had not done.

While Korea was under Japan, I spent time in prison. I suffered lashings and water torture from Japanese detectives from the upper division of the special branch. I went through all manner of treatment. I was whipped until my entire body was black and blue and I bled enough to fill several bowls. I was kicked in the belly by soldiers with their boots on; two people held my arms while two other people stamped on my stomach. What happens to the skin of the belly when you are tortured like that? Does it tear? Does it burst? After such an experience, go and sit on the toilet, then try to stand up. It was so painful.

I worked very hard to rid Korea of the Japanese Emperor, and for that I was tortured in prison. Try that and see what it is like. They hit me here with wooden sticks... At that time, they wore leather shoes in the army. It was with their hobnailed boots that they stamped on me. People who haven't experienced this will never know what it is like.

No matter what was inflicted on me, even when I was given electric shocks, I did not speak. I would fight it, thinking, "Hit me! See which is bigger -- your club or my determination." Throughout the day I was beaten with clubs. I thought, "Let's see how I do," and endured the situation.

Even when I was throwing up blood and bleeding from all ten fingers, I was praying, "How glorious it would be if my blood could represent the blood from ten nations and be given as a sacrificial offering in place of the blood of people of the ten nations."

I went through torture for nearly twelve hours until I was vomiting blood. There was a torture that drove a person insane in fifteen minutes. I can never forget it. Though I was tortured in that way for twelve hours, I miraculously survived. Once I was questioned for fourteen hours, going through torture so harsh that when it was over, I couldn't crawl more than twenty meters. I was resuscitated several limes from near death. Though this process was repeated again and again, I didn't open my mouth.

The sound of my screams from bloody torture in prison was the sound of someone searching for the highest place where God's will could be realized. Unless you have been to the summit of screaming, you cannot complain!

At a place where I could speak with God about fundamental things, I called "Father" and prayed, "God, my blood is different from that of people of the past. I am not the kind of man who vomits blood, collapses and dies while complaining to You with a heart of betrayal. Please don't sympathize with me; rather, sympathize with this nation and with all humanity! Please open a way, with me in the lead, for all people to survive." This was my way of life.

"Go ahead and beat me! Is your love for Japan greater than my love for Korea? ..." In this way, I put up a worthy fight. When I was incarcerated under the Japanese, I was grateful to have entered prison rather than being in the position of a traitor who betrays his own nation. I thought that it would be good if my country could be liberated through my own death rather than my being saved. This is our traditional way of thinking in the Unification Church.

I came to understand the Korean people's misery, how badly they were treated, through being imprisoned in Japan. It was all training for me. Through walking with my companions along the course of suffering, torture and shedding tears in prison, I finally understood Korea's miserable situation. While I was incarcerated I felt a sense of duty -- "Someone must liberate the people." Prison became a great teacher for me. My time in jail was a time to set a cornerstone in the providence of restoration that no one can destroy.

Silent at the risk of my life

I have crossed over the point of death several times. Even so, I risked my life because of my sense of responsibility toward my comrades and my faith in them, so in prison I fought alone. I didn't speak even when prison officials threatened to kill me. Once I decided to say nothing, I said nothing.

When the lives of one hundred people depended on me, how could I speak? I would rather have cut out my tongue. I didn't tell them anything. I decided that I wouldn't speak. "Beat me. Even though you beat me, it's my responsibility to win over you." Even though they went through all four legs of a desk -- breaking each one into pieces from the force of the blows they administered, and making my body turn black all over from the bruising -- I didn't talk.

I didn't talk even when I was beaten with wooden poles. A man must remain loyal. Once a man has made a promise, he must keep it even though it may destroy him. When a day of torture passes by like this, the day remains as a sorrowful one but at the same time, unforgettable.

