Authors
The prison saint
For the inmates of Hungnam Prison, food and rest were their entire concern.
However, True Father shared with other prisoners the food and clothes that his mother (Chungmonim) brought to him.
In this way, Father tried to maintain integrity as a filial son, a patriot, and a divine son who had to comfort God's heart and walk the course of restoration through indemnity. True
Father was an exemplary prisoner who undertook the most difficult work in the prison and fulfilled his responsibility beyond what was required of him. For this, the Communist Party awarded him the Model Worker Prize three times. In this way, he received recognition even from Satan.
1. We prisoners in Hungnam Prison never had sufficient nourishment due to the small amount of food and the heavy labor. The stomach must always function, but when I got up in the morning, my belly would be flat like a board. That was the life of a prisoner in the Communist Party labor concentration camp.
The distance between the prison and the fertilizer factory was about four kilometers. Every morning, we walked from the prison to our place of work, lining up in four columns and walking hand in hand. Guards beside both lines with rifles and pistols watched us closely.
If the guards noticed the lines becoming loose or that some prisoners were not holding hands, they considered it an attempt to escape. We were not allowed to lift our faces while walking. This was their policy.
How could I survive in such an environment? Human beings do not exist with just their physical body; we also have a spirit. If I only tried to sustain my life by eating physical food, I surely would have died. Spiritual strength is important.
(052-166, 1971/12/28)
2. While I was in Hungnam Prison, I resolved to do twice the amount of work as others. So, every time I went to work, I considered it to be a test. I studied and analyzed how hard work affected my physical body.
Occasionally, I moved quickly in my work, and I would see a change in my body. Occasionally, I worked at a regular pace, watching to see how my body responded.
There were some physically weak inmates on my team of ten people, and I would cover for these fellow prisoners who were unable to finish their workload. To achieve that, I had to work more than my share. I continued working like that every day.
While working, if I thought about food, I would not be able to function. So, when I worked, I did not think of food. I always thought that this was the work I was destined to do and that I was born for this work.
I always poured all my enthusiasm and heart into my work as if I were carrying out the providence of restoration. (052-168, 1971/12/28)
3. While working in the prison, I always recalled my experiences with the spirit world. I would consider myself to be the lead actor in a movie that I would someday show to my followers and descendants. I worked with the belief that they would be impressed when they saw how I worked there.
We started to work at 9:00 a.m. After 10:00 a.m., we had a 15-minute break and could go to the restroom.
However, I never focused on that. I did not hear the bell ring for break time and would only discover it was break time when I noticed there was no one around me.
This is because although my body was working, my spirit was resting. Because I worked in that kind of mental state, I lost very little weight. The prison guards were very surprised at that.
Every time we went out to the work site, I always looked for the most difficult job. After several months, I was recognized as the best worker. They rotated team members every week so that the prisoners could not plan an escape.
Whenever the teams were changed, all the prisoners wanted to be on the team with the best workers. When I lined up, many people would stand in line behind me. (052-168, 1971/12/28)
4. In my youth, I oftentimes found myself on the edge of exhaustion but did not allow myself to be overcome by it. This did not happen just because I would rather not be exhausted. It took a lot of training to reach that level.
After I became a prisoner, I told God, “Heavenly Father, do not sympathize with me in my circumstances.” When I was challenged, I never prayed, asking God for help. I was serious.
For one week or even one month, I did not speak with other prisoners. What did that mean? My situation had become more difficult, and I thought, “How can I, by applying all my wisdom, offering all my heart, and giving all my devotion, find a way to melt God's heart in this difficult situation?”
I was not working hard for my salvation. I thought, “How can I connect God's sorrow, indignation, and bitter feelings to the fervent motivation in my heart and use them to strike Satan? How can the explosive power of God's heart empower me to destroy the enemy camp?”
This is what I thought about. I did not think, “I have to get out of here as quickly as possible.” Instead, I told my stomach, “Growl as much as you want!”
