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."

My prison life - history and tradition

Step into Freedom an Cataclysmic War

My prison life - history and tradition

Do you know about my lifestyle in prison? A tradition of visiting these holy sites should be established... How precious is the feeling of self-confidence and liberation people would have as they fulfill their promise to follow in my footsteps through the historical tradition I have established! It is for this reason that I asked Kim Il-sung to open my hometown to visitors. I asked him to open both my hometown and the Hungnam labor camp; these sites will become educational facilities with training courses designed to correspond to the number of years I spent at each.

My imprisonment at Hungnam was not a setback for me. God has worked through my life course to turn the experience at Hungnam into a powerful source of inspiration that brings new life to the hearts of young people who study the Unification Church doctrine as it spreads to all parts of the world...

There is no better place than a prison to learn about what one is really worth and to recreate one's character. If we are to train young leaders to take on the task of world unification, I think we might need an official survival-training course.

Determined to make a fresh start

You feel quite young when you turn thirty. When I compare that time to now, it really was the era of my youth.

Leaving prison at that age, I resolved to make a fresh start, a new beginning in my life. It did not matter how hard and bitter my experience in North Korea had been up to that point. My mind was set on forgetting all the hardships and thinking of what had happened not as an impediment or loss but as stimulation for that fresh start on the road to accomplishing my historic mission. I was adamant, knowing I was responsible to accomplish my mission at any cost. I made this strong resolution in my thirties while my body was still in its prime. My release from prison was equivalent to resurrection and marked the starting point of proclaiming the truth of Divine Principle.

Those who followed me from Hungnam

At the time of my release, several people clung to me, crying desperately, asking permission to follow me. In fact, four people left their parents and wives behind to accompany me after I emerged from the labor camp in North Korea. Among them one was a man from the Moon clan, in which he thus came to represent Cain.

This man, Mr. Moon Jeong-bin, had worked as a department head in the South Hamgyong provincial office in Hamhung. He was sentenced to Hungnam prison because of a mistake committed by one of his subordinates. He spent some time with me in the prison cell, and from the spirit world, he was guided to become my follower. He later followed me as I traveled from Hungnam to Pyongyang.

Despite being a family man with a wife and two sons, he was very devoted to me and after his release kept visiting me in prison, hoping for my release. After my release, I set out in a hurry to reach Pyongyang, but since I was passing his house, I felt obliged to stop by and greet his family. After we exchanged some greetings and said our goodbyes, I left to continue my journey. Suddenly, he ran out of his house and started following me. "Why are you coming with me?" I asked. He replied that he felt compelled to follow me. So he came along.

A bundle of tattered prison clothes

The clothes I had worn in the labor camp, my shirts and underwear, were all made of cotton. When prisoners worked in the factory, the fertilizer ingredients -- ammonia and sulfuric acid -- would often stain their clothes. Both substances are caustic; their chemical action destroys an organic fabric such as cotton. If you pull on cotton clothes, they easily rip apart. After long use, our clothes were full of holes and began to rot... A beggar wearing such clothes would look even more miserable. Those clothes looked and smelled horrible. If you pulled on or scratched any part of that cotton cloth, it would practically disintegrate into shreds. Since I could not throw those clothes away, I stuffed them all into my bedding, which I spread on the floor and used as a mattress in the prison cell.

I pulled out the stuffing and replaced it with all these ragged clothes to preserve them throughout my three-year term.

What possessions do you leave prison with? I carried a bundle of those old clothes with me as I travelled from Hamhung to Pyongyang over a period of ten days. In Pyongyang, I asked a member to look after the bundle, saying, "Even if you have to throw away your silk jacket, skirt or a blanket made of foreign satin, keep this bundle safe and make sure you return it to me." Nevertheless, he threw my bundle out at the first opportunity and kept his family's stuff... It was lost.

If I only had those clothes with me today, I would not need to explain anything. They would have been too valuable to exchange for the whole universe. The material could speak for itself and stir more profound emotions than any talented orator's speech could ever do. I still have no words to express my disappointment about this loss. Where am I going to find a substitute for this? Is one for sale somewhere? No. Ordinary things such as a small piece of paper or a fragment of a newspaper article become precious historical relics if they are related to your public mission. Even if you are totally impoverished and starving on a single piece of dried radish leaf, you should first think of preserving it as historical evidence by filing it or taking a picture of it. These things will allow your children to inherit the very essence of our tradition without you preaching a word to them.