I still remember the name of the man who tortured me in Tokyo, even now. No matter how much he tortured me, I did not give him any information. I said, "I will not talk." And that was the end of it. Try it for 365 days if you like. Even if I was unconscious and woke up several times, I would say, "What's going on? Let's sleep a little more." I would say such things and make jokes. "I want to sleep a little more; why are you guys waking me up?" In this way, even though they were inflicting torture on me, they became my friends. Whoever tortured me, I said, "Ha! That doesn't hurt. Do it like that; do it that way." That's all I said. They had not one bit of satisfaction. If they could have just gotten one word out of me... "You may make some official statement, but once I am on the stand, I will not keep silent." That's what I said. If I am a real man, I must do as my heart dictates. I am that kind of man.

I would have been an excellent investigator. When Japan ruled Korea, in front of those smart prosecutors and judges, I acted as if I were stupid. And I succeeded in fooling them. When they were recording my case, I acted as if I were very dull. They said, "How can a person like hint be the one with all that responsibility? He's like a kindergarten pupil." So everything worked out. They were unable to dig up the most important information. They fabricated a report and made it official. It was not important. It was my strategy... Sometimes you have to do those kinds of things. That's what you would call an able person.

Forgiving and blessing one's enemy

Even though they may lock me up in prison, they can't do the same to my mind or philosophy. "Hit me. If you beat me, you are striking the foundation God laid for me and the course I have walked along the way God has paved. Let's see how strong my heart is when it comes to loving my enemies. Hit me if you want to hit me. Do you think I would hate you? I've been severely beaten, vomiting blood. I was beaten in place of the human race with its bitterness accumulated through history. They would whip me, and then I would forget it. How wonderful it is for someone to go through such a thing and be able to say, "God, please forgive them." We should go through that; to do so, we have to practice abnegation. Then it becomes simple.

In the days when Korea was under Japanese control, them was a man named Kumahata, a name I've never forgotten. Though we were taught to love our enemies, I would have kicked him without hesitation when he was stamping on me and hitting me. Then I thought, "Hey you! Fine. Do as you want. I will endure this even though it may push me to the point of death." I didn't treat him as my enemy. Since it was my responsibility to pray for blessings for others, I looked for something in them that could make them worthy to receive a blessing. In my prison cell, that was what I studied. Since men have a conscience, in the morning when everyone else had gone out, the torturers would apologize. That is a human quality. When we see that, we can see that people everywhere are the same. They can't deceive their consciences.

Preventive measures

Before being tortured, you should shed blood first-this will help protect you from dying. When someone tortures you, he will trample on some part of you, your belly or that area of your body. In order to bear that, you have to give yourself an enema in advance, getting it all out first.

You must create an outlet to allow the blood to flow. You could bite your lips or the flat of your tongue. If you bleed beforehand, the torture won't destroy you. It won't be as explosive; it won't tear you apart. God is surely the king of wisdom... I saved many people by teaching them this. People like me do not follow a comfortable path; we do not go the easy way. Even though I have faced death many times, I have always overcome it.

A mother's tears

They gathered the little money they had and sent me abroad to study, but I ended up in jail there.

My mother came to the prison and wept. She might have said, "If you had thought of your mother, you would not have gotten involved in that kind of movement." But she never said anything. I had not done anything wrong as my mother's son. As one born into the Moon family I never shamed the family name. Centering on the traditional and unique philosophy of Korea, they could see that my conscience was clean. Even though I was in prison, I did not want a mother who pitied her son and cried. I needed a mother who would give advice and encouragement and who would tell me to carry on with hope for tomorrow.

It was impiety. There is no greater lack of filial piety... Soon after I returned from Japan, the police summoned me, because they were afraid. It wasn't as if I got into fights with them. When my parents came to the police station in tears, I would shout like a thunderbolt descending on them from the clear blue sky. I said, "Your son is not a petty little boy. The tears in my eyes are to relieve the world's sadness and God's. These tears are not for you." That is what I told my mother about why I was treading this path.

Leaving prison

When you leave prison, you have to be kind to the people there. When you go through harsh torture for about six hours and pass out on the floor, the torturer sympathizes with you. The prejudice at that time was real but a torturer later wonders what has become of his victims. This explanation can never make sense at all to those who just chase after enjoyment.