When I was desperately hungry, the experience allowed me to embrace God with tears, assuring Him that I was more serious about the course of restoration through indemnity that I would have to walk for the sake of the world than I was about relieving my hunger. I never tried to escape from hunger and other hardships. (051-338, 1971/12/05)
5. In my life, I faced and overcame many challenges from which tens of millions of men would have retreated. After I was taken into prison, I thought, “To survive here, I must determine to remain alive while eating only half my portion of food.”
So, for half a month, I gave half of my ration to others. I was determined to survive, eating only half the food that others ate. Instead, I had to eat spiritual food. Later, when I began eating my full ration, I imagined that I was eating twice the daily ration.
This psychological composure gave me the power to sustain my life. Furthermore, I found out why and how months of hard work caused people's bodies to change. With that knowledge, I saved many young people who otherwise would have died.
(266-262, 1995/01/01)
6. I had to do physical exercises to sustain my strength. When I was in Hungnam Prison, I invented some methods of exercising that worked well. Even though I ate little, I trained my body with physical exercise and supplemented it with mental discipline.
There is not much difference between my body today and in those days. I was just a little gaunt. Even in prison, I maintained my weight at 72 kilograms (158 pounds). Other prisoners became skin and bones, and their backs were bent. They seemed like corpses, but I was never like that. (154-145, 1964/06/12)
7. In Hungnam Prison, we had a one-day break from work on Sundays. Having done heavy labor all week, when Sunday arrived, you cannot imagine how happy we were. Truly, it was a day of rest.
As we worked during the week, we were not ourselves. Every day when we came back from working at the fertilizer factory, we just collapsed from exhaustion as if our bones had melted. We had no energy at all. After we ate dinner, we collapsed again and could not get up.
Even though Saturday night and Sunday were break time, and we were given some freedom, all we could do was eat and then sleep in the same place.
However, sleeping is a source of problems. That is why, although I was in that prison for nearly three years, I never took a nap. I did not take naps. I did not sleep more than the hours that I decided to sleep, and I never ate more than the food that I decided to eat. (154-145, 1964/06/12)
8. When human beings face the moment of their death, a prince must die with the dignity of a prince, and a patriot must die with the attitude of a patriot. They should not die like a beggar.
In Hungnam Prison, I cleaned my body with cold water every day. Working all day at the pile of fertilizer, sulfuric acid, and ammonia clung to our bodies and rotted our flesh. I, therefore, cleaned my body every morning upon rising. I used my handkerchief, which I wet with the drinking water that I had received the night before.
When we heard, “Get up for work!” I cleaned my body while others were preparing.
Inmates were supposed to use the unsanitary water from the lavatory to bathe, but I would rather die than use that water to clean my body. To me, drinking water was less important than protecting my body, which is God's temple.
That is also why, during my prison life, I never exposed my body, not even my calves, to others. I never lived carelessly. That is why, in Hungnam Prison, I was called “the saint of the prison.” (415-047, 2003/08/06)
9. As a person who attends heaven, I needed to take care of my body, even in prison. Even though I did heavy labor, I was always careful about where I sat. I never took a nap on Saturday or Sunday.
After coming back from hard labor, other inmates lay down and slept as soon as they finished eating, but I never did that. We were all tired, but while they went to sleep right away, I stayed up late.
I also woke up earlier than anyone else. So people said they never saw me sleeping. Every night, without fail, I stayed up alone and did exercises.
In prison, drinking water was priceless. A sip of water was as valuable as life itself. There were around 30 people in my small cell, and in the heat of summer, we sweated a lot.
If we took off our clothes and squeezed them, sweat poured out. So, to survive in summer, we had to drink many gourds of water. But to me, it was a duty to attend heaven by keeping a clean body. No matter how hot it was, I never exposed my bare skin to others.
In the fertilizer factor, we dealt with material that came out of a kiln, so you can imagine how hot it was.
Even in such a hot environment, I never exposed my legs. I trained myself more than any woman who maintained her modesty. Even the severest prison life could not prevent me from going on my path. (141-062, 1986/02/16)
10. When I was in Hungnam Prison working at the fertilizer factory, I kept my pant cuffs tied with strings around my ankles, even in the hottest part of the summer. I did not expose even my shins.