Evidence of war preparations

I observed things clearly when I came out of prison in Hungnam. I was very interested in all the changes that had taken place around me. From the very beginning, when the North Koreans laid a new bridge, it was designed so that the road could be widened up to two lanes each way. They built roads like highways. Since cement was abundant in the North, they paved the roads with a thick layer of concrete, a strong construction material. None of this escaped my attention.

It was obvious that the roads had been built to withstand the weight of heavy tanks moving, and the bridges had also been constructed so that thirty-ton tanks could cross them.

Since the road from Hungnam was strategically important to the East Sea coast, it had already been prepared for military purposes. All things considered, it was clear that the North had prepared for war ahead of time.

I understood that war preparations were implemented by the KGB as soon as the government was established in the North. It was in line with the Soviet policy in the Far East, which is why all the fertilizer produced by the Hungnam factory was sent off to the Soviet Union. They used to send several loads per day, which they bartered for ten- or twenty-year-old Soviet weapons. Since these weapons were so cheap, they got most of the old Soviet cache. They used them to train soldiers along the thirty-eighth parallel in order to prepare for the invasion of the South. They did not need state-of-the-art heavy equipment there and managed very well with the outdated weapons.

I was aware of all of this at that time. Based on my personal observations, it was clear that North Korea was readying itself for war. Everything was prepared by 1950.

Contacting those who had been loyal

Step into Freedom an Cataclysmic War

Contacting those who had been loyal

I travelled on foot from Hungnam, on the east coast, all the way to Pyongyang, near the west coast. Although I sent people out to all of my followers in Pyongyang letting them know that I had returned, most of them did not come to see me. Nevertheless, I did succeed in bringing some people together, even if just a few.

I stayed in Pyongyang for forty days, though my hometown was only a hundred and ten kilometers from the city. To go there and back would have taken only a couple of days. Still, I did not visit my parents or my brother and sisters at home. Instead, I looked for those people who had earlier responded to God's call. I made a point to visit everyone who had promised to follow God's will -- every single person, without exception.

I never made it to my hometown. I wanted to know what happened to those who had followed me before I went to prison. Moreover, before I visited my own family, I felt obliged to communicate with everyone whom I remembered from that period. This is the heavenly way.

Since these people promised to remain loyal to me before I went to prison and did not notify me they'd had a change of heart, I was still responsible for taking care of them as their teacher. As long as I was still chosen by Heaven and as long as the person did not directly express ill will toward me (in which case Heaven would have no other choice but to forsake him) I was bound by the obligation of a promise exchanged between a teacher and a follower. Because of this, I visited all of my scattered followers. When I could not visit directly, I would at least send Won-pil [Kim] in my stead. Under the circumstances, was there time left to visit my home? In some cases, it took a whole week just to find one person. Even if a person had gone against me, his descendants still have to be saved. The fate of those who had opposed me hung in the balance and had to be cleared up at the time of my visit. That is why it took me a whole forty days to complete the job.

I could not help leaving my mother behind in North Korea, even though I remembered her monthly tearful visits to Hungnam prison. I had to find all my followers in Pyongyang first. I visited everyone, even someone well over eighty years old, only to find out that the person had passed away already. My goal was to call on and bring together every single person that came to mind, young and old -- everyone who had become a member or established a providential connection with me.

I would call on somebody and be rejected at first. I would return and be rejected again. Even until the third time... This went on until people started to evacuate in masse in December. I kept sending people out until sunset on December 2, and I continued desperately offering conditions as expressions of my sincerity until God gave me the direction to leave.

I could not abandon people. I accomplished everything I had to do in the North. I had started out in Pyongyang with a perspective based on heart and before I could leave the place, I removed the pain in my heart and found the courage to offer this new heart to God for the sake of His will. This is why I left Pyongyang that night. A leader needs to be that serious about his responsibility.

You should accomplish your God-given mission even amidst a life-and-death struggle. Once you have started something, you should make sure you complete it. Those who move on to do other things before completing their original mission will realize very soon that their way forward is blocked. This is why I went out and resolved all the issues with my former followers so that in front of Heaven and earth I am justified and have the sympathy of these people's ancestors and descendants.