When I was about your age, I was tortured a lot. Nevertheless, I didn't die though I was beaten and my body swelled to bursting through the water torture. I recovered in about two weeks. I ate well for two weeks and returned to normal. So, suffering is not something you want to experience when you are old, but before you have your family.

I have been incarcerated many times, but I was not destroyed by it. No one knows that I wept on the banks of the Han River, but I know.

Internal preparation

During a forty-year period, Japan tried to rid Korea of all her cultural traditions, even her language. I was imprisoned by the Japanese during that time The government also imprisoned and oppressed many other Koreans_ In order to be calked by God, you had to become a patriot, a devoted son or daughter, and a citizen devoted to society. Patriots are people who have resolved to offer themselves to the nation. Such people are needed for God's providence. When God establishes the foundation for the providence and expands it, Satan always opposes Him. Thus, as a young man I prepared myself for the public life to come.

From the 1920s onward, God was already prepared. That is when I was born. I have struggled to resolve life's hitherto unsolved problems, to reveal the heavenly way and to deal with all the problems related to religion and to love. I worked in this way until the time of Korea's liberation. How old was I at that time? I was twenty-six then. I couldn't say anything about the Principle you are now studying. This was partly because God had told me not to and partly because I had promised God that I would begin my work immediately after Korea was liberated. One person alone cannot accomplish God's will; there have to be partners to work with.

There were times when I went high into the mountains near Seoul and wept bitterly. Where will this nation go? Where is she going? Away from the heart of God, the great supervisor of the universe? Before the liberation, I traveled everywhere, starting with Mt. Bugak. I bowed my head and prayed, "O Korea! Don't be sorrowful. Even though the world may be lost, you won't be. So long as I exist, Korea will not be lost." Our ancestors and God carry much bitter sorrow.

Staying in Seoul reminds me of the day I prayed while hiking to Mt. Samgalc and walking around that area. Have you done that kind of thing? Though the world is unaware, we have to build the road of love. We have to build an altar to love. Though I long to tell of my serious suffering and prayers offered to God for the world's sake, there is something very heartbreaking about it so I cannot speak.

When I started forging this road, I had already met and seen through all the famous Christian ministers in Korea. I had already evaluated them. They didn't know about me. From outer appearances, I was nothing but a bachelor and an unkempt passerby, but I looked inside them and wrote down what I saw in a report to Heaven. After making my report to God, I began my work.

I went to the underground churches first. Three years before the liberation, or from the time I was twenty-two, I began going to the underground churches. Because people had been tainted from bowing to the Japanese Emperor, genuine religious organizations all went underground. Though I was young then, I was well aware of religious organizations doing underground activities and other states of affairs in Korea.

Foresight and liberation

This man they call Reverend Moon is a clever person. (Laughter) I am not a fool. I am canny and see far into the future. Already, in my teens, I knew what would happen to Korea. Yesterday, my younger cousin told me, "What you said about Japan and Germany-that in 1945 -- Germany would be out of it in April and Japan in August -- all happened." He said, "I thought a person had to graduate from a university to be well informed about the world and see the future."

Pyongyang Prison, Hungnam Labor Camp

Hungnam Labor Camp

Once I began my evangelical work, membership began to increase. The policy of those governing northern Korea at the time, however, was to systematically eradicate all religious groups. Also, ministers of established churches saw that many members of their congregations were coming to me, so they decided to report me to the authorities. This is how I came to be jailed for a third time in my life. This occurred at 10:00 AM on February 22, 1948.

They accused me of being a spy for South Korea, an agent of the Syngman Rhee faction in Seoul. They said all kinds of things, made up all sorts of ridiculous accusations. They claimed I was an agent sent by those wanting to take over the government north of the DMZ, an agent whose purpose was to plunder everything, and they did various other ridiculous things to have me arrested.

