When we started this witnessing campaign for the first time in 1957, I gave members only enough money to take a train or bus to their mission places. They left any other money they had behind when they went.
I also gave them two sets of clothes to wear before I sent them off. I asked them to work hard and to eat just powdered grain for forty days. Start by doing physical labor, I told them, or beg for food.
Pioneering from the lowest position
Because people opposed them, they did clean campaigns and helped with housework without telling anyone that they were from the Unification Church. They woke up early in the morning and cleaned the entire neighborhood for several hours every morning. We did this kind of thing. People in the villages did not know who was doing it and only realized it many months later.
I also asked the members to push themselves to the point of experiencing misery that causes them to sweat and to cry. I asked them to overcome that wretchedness. They ate only cups of powdered wheat mixed with water. Going out witnessing for forty days is the same as fasting for forty days.
When the members returned afterward, I made them eat good meals. When I saw them eating like crazy people, I asked myself, Am I not a sinner?
I often felt guilty. I thought I must create a group that would continue even if Korea were to go to ruin in the future.
They were eating boiled barley. Boiled barley is nothing. They were all starving and ate what a dog might. But they all went out and came back after having overcome their difficulties. They said in whispers, I was so hungry that I took dog scraps and ate them.
They began from the very lowest point that a human could be at. When the members were witnessing in their assigned pioneering areas, it was difficult to raise enough money to survive for a day. Even after working all day long, it was difficult to eat one meal. Some young members would stumble because of hunger.
During that pioneering period, our witnessing members worked in this way and became leaders. When they went pioneering to a village, they did not have anything to eat. Although they were able to work when they tried, rumors went around the village that the purpose for which they had come was to work, and for that, they were persecuted.
Leaders at the church headquarters didn’t send them any money. In that situation, they pioneered and witnessed. However, they never complained about their miserable circumstances to their leaders at the headquarters. When, after six months or a year, leaders came to realize what each pioneer’s situation had been, they hugged each one and cried.
Bond of heart among the members
Members had precious experiences in the witnessing campaigns, such as the joy of meeting each other and separating in tears with the hope of meeting again. You couldn’t buy experiences like that for a hundred million dollars. In the early days, members felt that getting acquainted with another member was of eternal value….
In those days, we all walked because cars were still rare. Our members helped one another and parted in tears in the evening by moonlight or early in the morning, pledging to do their best for Korea’s sake, for God, and the future. There were many unforgettable instances of this kind. In that type of situation, a patriotic spirit arises.
Those members will always miss the days when they worked in a high, elevated atmosphere, like that which surrounds a person who has fallen in love for the first time. It is up to the people who are guiding the church to work out how to stimulate that spirit within members. You have to establish goals for your activities. Your efforts should connect you to that time-honored tradition.
The warm atmosphere of pioneer churches
After you join the church, you become fonder of it than of your home. You want to come to the church without even going to school. Your heart is always at the church. Why? God’s love is there.
In the evening, any food we had, I would save to share it with others later.
I would bring people together and help them feel at ease. That’s why people followed me even though they were persecuted, even though the entire neighborhood was furious, and even though the nation was trying to get rid of us.
In those days, the atmosphere of the church was like that. When a person was converted, he or she very much wanted to be at the church and came every day.
I asked the members to witness with that kind of heart. I taught new members that way. Thus, they all felt that the church was better than their homes or their schools. They did not want to go to school, to work, or to their houses. They all met at the church. This became a problem.
The heart of the early members
Among the early members who followed me, none was praised by spouse, child, or relatives. They all faced opposition. Why? To join the church, those early members had left their families behind.
If they had loved and stayed with their families, all of them would have perished. Early church members had to choose between the two. You need to understand that this is why early members have never received praise from their relatives, friends, or children.
That’s why members who have been in the church for a long time cry profusely when they pray. They have lived where God is directly with them. That is what makes those people different; they survived difficulties together with God. The question is whether the early church members’ tradition will become your tradition. We are like a single tree.