Since I was aware of such things, I made sure to complete such a foundation before leaving. When I look back on those days, I have no regrets or pangs of conscience about anything.

Visiting the "Inside the Belly" Church

As I was leaving North Korea, I visited the mother of Huh Ho-bin. Since this elderly lady was the overall leader of a religious group, I went to visit her and met her for the first time. The lady had already received a revelation that she should treat a gentleman in Kyungchang Hamlet with respect. Therefore, all her followers came out to greet me wearing white clothes.

Even at that time, had this group exactly followed the directions I gave them, I would not have had to go the way of suffering. This was a substantial, divinely inspired group. Since the members of the group had been trained for years to be mobilized at the command of the returning Lord, they could have been able to advance the providence by leaps and bounds.

The Holy Lord Church, the Inside the Belly Church and the New Jesus Church were similar in the sense that they would have united easily had they been able to accept me. How would that be possible? Through the Principle. But since these people had become too comfortable, they did not recognize what was happening. They could not interpret the revelation given them.

Ministers who had opposed me

When I went to the communist North, about eighty ministers from established churches came together and signed a resolution to get rid of Moon so-and-so from the Unification Church. They must have felt relieved when they heard the news that I had been sent away to a death camp. Did I die, though? Why should I have? In the end, those who conspired to kill me got a taste of their own medicine. The communists killed them all. How ironic that the man who was destined to die in the labor camp survived while those who put him away ended up with that fate! God is indeed unforgiving when it comes to His providence. I looked for each one of these individuals. I was willing to embrace them, offer them a pardon from their past and a direction for a future they could be proud of. However, my search always ended with the same result -- those ministers were dead and gone.

In Pyongyang, a church minister whose last name was Nam was behind my imprisonment. I don't remember his first name. This minister lost all his children. It went that far. Such is the settlement from Heaven. In spite of all of this, you should not think, That is the punishment you deserve.

Since the person's descendants are still alive, you should think, God, Please do not harm this lineage anymore and bless these people on my behalf. This is the thinking of a righteous person. You should know that such is the way God has trodden until now.

Refugee's Life

Father and Kim Won-pil with Clayton 0. Wadsworth, an American serviceman and the first Westerner to hear Father's teachings. Wadsworth later became a Christian minister in the U.S., but declined an invitation to attend a church seminar in the 1980s

January 27, 1951 - September 17, 1953

You can't possibly imagine how dirty my clothes became on the way from Pyongyang to Busan. I had recently been released from prison in North Korea, so my hair looked absurd. My silk pants had become jet black, and the silk outer part had deteriorated, so I wore them inside out with the dyed khaki liner on the outside. Turned inside out, they were just single-layered green pants. That was what I was wearing. I had been wearing the same silk jacket for two months, so it couldn't have looked any worse. It was soaked in oily grime to such an extent that when it rained the raindrops just rolled right off it. I looked like a beggar, and in that wretched guise I arrived in Busan.

I wore work shoes or sneakers until they no longer had soles. I had to beg for food; how could I possibly have money for shoes? I continued to wear the same pair even though dirt would wedge between my toes. During the time I was a refugee, I wore just the one outfit for a whole year. 

Even though I was dressed in rags, I would think to myself that on a day in the future after our hopes are realized, millions of people would look at the rags I had worn. I thought to myself that I had taken a historic mission on my shoulders, so when my time came, and I was in the environment where my mission could be fulfilled in reality, people would make up a play to act out the scene I was seeing on that day, making me the lead actor in a real play. With that frame of mind, I would make my rounds, in rags but with dignity, begging for food with the heart of the leading historical figure. I did not think of myself as unfortunate. A single thought can cast new light on all sorts of forms and figures in the world.

Hunger 

When I met Kim Won-pil, he was a nineteen-year old boy' with a mop of hair. Four years later, he turned twenty-three. He did all kinds of odd jobs, including waiting on tables in a house where meals were served. I ate food he brought back for me, and I sometimes ate rice he had scraped of the bottom of a pan. I did not ask him to work just so I would have something to eat. What I'm telling you is that we experienced all kinds of things. It was a very dramatic time of deep emotions.