On the day I was handcuffed and taken to jail, I told myself, This is happening so that I can have a mark on me that says God loves me.

In the end, I was forced out into a global wilderness. That four thousand three hundred years of history had to be indemnified in forty-three years was so wearisome and unjust. You don't know the bitterly tragic circumstances that made me go to the concentration camp in Hungnam after the loss of the entire national and global foundations that God had worked six thousand years to establish. It seems like only yesterday that the people who wanted to welcome me as representing hope for the future both in heaven and on earth cried out in agony, and that we pledged in desperate tears to meet again, as they watched me being led through the mist into hell, into the world of darkness. It seems like only yesterday that I declared to them, "You are disappearing, but I will pursue my course and someday I will come back with the bright morning sun in my bosom and I will liberate you once again." I have never forgotten how I shouted as I was being led away in handcuffs. Each time I faced difficulty, I remember the way I prayed in that situation.

My head is shaved

I was jailed in the Internal Affairs Station because of the jealousy of the established denominations and the Communist government's policy to do away with religion. On February 25, my head was shaved. I remember the person who shaved it and the day he did it. I can never forget how I had to sit and watch as my hair fell to the ground.

As I sat there, I told God I had been brought to this place by my enemies and was being forced to have my head shaved. You cannot imagine how brightly my eyes shone during that experience. I watched my hair falling to the floor, and let go of the happiness that I had sought. It was particularly upsetting to me that I had to have my head shaved in the presence of my enemies. In the course of weaving together the circumstances of restoration, all these obstacles were particularly regrettable.

Torture and interrogation

Even when I was tortured so harshly that I threw up blood, repeatedly collapsed on the floor and finally lost consciousness, I never asked God to help me. Instead, I always prayed, "Father, don't worry. I'm not dead yet. I'm not going to die yet. I am still faithful to you. I still have a mission that I need to accomplish." I was a devoted son, comforting God. I held the blood in my mouth and straightened my posture; even on moonless nights after I had been tortured, I never forgot the life I had led previously, offering comfort to Heaven.

The times I would collapse from torture were the moments I could hear the voice of God. The times my life seemed on the verge of coming to an end were the moments I could meet God. You may not be able to imagine the profound background to this truth, or the deep valleys and dark tunnels that had to be traveled before this truth of the Unification Church could be revealed. I know that it was a situation where someone might ask, Hey, Rev. Moon! How did you ever get this far?

I was not beaten for my own sake but for the sake of the nation. The tears I shed were the tears of the indemnity paid so that I could shoulder the pain of the nation. The circumstances called for me to shout, You rascal! to Satan's face, to face the substantial manifestation of Satan and shout, Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me! When the time comes, I will repay you at least sevenfold. Right now, you are giving me the material I will need to do that.

Even as I was being put in the place of torture, I was telling them to go ahead and hit me. Beneath my clothing, I have scars in several places that I acquired after I took up this way of life. When I see these, I think of them as medals given me by humanity and by Heaven. The scars remind me: Have you forgotten the pledge you made? Have you forgotten how you pledged to follow this path at the risk of your life until you die? Each time I see these, whether it's in the morning, noon or evening, I rededicate myself. I tell myself, Because you've been given these scars, you have to win. I encourage myself toward victory.

Put on Trial

When I was in the North, I was originally scheduled to go to trial on April 3, but the Communist Party took so long to come up with excuses for oppressing the church that it was April 7 before I finally went to trial. This was my fortieth day of imprisonment. I was being tried in court as someone hounded by Christianity, and the Communists took extra time in preparing the trial so they could use it to show the party members how religion was evil and like an opiate.

During my trial, certain Christian ministers came and testified against me, heaping all sorts of accusations on top of me. No one else can understand or experience how shocking this was. I still have not forgotten that time. Throughout my life I have kept the memory what it felt like to be imprisoned and then taken to court. It's a desperate feeling when you realize you are going to court and that every word you say may affect your fate.