Recently, I began wearing short-sleeve shirts, but in the past, I did not like such clothes. Since, on the holy path ahead of me, I would be offering my heart and body to God with utmost devotion, I did not want my body to be exposed to anyone.
Even in my sleep, I did not spread out my arms and legs. I always kept in my mind that God was watching me. I wanted to observe propriety even while sleeping. (048-330, 1971/09/26)
11. When I first arrived at the prison camp, I was on the communists' blacklist. In my cell, there were a couple of “dogs” whose orders were to watch me. By “dogs,” I do not mean animals, but people who ratted on others in the cell.
Since I knew that, I did not talk at all, even after the first half-month. I was well-known as a person who did not sleep on Sundays. I was also famous for wiping myself down with a cold, wet washcloth after rising early at dawn.
However difficult the environment I was placed in, I had the responsibility to attend heaven. Even though I was living in hell, my life had to shine as a man of the kingdom of heaven.
Even though I was in the miserable situation of being pushed around and shivering in thin clothes during the cold winter, I maintained my original relationship with God. (158-048, 1967/02/14)
12. In prison, there was nothing to do after eating dinner except to kill time sitting on the floor. Since there was nothing to do apart from talking, the inmates talked about the world and all kinds of issues.
When they first arrived, they talked about why they were put in prison and then about their parents. But after a few months, they had nothing more to talk about.
During all that time, I did not say a word. Consequently, they pressed me to talk. So, I said that I would speak on one condition, saying, “Are you okay with any kind of talk?” After hearing yes from them, I invented lengthy novels and short stories. I would tell a different story every day.
I did not recite stories written by others. I made up the titles and created stories that did not exist in any work of literature. I have the kind of brain that I can make up several novels in one night.
After three days of looking at their faces and telling stories, I could see that they were happy to hear anything I had to say.
I took my seat next to the toilet bucket, which was the worst place in the cell, but they repeatedly asked me to move up to a more comfortable space in the cell. The cell leader would try to move me up to a better spot, but I said it was all right with me to stay where I was.
Whenever I went to prison, I always picked the worst spot beside the lavatory. When I told him I did not want to change my spot, the cell leader said, “I will sit where you are, so please move and sit over here.” That is just how it is in the original world. (116-125, 1981/12/27)
13. What was the most exciting thing for the inmates? Their most earnest hope at the labor camp was to get a chance to rest to their heart's content, to rest even once during work hours. Because of that, when the labor teams were organized, everyone wanted to have excellent workers with them so they could finish their quota early.
As far as work was concerned, I was second to none. I excelled in whatever work I did. Whether it was tying the mouth of the fertilizer sack, moving it to the train, or any other job, no one surpassed me.
So, if my team members just followed my directions, we would finish our quota quickly. Normally, we could finish by 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. No other team was able to do that.
If we thought about food, thoughts of food would consume us. So we did not think about food during work. When I worked, I took pleasure in what I was doing, thinking, “I want to tie one more sack before lunchtime. I want to do a better job than the others.”
When I worked with that mindset, I just did not know how to feel tired. By thinking that way, I could sustain my body. Those whose minds were only thinking about the number of sacks they had to finish before the next meal did not last long. (154-139, 1964/06/12)
14. It usually took our team five to ten minutes to scoop the fertilizer into the bag, move the bag to the scale, and weigh it, but by working by myself, I could accomplish it in five minutes. It took other teams 15 minutes, and if we had worked at that rate, we would not have been able to fulfill our daily quota.
We had to go through a giant pile of fertilizer, scooping it into bags and moving it to the scale. If we had stopped while doing this to move the scale four or five meters closer to the pile so we would not have to move the bags so far, we would have been late. So, I found a way to do the job without frequently moving the scale.
The other members of my team initially did not want to follow my way, so I would have ended up having to do more than half of the 1,300 bags myself. But because everyone has a conscience, in time, they ended up following me.