When it's cold, people all flock to sunny places. We would go someplace sunny and we'd say to people there, "You've had breakfast and lunch, haven't you? We haven't had breakfast yet, so please give us a bit of space and let us eat in peace." Then we'd sit in a circle in the sun and have our meal. It is fun to eat under such circumstances. There is a hidden philosophy there: everyone is my friend, and we share empathy.

I even acted like a beggar, a real beggar. I begged to get money for food, and no one could surpass me as a beggar. Only the quick-witted can do it well. I would look at a person, and if he didn't give me money, I might say, "Hey, is that all you are? Good things will happen if you support passersby like us." You could say I am the ancestor of fund raising!

The help of a hometown friend

There was only one street in Busan, and you could meet people from all the provinces of Korea on it. Since there was only one street, you could meet everyone if you walked back and forth on it for a week. After arriving in Busan, and being lonely, I walked to and fro along that road, and on one occasion I met a hometown friend. I cannot ever forget his name. I was far from my hometown, and I had come across a person who knew me on the street. Moreover, I remember he gave me ten thousand won.

I resolved that I would pay him back hundreds of times, even thousands of times more, when the time came. I had been harboring that thought in my head, when a few years later, his wife came to the Unification Church, and said, "At that time we helped you, so you should help us now." I was very offended. This wily woman just appeared in front of me. I had been praying and hoping to meet them so that I could repay in abundance the favor they'd done and even support their children. You cannot imagine how her behavior upset me.

I instructed someone to pay her back the ten thousand won at the highest likely annual interest and have her go on her way. She had shattered the standard I had praised for its goodness my whole life (to that point), the most enduring and stimulating memory of my life from my time as a refugee, and I could not have been more upset.

Labor on the pier

Arriving in Busan, we found it full of people; any hole or spot under an eave -- any place that could serve as a shelter -- was filled with people. What could we do? We worked during the night and slept during the day. I can still recall how we used to shiver at night, even as we stamped our feet. Even at such a time as that, I prayed, "Father, please don't worry about me. I will follow in Your footsteps with joy; the track of Your sorrowful lamentation I will follow with hope."

We slept from 10:00 to 2:00 during the day. Sitting still in a sunny spot and nestling down to sleep like a pheasant is quite comfortable. When you wake up and get dressed, the song about Kim Satgat [a famous wandering poet] automatically comes into your head. I am a man who loves nature. When I felt like it, I would stop to sleep in a field while walking across. it, or sit on a rock and doze. I often did things like that. Why? When I stood up after sitting somewhere, I could feel that what I'd been sitting on felt sorry to see me go. Even if it were just a rock, if I slept on it; it was not merely a rock but something more precious than my own home.

During the day, I would climb a mountain and find a place to sleep in the forest; I'd spend some time by myself. I enjoyed that. When I returned to work at night, I would cause a minor sensation. Everyone flocked to my side. I would tell an interesting story, and they would bring their food and share it with each other.

That's why, if you see a laborer sitting on the roadside in snow or sleet, in a wretched state, he or she should remind you of me and you should think, "Father did that kind of work too." You should know how often I spent the night under the eaves of a house.

A woman selling red bean porridge

When I came down South as a refugee, I worked at pier number four in Choryang, in Busanjin Borough. After getting off work I would go to the red bean porridge and rice-cake stalls. That still comes back to me. After work, I would receive my pay and it would be cold wherever I went, so I would go to a particular red bean porridge stall. When you come out of Choryang Station, you see many women working in stalls there. They would wrap their pots in tattered blankets so the porridge didn't get cold, and serve it from the pot.

I would just hold the pot in my arms. The woman never told me off for doing that. After I had talked to her for thirty minutes, she would offer me a bowl of porridge. After I had visited and talked with her for several days, she even entrusted me to take care of the money she had earned from selling the porridge. There are still times when I crave a bowl of that porridge. It was so delicious at that time, perhaps because we were all starving, but I believed it was the most delicious food in the world. I miss the face and the shape of the lady who sold it, whose thoughts were all about selling, even though she was stained with dirt. I still cannot forget how delicious the porridge served by her hands was.

Sometimes as a refugee, I used to sleep in a bomb shelter.