I don't talk much about how I even laughed at the Communist Party. I told them that my personal history was not something that would go away simply because they heaped blame on me. It seems like just yesterday I told them that although I was going without complaint, the day would come when they would be in the palm of my hand and be held accountable by humankind for their actions. It was Heaven's strategy to make certain that I would not have the slightest attraction to communism, and God's strategy to make sure I would not feel too much sympathy for Christianity that was under the Communist realm. It was a strategy to make sure that I rejected all this.

Send off by members

As I was led away from the court back to jail after receiving my sentence, I shook my handcuffs in front of the members of my congregation, and they made a clear and resonating sound. I still cannot forget how I waved goodbye to them with those handcuffs loudly clanking together. In that moment, it was as if a historic movie were being created for future generations. That moment would become an explosive foundation for countless young people in future generations to pledge their determination.

Singing songs of hope for tomorrow is more powerful than singing of the sadness of today. The heart can always be bigger if it is filled with hope for tomorrow, rather than bitterness over the injustices of today. It didn't matter how evil the enemy was that placed handcuffs on my wrists that day. When I stood there in handcuffs and bid farewell to the church and the congregation I loved, my words were signposts pointing toward a historical judgment. That is what I felt in that moment. As a man, I had to proudly walk down the trail that had to be blazed again. Prison was no problem and death no hindrance to a man who understood that he can establish the original value.

I still cannot forget how the members who remained in Pyongyang waved good-bye as I was taken away. I shed no tears, but they were all weeping. It was not as if a child were dying or a husband leaving home never to return. I could see them sniffling and wiping away tears. How tragic that was! As I watched that scene, I felt that a person who goes in search of Heaven is never abjectly unhappy.

Even if I tried, I could never forget the sound of their voices and the sight of how their whole bodies shook in sadness as I was being led away to prison. This is painful. When I think of it, in some respects, this is pain. It is pain.

Incarceration in Pyongyang Prison

I was handcuffed and taken to Pyongyang Prison on April 7, but I went with a sense of hope. I tried to imagine what it would be like when I had completed the course. I was very curious about that. After I had been sentenced and was being led away to prison, I was filled with hope. I realized that even in prison there would be people God had prepared. Rather than focus on the incident immediately at hand, I thought about what was going to come after that. I told myself, Here is something that needs to be done to cross over another peak. I was expecting something like this. I wondered what would come after this.

Whenever I was incarcerated, I was very good at making friends with the most senior prisoner in the cell. I only had to speak a few words to him, and we would be friends. I would sit down with him and analyze for him the psychology of each person in the cell. Oh, this person's face is shaped like this, so he will become like this. That person's face is shaped like that, so this is what will happen to him, and so on. He may not have liked what I said, but he knew I was right. If I watch the senior prisoner's face and talk to him for a week -- or even just three days -- I am at the point where I can say anything to him. If I am sitting in the lowest position in the cell, where there is not much space, he moves me to a higher position. The head prisoner tells me to move up. Even if I refuse, he insists that I move to a higher position. I can make friends with anyone and make anyone my companion.

When you're in prison, each day of the year you can find all the material you need to write a long novel. Sometimes, you may hear the sound of someone playing a flute, and you can sing to that melody. Then everyone in that environment joins in. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you need to be able to find a place to tie your rope around and travel back and forth. That is how you become a man who leaves his mark on history.

My primary opponent visits

While I was in prison, a person who had been my enemy visited in order to apologize to me. Deciding whether to meet him was a test for me. This was the man primarily responsible for putting me in jail. The person who had played the lead role in the effort to put me in jail just suddenly appeared one day. In the moment that I came face to face with him, it was not a good feeling for me. I pretended not to recognize him, and said, "I'm afraid I don't know who you are." I looked into his eyes. In the past, he'd had a vicious and evil look, but his eyes had softened and he stood in front of me looking very much like a human being. He told me he'd done certain things and asked me to forget all that had transpired in the past. He asked me not to think badly of him for visiting me in prison.