I was a model prisoner. I received the Model Prisoner Award from the Communist Party every year. At that time, my weight was 72 kilos. Outwardly, I did not look that heavy, but I had heavy bones. Other prisoners became thin, but I didn't. Therefore, I became the source of their curiosity. (035-186, 1970/10/13)
15. The fertilizer made at Hungnam contained sulfuric acid. When the skin comes in contact with such acid, the skin cracks and the hairs fall out. My skin cracked after touching the bag of fertilizer, and the next morning, I found myself bleeding.
I could have been discouraged by that, but I had to overcome it. So I talked to the sulfuric acid, saying, “However much you damage my skin, I have to survive.” In this way, I overcame it. By overcoming such things, even in the worst of all environments, I learned how great the human spirit can be.
I never succumbed to my circumstances but was able to stand tall, reaching the highest position possible in that situation. So, even the people who worked at the prison came to respect me.
Three times, I was given the award as the best worker. Such incidents took place, and they were a recognition that I had broken through in that hellish environment.
We need to have the ability to overcome all difficulties, even in prison. That is what we need. We have to overcome hunger and cold. Overcoming heat is rather easy. Next, we have to conquer sleep.
I determined to overcome these things, with the thought that even if I died, I would leave a legacy such that people would say of me, “He was not defeated. He died victorious.” I thought that unless I left such a spiritual foundation, I would lose the foundation on which I could work again on this earth.
(076-319, 1975/03/12)
16. I guided and taught many of the inmates in Hungnam Prison, giving of myself with devotion and tears. Many of those inmates died in prison.
Currently of death, some called to me, saying, “Please convey my last words to my parents. And tell them that even though I died here like this, the days I spent with you were good days.”
You cannot imagine how desperately hungry we were at that time. An inmate would die while chewing food in his mouth, and those beside him would quickly scrape the grains out of his mouth and eat whatever he had not swallowed. I do not think you can fully grasp this.
It was under those circumstances that I had to be their parent and their older brother. I had to set an example for them and encourage them, saying, “Since I am doing this for you, you must not collapse.”
Because I did that in those circumstances, every year, I received a commendation. I volunteered for the jobs that no one wanted to do and did them. Everyone else was looking for the easiest jobs, but I sought the most difficult ones.
(184-282, 1989/01/01)
17. During my school days, I debated with my friends who studied the theories of communism. I did not believe that we should follow that ideology, and all my life, I have been fighting the communists. I know in detail what communism is all about.
The system most entirely organized according to the communist program was the prison system.
Nevertheless, in prison, I never engaged in the communist practice of self-criticism. During my life in prison, for two years and five months, I never wrote even one of the obligatory papers of self-criticism. For that reason, I was on their blacklist.
But even under those circumstances, without saying a word, I became the top worker. That was the only way I could survive. If I had compromised even a little, I could not have survived there.
So, I made myself the champion in all aspects and all areas. No one could keep up with me. I was first in scooping up the fertilizer, dragging the bags, tying them, and putting them on the train. Therefore, I received the top worker award every year while I was in prison. (163-197, 1987/05/01)
Survival through sacrificial love
Even in the worst situation, True Father did not betray heaven but rather comforted heaven.
Accordingly, not only did his fellow inmates respect him and follow him, but he even earned the respect of the Communist Party members. Another way he practiced true love was by sharing, with his fellow inmates, the clothing and grain powder that his mother Chungmonim brought him.
This is how, even though on a course that could have led him to death, True Father restored through indemnity the suffering of Jesus and carried on the mission he had inherited from him.
Even in sacrificing himself for his fellow prisoners, he gained strength to survive.
18. During my prison life, whenever I received grain powder from my mother, I never ate it by myself. I shared it all, sometimes leaving nothing for myself.
When I did that, the people with me collected some from others and gave it back to me. Such incidents happened. That was why the people there could say nothing against me.
About 30 people slept together in my cell. I always slept in the worst spot, which was next to the toilet bucket in the corner of the cell. In the middle of the night, anyone who went to use the bucket might step on the people sleeping next to it.
The cell was packed with inmates, and people going to use the bucket would first try to push the sleeping bodies aside so they could step between them, but when that did not work, they just stepped on them or kicked them. That often happened.
But whenever anyone going to the bucket stepped on me or kicked me, he would come to me the next morning and apologize. If I were like other people, I would have said, “What do you mean doing that last night?” and started a fight. But I was not like that.