There were no houses to be found then. It seems only yesterday that I climbed to a mountain ridge and slept with a jacket covering me. The home of the woman who sold the porridge was a very small room, where she lived with her husband and her children. When you saw her children, you could not help pitying them because they were in the most pitiable of conditions. Yet she had something to be proud of, for she had a place to call home. After she had ladled the porridge into a bowl, she would give me what was left at the bottom of the pot, and it was delicious. What a memory that is!

Beginning to write the first Divine Principle

(May 11, 1951)

With a few church members, I came south in 1951, walking the line between life and death. I wrote down the original Principle text. I remember writing it at the laborers' camp in Choryang [a district of Busan] in a room so small you could not lie down straight in it. You had to lie down diagonally, in a position something like an X, and still your feet touched the walls. It seems only yesterday that I lodged in that room, but a long time has passed.

During that time, I had to take care of all the problems that arise for a person wishing to live independently, such as financial problems, so I had to do all kinds of work. I had to act as the circumstances demanded, but I was more than equal to the tasks at hand. I had the capacity to adapt myself to the circumstances. Actually, I was not born like that; I trained myself. Unless one can train oneself to be an independent figure in any kind of environment, one can't possibly achieve such a great objective as those related to the providence.

In following this sacred life, this course of putting into practice the words I have spoken as a man, I have my own philosophy, calling for me to leave a record behind me and tread a unique, zigzagging path.

Refugees' joys and sorrows

Whenever I come to Busan, I always think of the Jagalchi Fish Market. When I was a refugee in a pathetic state, I used to wander around that area. What do you think was the wish of all the people who had come to Busan as refugees? Do you think there was even one person among them who did not want to return to his hometown?

Coming south where they had no roots and living among the South Koreans based here, the North Koreans (though they couldn't avoid being in a more difficult situation than others in South Korea) had to lay a foundation for their livelihood. That's refugee life. That is how they are supposed to make a start and settle down. I too came down as a refugee and lived as a refugee. The ups and downs of that process were truly miserable. How miserable was it? More miserable than the life of any laborer, or even any prisoner, in South Korea.

Refugees are in a position where they cannot return to their hometowns or introduce their hometowns to their children or grandchildren. How wretched is that? That is why the North Korean refugees have laid financial foundations in South Korea, because when they return to North Korea they hope to do so as victors and not as losers, with the dignity of successful people. Our North Korean brethren who have come to South Korea have endured all the hardships of living as refugees and look forward to the day they can return to their hometowns, upholding their reputations, bringing with them and transplanting to the North all the valuables they have dedicated their lives to accumulating.

Building the cardboard hut

I prepared for a new beginning by living alone in a hole in Beom-il District, Busan. It was a stony depression in the ground near a public cemetery. I lived there until I built a temporary home, the size of a hog pen. When I later went back and visited the area, the memory of building that house -- carrying loaded boxes on my back, carrying stones, shaping the mud -- was still fresh.

It was the worst house in Busan. The worst! I didn't have a decent shovel to build it with. No one would lend me a shovel. Refugees wouldn't lend shovels because they were selling such items for money. No one would lend me one even if they had one; instead they'd hide it in their kitchen. So, I had to do the work with a fireplace shovel. It was small and it was already broken and mangled. I built the house with tools like that.

I didn't have a pickax, either. So I leveled the ground with the fireplace shovel. Again, there was no machine available to make brick. So, I got ration boxes from the United States Army. I would tear off the edges, flatten and shape the box, then pile earth onto it; it could hold quite a lot of earth.

Was anyone willing to give us a piece of land? No. So I leveled a place on the slope of a hill. When it rained, water soaked through into the room. So, I next dug out a channel lined with stones for the water to run underneath, above which I put an under floor heating pipe. You could hear the sound of running water right under the floor. The water would flow under the simple heating system. The house gained notoriety. It was a shabby place made of mud and rocks. That's how I constructed that hut on that slope with a roof made of old boxes.

It was the most ramshackle of shacks. Inside, you could see a rock, since I had built the house against it. There was a small table and canvas for doing paintings on. Those were our treasures; there was nothing else. It was actually a miserable place.

However, even when I was sleeping inside the house, I was following the main path to becoming a more devoted son to God than anyone enjoying glory in any palace on earth. I wished to reach a stage of deep inner heart that no one could duplicate. Whether I stayed under a building's eaves or in the hut, I thought I must attend God there -- yet my efforts were still inadequate.