When he left, he gave me some food he had bought for me. Was I going to eat that, or not? That was a problem for me. In a place like prison, food is very valuable. I received the food around lunchtime but kept it until evening, because I had to think hard about what I was going to do with it. Without having discovered the principle of love, it would be impossible to accept that kind of food. After thinking about it very seriously, I decided to share the food with others.

In addition to everything else, this man was a Communist Party official. He was part of what was called the Security Cadre, and he must have considered that I might make him lose face in the presence of the prison guards. I could see he had a future, and I thought very seriously about his situation even though we were enemies. I could see that if he could leave with a heart-to-heart relationship with me, he would be someone who could meet me again in the future, someone who might find a new life. I still think about him in this way. On many occasions, I felt lonely in that prison. He came to me at a time when I was lonely and gave me comfort, and I never forgot this.

Hungnam's Bon-Goong Camp for Special Laborers

I remember what happened on May 20, several decades ago. It was on that day that, after being jailed in the Pyongyang Internal Affairs Station and tried, I was transferred to a prison in Hungnam.

I had wept with anger many times over having been beaten and unjustly treated. I felt ashamed to think of Heaven and I tried to hide my face and my body. That is why, when I was taken to prison, I asked to be handcuffed to a murderer. I became friends with him.

We were shackled all the way to Hungnam, and it took us seventeen hours to get there. What do you suppose I thought about in the railroad car on the way there? It was an outrageous situation. If it seemed outrageous to me, think how mortifying it must have been for God. My determination grew as I watched the scenery go by outside the train window. Can you imagine how serious I felt as I watched those mountains and meadows go by? If I had been by myself, it would have been easy to escape, but I was shackled to the worst criminal. Incredible things that went through my mind during that trip.

On the way to Hungnam, there was a time when we were deep in the mountains, walking along a path that followed a creek. I still remember how we followed that winding road through a mountain valley. Each step I took represented a new start toward a new world. How was I going to live in the prison? I knew it would be difficult, but I was determined to go. It was a good opportunity for me to come to new realizations about myself.

The moment I entered the prison, I felt it was necessary in order to bring about a result that would allow us to transition from Satan's world to God's world. I decided that even in that environment, I would not reveal who I was and I would not allow myself to change externally or internally.

Forced labor in the fertilizer plant

June 21. That was the day I entered that prison in 1948. I went to that North Korean Communist Party prison and engaged in hard labor for two years and eight months, working in the fertilizer factory.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution, many Russians experienced forced labor. Communist ideology does not permit any property-owning class or anti-communist elements to exist.

In their hearts, they would like to kill all these opponents, but because of world opinion they can't do this. So the Communist Party collects these people, imposes forced labor on them and waits for them to die from it. I was in a forced labor camp in North Korea. Kim Il-sung took a lesson from the Soviet experience and gave all his prisoners three years of hard labor.

He sent them to die.

Morning inspection and a long walk

In the morning, when it was time to go to work, all the prisoners would be taken out of their cells. The prisoners would assemble in a field, where they would be checked for any contraband items. There was a body check.

Work began at 9:00 AM, and there was a four-kilometer trip to the site, which took an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. Add to that the time it took to eat a meal, and it would all take two hours. To be able to start work at nine o'clock, we would normally wake up at half past four. In that situation, when a man would sit down, he would feel dizzy and his head would begin to spin. He would try to stand but wouldn't be able to.

Sometimes the morning inspection would take two hours, and it felt as though the cold were carving off pieces of flesh from our bodies. We felt a lot more freedom when we were working. When the wind blew in from would tie the bags, though, these protective covers would get holes in them and eventually fall off. Each person was responsible for a hundred and thirty bags a day, and this was truly hard labor. A normal person living in society probably could not do even seventy or eighty. We were told to do almost twice that. Essentially, we were being told to die.