So even when someone walked on my stomach because he could not help himself in his rush to get to the toilet, when he found out it was me whom he had stepped on, he came to me and apologized, saying, “I'm sorry, I did not know it was you.” I lived such a life. (050-312, 1971/11/08)
19. My mother, who was in Jeongju, needed to obtain 18 different letters of authorization to come and visit me in Hungnam Prison. When she finally obtained them, she made mixed grain powder for me and came to give me that powder. Did she have the grain to make that powder?
I learned later that she went begging for it all over the village. She even went to ask distant relatives, saying in tears, “My son is in such a miserable situation. Please have sympathy for him.”
She begged for the grain, made the powder, and came every month to give it to me. Furthermore, she made clothes for me, especially in winter when she worried that I might freeze to death.
She made the powder to give to me, but as soon as I was back in my cell, I shared it with the others. My conscience would not allow me to keep it and eat it by myself.
My mother brought me cotton-padded pants, but I did not wear them; I continued to wear the prison uniform. Many inmates had no visitors for years. In front of them, my conscience did not allow me to wear those pants proudly.
Therefore, as soon as I received the pants, I immediately gave them away, and I continued to wear the tattered uniform with holes in it.
How heartbroken my mother must have felt when she saw me in my prison uniform with its tatters fluttering in the wind. Yet because I was walking the path of God's divine Son and a loyal patriot, I had to go this way. (266-289, 1995/01/01)
20. You cannot imagine how cold it was in Hungnam! There, the winter wind was so strong that it blew pebbles around. When my mother visited me in prison in those cold winter months, she saw me wearing only my thin uniform, just one layer without long johns.
When my mother saw me not wearing the clothes that she had prepared for me, her blood boiled. She asked me, “What happened to the long johns and cotton-padded clothes I brought to you?”
I told her, “I gave them to people whose situation is more difficult than mine. I am willing to shiver in the cold alongside them and to starve together with them. Is that wrong?”
I was confident in what I was doing. In front of anyone in heaven and on earth, I was confident. My mother admonished me, saying, “How could you do this without knowing what I went through? I prepared those clothes for you. Who told you to give them to others?”
So I said to her, “Mother, if you aren't concerned about others as I care about them, then I am not proud of having you as my mother. I wish you had praised me for what I did and said that if I needed more clothes, you would bring them.
If you cannot do that, at least do not admonish me or give me that kind of advice.” Then my mother sobbed, shedding large drops of tears. I can never forget that. (242-203, 1993/01/01)
21. We were hungry from right after breakfast until noon. You cannot imagine how hungry we were. Our tongues were worn out, and our breath smelled bad. In those circumstances, too, I was hungry, but to comfort my fellow inmates, I wrote lengthy stories and shared them.
Because I did that, before one month had passed, they started to bring me food they had received from their visitors, saying, “Teacher, please take this and do whatever you want with it.” Thus, I experienced something amazing, even awe-inspiring.
The Principle is truly simple: If we invest completely with love to live for the sake of others, whatever we give is bound to return. This is the starting point of the heavenly law.
Therefore, as long as we move forward with this principle, no one can destroy us. When we act upon this principle, the output is greater than the input. The output of those days is the group of people I see in front of me today.
You have emerged with a pledge that combines resolute determination and tears to willingly advance along the path of death on my behalf. When I see you, I know that the path that I have trod is surely the path of truth. (170-181, 1987/11/15)
22. There is one experience during my prison life that I cannot forget. It happened on my birthday. Prison is usually filled with dreariness. Still, there was an inmate from Pyongyang who, I do not know how, learned that it was my birthday, and on the morning of my birthday, he left me a bag of powdered grain that he had been eating from. It is something I can never forget in all my life. I still think that I must find a way to pay him back, even thousands of times over.
I hate being indebted to anyone. When I am in debt to someone, I cannot rest until I repay it. I do not believe that I came into the world to be indebted to others. I rather think that I came to become a creditor. So once I start to do something, I cannot be in last place, a place that would incur debt. (056-047, 1972/05/10)
23. In Hungnam Prison, some people followed me. Whenever they had something special to eat, like powder made of mixed grains, they would bring it to me.