When winter came, life became more difficult and inconvenient; it rained, the wind blew and I caught a cold and sniffles from being in a cold room. What's more, I bore a huge responsibility, a hungry stomach and no proper clothing. It was a most difficult time. Still, one shouldn't be despondent, because it is the same trail that the great teachers have blazed. I have upheld God's will, so you should also continue on from the point of unity in heart.

At one time, I missed that one room so much. I longed for that one room, thinking that though it was crumbling like an old farm shack, I would live in that room, loving it more than anywhere else and treating it as if it were more valuable than a royal palace. By that, I mean that I hoped to offer my sincere, dedicated effort in the land God had chosen. I didn't want to do that in the satanic world's land. You will never know how much effort I exerted.

My appearance while living in the cardboard shack

I was wearing the same rags for four months because there was nowhere to wash them. I was the king of beggars, the quintessential beggar at that time. I didn't have extra clothes, so I turned my pants inside out again. I wore green U.S. military fatigues and Japanese shoes. Still, I told myself all of it was part of the indemnity providence. That is why I walked around wearing rags from America, Korea and Japan. How nice it was! I was not ashamed of myself for wearing clothes like that.

From outward appearances, I was a nobody at that time. I looked like a person of no importance at all. I was badly in need of a shave; my face was as darkly tanned as it could be, and my attire was a mixture of Eastern and Western, but that story has great power today.

Prayer at the Busan port

I went up a hill in Busan's Beom-il District, and prayed. I had many serious spiritual battles with Satan, grabbing him by the collar and slashing him in the belly. I fought, saying, "As long as you don't defeat me in this fight, the day will come when you'll kneel down." I began in this way.

In that most wretched situation, I shed blood, tears, sweat -- all of these. What was to be done at that critical point, in that miserable era where the nation's ideology had no direction to move? I pioneered that lonely road by myself with the heart that I was praying as a representative of the Korean people.

It seems only yesterday that I looked at all the ships that sailed into port, blowing out smoke as if to say, "Here, look at me!" I would pray, "A time will come when I too can make such a ship with my own hands and come into Busan port as a person returning home with honors."

As I would sit and look on, I would think to myself, "I will cross the great ocean, go to other countries and sow the seeds of the heart-to-heart relationships that I have long yearned for." I offered such a prayer as I gazed upon the Busan coastline.

God is really fond of fun, so at such times He would console me by telling me, "Look here. The world will become like this in the future," and He'd show me a vision of Heaven's great trading vessel carrying me at its stern and a great multitude of people cheering.

Do you know the holy ground at Beomnetgol in Busan? You need to know how I grieved bitterly in my heart on the rocks there. Do you know what kind of a prayer I offered to God at the time of the Korean War as I looked at Busan port filled with freight vessels carrying weapons? You need to understand that. Everything I prayed for has come to pass.

The Korean War was still going on. (The Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953.) In those days, fleets of ships delivering U.S. military ordnance filled the port. Every morning when I woke up, I made it a rule to count the ships. Usually, there were fifty; sometimes I counted more than a hundred. In this way, I could see how the war was developing. When I saw that the number of ships carrying ordnance increased, I thought the war was becoming more serious; when the number decreased, I thought there was a lull. This seems like yesterday to me.

Closeness in heart

Won-pil suggested he go out to make money, and I told him to do so. At that time, I was writing the first Principle text and being with a friend was precious. So, I never failed to walk with him for about a kilometer whenever he went out to work. About the time he was to come back at night, I would go out to meet him. The emotion of the meeting was beyond description. I mean, the quality of a person's heart is what matters. When you have heart, your yearning never stops; it never ends.

The time when I lived with Won-pil at Beomnetgol was good, so my impressions of that time are still in my mind. Mr. Kim is also in my mind. I was grateful to him for the days when out of loneliness and sorrow, as refugees, we would gaze at the moon together. Those impressions are indelible. At that time, he used to find coming home from work more exciting than visiting a sweetheart. Even though I asked him to rest at home, he wouldn't and instead he followed me around. If I sat on the toilet for thirty minutes, he would be knocking on the door. I often used to fall asleep on the toilet. We were so close that even when we left North Korea, he left his own mother and home to follow me, though I asked him to stay with his family.