First thoughts about the global mission
In 1956, just after being released from Seodaemun Prison, I went to stay at the Gabsa Buddhist temple, where I did research. I thought to myself, From now on, Japan will become important.
She is currently weak and insignificant, but the time when Japan will become significant is coming. We must stop regarding her as our enemy.
With that in mind, to save Korea, I prepared to make a connection with Japan and to secretly send someone there. That the Soviet Union and communist China were supporting North Korea under Kim Il-sung’s rule was certain.
To break through in the work to save South Korea, I felt we had to make inroads into Japan. Although Japan had been our enemy, I decided to love Japan more than anyone else did, and that my love would induce Japan to establish a condition on which God’s will could flourish in Asia. Otherwise, we would not be able to find an object-partner nation for the subject-partner nation.
If our objectives are on a global level, we are responsible for our neighbor Japan and for other countries as well. That is why we must send missionaries to the world even if it means we are sending them down a path of suffering.
If we have abundant food and live comfortably, we cannot fulfill our responsibility. We must take responsibility while in difficult situations.
Sending a missionary
During a visit to the same temple in 1958, I called a young man, Choi Bong-choon, and told him, “You must smuggle yourself into Japan for the sake of that nation. A man must be prepared to die to accomplish his mission.”
I met him on the mountain behind the temple and instructed him to go to Japan as a missionary. I strengthened his resolve by saying, “You should not return before you die. The way of God’s will is that strict.”
He stowed away on a trader’s boat bound for Japan. I told him, “I will pray for you. I’ll devote my heart to you without sleeping until you arrive safely in Japan.” I added that I didn’t want to see him again until he had accomplished his mission.
Furthermore, I thought to myself, “Wait for ten years.” I knew entering Japan was illegal, but I was certain that the time would come when we could freely travel to other Asian countries. I was sure the day would come when history would justify what we were doing, and I proceeded with firm resolve.
Unification Church members were going hungry then. In those days, when church members sold pictures and barely made enough to live on from day to day, I borrowed 1.5 million won to send Choi Bong-choon to Japan.
Pioneer missionary work in Japan
I told Choi Bong-choon, “If you are put in prison, you must escape for three days or a week and bring three people to join us!” The Unification Church of Japan began from those words.
I can’t forget the time I called Mr. Choi to the mountain behind a Buddhist temple in South Chungcheong Province and gave him those instructions in the shade of a pine tree.
Yet as soon as he went to Japan, he was arrested…. On the way to Shimonoseki, he tried to jump off the train, but because the train was going too fast and there were many tunnels, he could not.
At Shimonoseki, he was put into a repatriation center. He was waiting to be deported. If he had been sent back, all that we had planned would have collapsed.
A week from being deported, he thought of a way out. He began to fast. He fasted for a week, ten days, and continued further, eating only salt. As a result, he became sick with a fever, and he was taken to a hospital. While in the hospital, where security was lighter, he escaped.
Thus, in 1958, we began pioneer missionary work in Japan. In those days, Korea was governed by the Liberal Party, which strongly opposed normalizing diplomatic relations with Japan. Nevertheless, under those circumstances, we educated the Unification Church members for the long term.
In Japan, how could we take the subject position and educate the Japanese people, rather than being criticized? I thought that sending a missionary was the only way to open the road to Korea being able to survive in the future.
The young man who went as a missionary to Japan became a fugitive there, but he was a pioneer for the Unification Church in Japan.
Passing beyond national limits
Even amid the most serious persecution, my prayers and concern were not directed toward Korea. I did my very best to send missionaries to Japan and to the U.S., where no one in those days even thought of sending missionaries.
Under those circumstances, I was determined to send someone to plant the seed of the Divine Principle there. Day and night, I spared no effort to accomplish that goal.
They tried to finish me off during the Liberal Party administration, under which I was incarcerated in Seodaemun Prison. Yet, I could avail myself of their help when I sent missionaries to America.
After I was released from prison, I persuaded the cabinet members who had opposed me to issue passports for our missionaries. If I had not done so, we would most assuredly not have been able to prepare the foundation for victory that we have today.