We had to take the bags to the dock, and load them onto a Soviet ship that was moored there. We had to achieve a certain tonnage, which was checked on a daily basis. Sulfuric acid is harmful to the body. It causes your hair to fall out and your skin to yield water when squeezed. After six months, you start coughing up blood. Most of the time, people thought they had contracted tuberculosis and became so despondent they would die. They'd last a year and a half, two years at most.

Your skin begins to crack and bleed -- so much so that after a while your bones become visible. It took less than a week for our cotton uniforms to become torn. After a person had worked for six months, all his skin cells would be dead, and water would come out when he squeezed them. You wake up in the morning to find blood dripping from the cracks in your skin.

Each day, we were given a fifteen-minute break about halfway to lunchtime, an hour for lunch and another fifteen-minute break halfway through the afternoon. So we had about an hour and a half to rest. At lunchtime, all the men were so tired they just ate where their teams were working.

You may be curious about the toilets. In a large factory like that, they would dig a hole in the dirt floor and harden it with concrete. A channel at the bottom of that hole let the excrement wash away. We used that for a toilet, but when we were working and had to have a bowel movement, our only real option was to dig a hole in the ammonium sulfate do it right there. It was all fertilizer anyway, so we just deposited it in there. We would squat down and fire off like a cannon, quickly. We had to do it quickly, otherwise, we would be beaten severely.

Total investment in the work

As I was tying those bags of fertilizer, I told myself that this was the final front line. Although I was engaged in labor, I did not think of it as labor. The time spent engaged in labor was time for prayer. I told myself I had been born to perform this kind of work. Always, I poured my full sincerity and dedication into the work, as though I were engaged in the providence of restoration. While I worked, I always thought of what I had experienced in the spirit world, and I imagined I was the main actor in a movie that I would one day show to my descendants and to the people who would follow me. Sometimes, the bell would ring for us to take a break and I wouldn't even hear it.

I have often heard people describe me as a man who is like a steel rod. Whenever I applied myself to a task, I did it with true joy. I liked doing that task more than anyone else did. I simply gave precedence to that emotion; there was no other secret to my work. Eventually, I would work through the task. Prison life is difficult; you have to find a way to work through it. I told myself that even if I... the ocean in Hungnam, it would carry tiny pebbles. That wind that constantly buffeted us really seemed like an enemy. It was so cold; one couldn't help but shiver and shout out. No matter how hard a person tried not to make a noise, it was no use.

My way of fighting the cold and overcoming it in that situation was to think to myself, "Make it colder. Make it colder. Make it colder!" Each morning when we left the prison, we had to line up in four lines and hold hands with the persons next to us. Next to this formation were guards who were carrying small arms. If someone fell out of line, or was caught not holding hands, he would be reported as having attempted to escape. You couldn't hold your head up straight.

Even though we would eat before leaving the prison, our legs were so weak that prisoners would often stumble on the way to the factory. Over a four-kilometer distance, this might happen five or six times, sometimes more than ten times in one trip. We lacked energy, but we had to drag our legs to the factory and do the work. I remember this every time things seem to get difficult. In that situation, when my mind seemed to wander far off, I would pledge to be a man of God. That is how I endured to the end.

Forced Labor at the Chosun Nitrogen Fertilizer Company (Hungnam Factory)

We worked at a fertilizer factory, where ammonia sulfate would come in by conveyor belt and pile up on the floor; it looked like a mountain. At first, it would be hot. As time passed, the crystals would melt and stick together, becoming solid like ice. It looked like a waterfall when it fell off the conveyor belt into a pile on the floor. It was just like a white waterfall. The pile was about twenty meters high. We had to dig the ammonia sulfate out of this mountain and put it into bags. Eight hundred to nine hundred people would do this work. We would normally take a single large pile and divide it in two.

It was very difficult work. Per day, each team of ten people was responsible to bag one thousand three hundred bags, each weighing forty kilograms. If a team couldn't finish the work in eight hours, its members had their food ration cut in half. We wore thimble-like protection on our fingers. As we were to die in that prison, I wanted to leave behind a philosophy that would make people say of me, You died in victory, not in defeat.