Painting portraits for soldiers

The most miserable time was when I stayed in the house in Beomnetgol -- the small table, one person drawing portraits and me doing all the chores. It was a miserable situation.

We painted portraits for U.S. soldiers. Won-pil Kim knew how to paint. We made all the canvases from one sheet of cloth before we actually set out to paint. We made our own paste. We boiled it and plastered the sheet completely so the cloth would fit tight. Any hole would fill in only when the cloth was stretched tight.

The American soldiers we were dealing with were rotating out of Korea after having stayed for a year and a half or two and a half years. Busan was their last stop in Korea, and they needed something special to bring back home. They wanted portraits of their wives, and at four dollars, it was cheap.

How did we paint them quickly? In the beginning, we did just one or two. Because we were in desperate need of money, we needed twenty or even thirty a day. Usually, the men only stayed there for a week. Sometimes, we used to paint nearly thirty portraits. First, I smoothed out all the wrinkles in the canvas. Then, in the right size to fit the frame, Won-pil sketched in faint lines with a pencil.

Once there were lines, all you had to do to form a shape of a person was to draw along the lines, catching the line where the eyes should be, for example. That sped up our work. Won-pil drew the lip lines; then it was my job to paint it.

He drew the head nicely and I painted the hair color. I got the hang of it. In the beginning, I was just giving him some advice from behind. Later, having learned bit by bit, I did many parts including the clothes. Using this method, we made quite a bit of money; close to a hundred dollars a day. It was very good pay. We used the money we earned for witnessing and pioneering. We made money in that way, but I didn't use it for myself.

Carpentry work for the U.S. Army

I can make things like picture frames. While I was a refugee, I made a living as a carpenter for the U.S. Army for eight months. I didn't study carpentry, but a lot of experience is better than any theory. Laymen can catch up with professionals if they make three times as much effort. Professionals do it faster; I did it slowly, but paid careful attention.

Because I had watched people doing carpentry in the past, I learned the tasks visually. I worked at anything from the first day on. Once I went to the construction site, I understood quickly how things were done. Does one have to learn to do that? One can learn things through common sense

Earnestly waiting for members

At that time, I was yearning to find the people who would connect to God in Busan. I waited for them while investing my utmost sincere effort. Looking spiritually, I could see they were coming. In reality, however, they were not coming closer. I had to wait for the time to come. Once a crack appears in whatever is blocking the way, the road will open up. For this to happen there was a certain indemnity period. For example, there is a period of one's own individual indemnity and a period of indemnity for a community.

There was just the white paper door separating us. I could hear voices shouting, "Teacher! Teacher! Father! Father!" I could hear a great mass of people calling out to me. It felt as if they would flood in if I so much as made a small hole, but this thin paper was blocking them. The flood continued to draw nearer with each passing year. At such times, how much must God have been yearning to see His beloved sons and daughters? I would wake up in the morning and look at the distant mountains, and then see visions of people, a great throng of people coming in procession.

I would go up to the mountain and sit and wait until evening, forgetting even to have lunch. How long did I wait? I needed to experience the heart of God as he waited six thousand years for all the lost, fallen people. When the sun set, I would say, "Aren't they coming?" and in the morning I would wake up with the break of dawn, even before the cock crowed, and wonder, "Aren't they coming?" Thus, I would wait with a heart that never forgot.

How people joined

Because I wanted to share Heaven's sad history with them, when I came back to South Korea, I visited group of members who had ill feelings toward me and who had left me.

Once I visited a house where a mother and her two daughters winked at each other, saying scornfully, "Oh, we begged him not to go that way, but he did. Now he comes looking like a beggar." I went to their house, not because I missed their rice but because, under circumstances known to Heaven, we once shared a heavenly bond and cried together. Because that bond had been planted by Heaven, I hoped to bring a noble conclusion to the relationship. That's why I visited them.

There was also a friend whom I couldn't forget. He had established a company He was famous. I visited him in his house looking like the most wretched of beggars, not having washed my face or brushed my teeth for a week. I wanted to see how he would treat me. He betrayed me as well.

It is human nature to visit one's wife and children first, but I visited my friends first. It took me two years to find people connected to me -- from close friends to acquaintances and members who had followed me in North Korea. Grandma Seung-do, who is sitting here, knows about that. Only after I had found and met them all did I go home. This is how Heaven acts.