When I fight in the free world, the democratic world, or with the U.S., I do not fight unfairly or deceitfully. I fight openly and squarely. I fight openly. If you want to move forward in that fight, you must teach what is necessary for that nation. If you make your move without doing so, you will perish.
For that reason, we need a foundation. Since 1950, we have prepared a foundation on which we later rose to go out into the world. We prepared everything in advance.
In doing my global work, I do not do it based on my thinking as I go along. I prepare several years in advance, according to plan. It is difficult to do something in a world where people cannot understand me and do not cooperate with me.
The early mission to pioneer America
Where was Korea to go if we did not establish a foundation in the United States, quickly forming that protective wall? Nevertheless, everyone opposed the idea.
So, I gave strategic instructions, saying, “Korea will perish if we do not quickly save the giant nation of America.” I then sent three missionaries to the east and west coasts of that country.
When Miss Kim Young-oon went to the United States, she did not simply start witnessing. She sought those who could communicate with the spirit world and witnessed to them by saying, “Please pray to find out what this book is about.”
Don’t you think that’s a high-level witnessing method? She told the spiritualists, “Pray to find out who I am.” When the spiritualists prayed, a swift order came down to them.
They were taught through revelation: “When that person opens the door and comes in, stand up straight and greet her with a deep bow. She has no money, so give her money.” This is how our Unification Church began in the United States.
Preparing a financial base
We are participating across the nation in the collection and sale of stamps. The selling price of a stamp that you peel off will be only a few cents. It requires dedicated effort to pay attention to that one stamp and peel it off.
We can say it is a noble undertaking. Those who receive awards for collecting stamps are usually young people. I have heard that many junior high school students and high school students collect stamps.
One day, I told the members that they must all write letters three times a month. If you use forty stamps worth one won instead of one forty-won stamp on those letters, I said, you will be able to support the business department many times more. If you write three letters a month, you will spend a hundred and twenty won. Thus, even by using stamps that had little value, it had a good effect.
As such, our seemingly insignificant activities produced a significant profit for us throughout the nation. Paying attention to detail is an important principle that all Unification Church members should practice, so I hope all of you will do that. Until now, collecting stamps has contributed a great deal to our witnessing activities.
The membership structure
If three teams get together and form a group, one group of thirty-six people will represent the number thirty-six. This symbolizes the twelve children of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Moses and the twelve apostles of Jesus. Thirty-six symbolizes all the historic representatives for the past six thousand years.
Thirty-six men and women united make seventy-two people. That is why Jesus had seventy disciples, seventy elders centered on Moses, and Jacob had seventy family members.
If Jesus, Jesus’s bride-to-be, and those seventy disciples had united, the number involved would have become seventy-two. Today, we have the mission to match those numbers in heaven and on earth. We must also go over that ridge.
God has directed that our members be trained very strictly this year [1958]. This year has to be a year of training, a year of hardships. It must be the year that we spiritually overcome any suffering.
We also have to quickly witness to at least twelve people whose hearts match our own. Today is January 3. You must make a strong resolution. I will change your trinities every three months. No matter who you may be with, you must be able to make unity with them.
When you see your trinity partners, you ought to think, “Given that humanity has passed through six thousand years of providential history, why have this person and I met, and what kind of relationship are we in?”
You must feel that it is a historic, predetermined union. In that way, three people will unite, and then ten people will unite, and then thirty-six and seventy must all unite.
Prayers in significant places (1958–1959)
I went to many scenic places in Korea to pray. I often prayed, “I didn’t come here to trouble you. Furthermore, I came to bless you. I came here because I discovered that you have been longing for a true master. I will give you my love.” I am an unusual person, aren’t I?
Likewise, I did not visit such beautiful places for sightseeing. I prayed, shedding tears. I prayed a lot. I prayed even when I went to Mt. Seorak and Mt. Seokri.
Many people were there, but had anyone come with God’s true heart, the heart that those places were waiting for? I prayed, “I will be the first person to represent history.”
Sun Myung Moon