I weighed 19 kwau (72 kg. - 159 lbs.) then. Other prisoners all became thinner, but I did not lose weight. People began to make me an object of study. During the almost three years I was in that prison, I almost never became ill. Just once I caught malaria. No matter how sick I became, I didn't take medicine. I continued working, sometimes even as I fasted. I suffered from malaria for twenty-four days, but I never took time off from work; anyone who tries to avoid a difficult task will not be able to endure.

Volunteering for the most difficult tasks

When you are in prison, it is important not to allow yourself to be indebted to anyone else, no matter how difficult your situation may be. This is the way for a person to rise to the highest point. Receiving special favors from others is not allowed on the road of indemnity.

Because I knew this, I decided when I first entered the prison that I would take responsibility for the most difficult tasks, ones that no one else could perform. In terms of taking responsibility, I would be responsible for several times what others did. I was already telling myself this.

As we worked our way through the mountain of fertilizer, we would get farther and farther from the place where we would take our bags to be weighed. If we took time to carry the bags to the scale, we wouldn't finish the work within the deadline. If we had worked our way four meters into the mountain, it would take five minutes to take a bag to the scale and have it weighed. We would not be able to work fast enough, unless someone stood in there and tossed the bags out. Who was going to do such a difficult task? I took responsibility to do that.

I did about thirty percent of my team's work. I did the most difficult task and took care of the other team members so that we always finished our work by half past twelve, instead of five o'clock. Once we had met our quota of one thousand three hundred bags, we could spend the remainder of the time relaxing. The satisfaction of finishing the work by twelve, and then eating lunch and relaxing the rest of the day is something that can only be appreciated by someone who has actually experienced it. I became the champion in doing that work, so everyone wanted to follow me.

If a person can't be a savior in prison, he would be a fraud if he called himself a savior in a time of tranquility.

I know that one man who was in Hungnam has written a book in which he calls me "The saint in prison." Prison is not something I fear. No matter how merciless the beatings may have been, or how harsh the environment, it could not conquer the heart that is centered on love. It could not break the heart that called out to God, to the Father, and sought to live for His sake. Based on that energy I was able to lay a foundation for the solid liberation of the vertical stage.

Working with modesty

When I was in prison in Hungnam and working in the fertilizer factory I always kept my trouser legs closed by tying them at the bottom with a strip of cloth, even during the hottest months. I never let my shins show. I still had a sacred path to travel that required me to shed sweat and offer it to God, and I didn't want to show my body to anyone when I was in the process of offering sincerity and dedication to God.

You all know about sulfuric acid. A steam-like mist rises from it. It was so hot that even in the winter months, everyone else would strip down to his underwear to work. But even working in the fertilizer factory I always wore long trousers. I made sure my underwear was not visible. I have always trained myself to be more modest than a woman protecting her virtue. I was committed to reaching the home I knew of in the original homeland and to establishing the tradition of that homeland. No matter how difficult life in prison might be, I could not let that stand in my way. While in the satanic world, I had to offer my entire body to God and maintain the standard He desired. I had to maintain my chastity. Women are not the only ones who need to keep their chastity. Men do, too.

Honored as a model prisoner

I have never failed to accomplish my responsibility. When I was in prison, I received special treatment from the head of the prison. He never said anything to me, but he watched me with an expression of admiration. There weren't just a few dozen workers. There were eight hundred, it may have been more than a thousand, but they recognized that I was someone who could accomplish the work of hundreds.

After I had been there a few months, I was called the best worker. Team members were changed every day, to prevent us from planning an escape. Whenever it came time to change teams, everyone wanted to go to the team that had the best worker. Many people would line up behind me.

Every year I received an award as a model laborer. There is no such thing as a natural born laborer. I don't know what happened to those awards. I never wanted them, so I didn't take care of them. It was not because I wanted them that I received them; they wanted to give them to me. I went to prison in the Communist world and became the best laborer, so there is nothing I cannot do, anywhere in the world.