Those that remained are Won-pil, Grandma Ji Seung-do and Ok Se-hyun. People like Mr. Lee Gi-wan I had known already from the past when I was in the South. I started the church in the Beom-il District with these people.

In the beginning, everyone opposed me. Even so, I laid the foundation upon which I, coming from North Korea to South Korea and establishing indemnity conditions, was able to pay indemnity even on the global level.

When you bring the book (Divine Principle) with you to a village, you have to treat it as precious, perhaps to the extent that you seem to go too far. Imagine that there is only one copy of this book. How serious must I have been in taking care of the manuscript when it was only the first draft? Think about that. What would happen if it had disappeared and I had died?

It would have greatly affected the world. Have you thought about that?

When I originally distributed the first Principle text, who would have known then that it would become the word, the Principle, which would become spiritual food for the world and which everyone would admire?

When I started on the road of the will, first in Busan, I looked the same as other people. Even so, there was a big difference internally. Though my clothes were shabby and I was missing meals, my thinking was such that I stated loudly that I would win the world and establish the kingdom of heaven; I could do that.

In the beginning, at our place in Beomnetgol, Beom-il District, three people got together, witnessing and praying. When I met them and talked to them at that time, I didn't think that I was just praying for the three people. I thought that even though I was talking to these people at the time, I was, in fact, talking to several hundreds of millions of Christians and the whole human race.

There was a well in the village, and people who came there to draw water thought it strange that people in the house, who had been famous for not fighting, were making so much commotion in those days. Word got out that we, who were poorly dressed and living in a house from which terrifying specters were rumored to emerge, were saying preposterous things such as about winning over the world with one hand, turning heaven and earth upside down, and Korea unifying the world.

One day, people from a seminary came and said, "Throughout history, many people who were more excellent than you couldn't accomplish their dream of a unified world. Now, are you saying you are going to do that from here?" While talking with them, I also thought that we indeed looked pitiful.

Some professors from Ewha University came to our place and then word was out that the handsome man at the top of the mountain had gone crazy. I guess I was quite good-looking. There were even those who came to see me, saying to themselves, "They say some handsome man has gone crazy while practicing religious asceticism. That must be him!"

Hyun-shil Kang and others join

How much sympathy must God have felt toward the man who endured and worked like that with this dream in his heart?

So He summoned people to visit me -- "Go and look for Rev. Moon!" Recognizing this, I can say that God likes me. God sends people by instructing them in that way. People who endure difficulties in the here and now and maintain a dream for the future, living in the present time as if it's the future, become Heaven's people. We have to understand that they become the ones God remembers.

Kang Hyun-shil, was a lady evangelist with a tent church in Beom-il District. She heard people saying that there was a strange young man in the house by the stony depression. Upon hearing this, she came up to witness to me. I feel as if that first visit was just a short time ago.

When Kang Hyun-shil first visited Beomnetgol, I had a the feeling of longing for a lost child when she came up the hillside. The barrier [to people joining] was broken through by the power of the heart. That which had been clogged by the core of the Fall was burst open by Heaven's heart. Then people came in great numbers. We witnessed to members of the established churches.

Kang Hyun-shil joined our church at that time. I spoke with her about God's word and, thanks to God's help, she came to visit me every day. In the meantime, she left her church and decided to believe in what I was teaching. Heaven sent me congenial people one after another, and in this way I gathered members.

This is how those in the spirit world witness -- our feet get stuck, preventing us from going in the direction we were heading and causing us to go another way. We carried out witnessing in this way. This is part of our root.

Some things go beyond what is in the Bible. Our movement has continued until now by going in all sorts of miraculous directions.

Pictures

Left: Father's friend from his student days in Japan, Aum Duk-moon, the first person who joined in Busan.

Middle: On May 10, 1952, Mrs. Kang Hyun-Shil, a Presbyterian Church missionary joined Father as the first full-time member.

Right: Mr. Lee Yo-Han, who had been a Presbyterian Church minister, joined father in December 1952.

On the basis of these early members, the atmosphere of the church Father was leading became increasingly higher with the influx of new members. In early 1953, Father sent Mrs. Kang and Mr. Lee to the city of Daegu to set up a pioneer mission church there.