They would wrap it in paper and hide it inside their smelly pants to bring it to me and share it with me. If they had been caught by the guards, they would have been in trouble. Sharing that food impressed me more than any deluxe banquet.
After all these years of life, it remains in my memory. Sharing and eating that grain powder, all my senses were intermingled and melted together.
You need to have that kind of experience before you go to the spirit world. It is such a blessing. You must not live for the sake of yourself but for the sake of the whole. (108-154, 1980/08/18)
24. As an inmate in Hungnam Prison in North Korea, I fought on the front lines to love a wide variety of people, not only my fellow inmates but also the communist prison guards. For that reason, I experienced that some guards made efforts to protect me in prison.
If they saw me doing something against the prison rules, they covered for me, even though they ran the risk of losing their lives.
The system inside the prison intensified the atrocities of communism, yet even in that world, I found ways to protect myself. The only path was the path of loving and sacrificing. It was in prison that I discovered this truth.
There was a former leader of the Communist Party in the prison. When his family sent him powdered grain, he mixed it with water and made balls like rice cakes. Hiding them in his crotch, he walked the four kilometers to the fertilizer factory.
If they fell out while he was walking, what he was doing would be discovered, and he would get into a lot of trouble. He could even lose his life. Despite this, he brought the food solely to share that food with me.
Hiding them deep inside his pants, he worked, drenched in sweat, until lunchtime. Of course, the grain cakes absorbed his sweat and smell, even though he had wrapped them with newspapers.
Could I refuse to eat them and throw them away? Currently, when he shared them with me, it was like an explosion of love, big enough to buy even the entire universe. It was like the eruption of an active volcano.
I saw clearly with my own eyes that in that worst place, a heavenly comrade had emerged in front of me. I again realized that the only thing that can digest this world is the path of love. (174-353, 1988/03/13)
Disciples in prison
The True Father victoriously overcame the ordeals of prison life. In prison, he was not allowed to witness directly, but still, he found more than 12 disciples. This was possible with the guidance and cooperation of the spirit world through such things as dreams and revelations.
By gaining 12 disciples, some inmates followed the True Father and established the condition of indemnity to restore the 12 disciples who betrayed Jesus. In this way, he made the foundation for a new beginning as the Lord at the Second Advent.
25. In prison, some inmates followed me. If I had asked them to escape the prison with me, they would have followed me out at the risk of their lives.
I had to have inmates who would follow me in that environment of death to restore the 12 disciples who had deserted Jesus when he was hung on the cross. To restore them, I had to find inmates who would naturally submit to me. I did not have to speak to them because the spirit world was already mobilized to witness them.
My number in prison was 596. This number, in a way, sounds like “wronged.” One inmate had a dream in which he saw his ancestor, who commanded him, “Do not eat the powder you received, not even one spoonful.
Give it to Mr. Moon.” So this inmate plodded over to my cell holding the sack of powder and asked, “Is number 596 here? Who is he?” In such ways, the spirit world mobilized to feed me.
After I left the prison, I traveled to Pyongyang and then journeyed to the South. At that time, four people followed me. This was the restoration of the four-position foundation.
Those four people whom I came out with were my church. In this way, providential history cannot deviate from the fundamental rule of restoration.
(047-192, 1971/08/28)
26. I wished God's compassion even upon extremely wicked prisoners who were sentenced to death. On the cross, Jesus said to the thief on the right, “You will be with me in paradise.”
Likewise, throughout my life, I have fought to give new hope and encouragement to people whose lives were filled with tearful stories. I did this even in prison. I comforted them and lived for their sakes to such a degree that after I left the prison, they missed me, shedding more tears than they shed when their parents passed away.
I have lived this way because I understood that without doing that, I could not fulfill my responsibility for the mission of restoration. That is why whenever I left prison, I would see many people clinging to me and weeping.
Because I lived my life this way, when I left Hungnam Prison for the South, four people followed me, leaving their parents and children behind.
(045-138, 1971/06/24)
27. I had more than 12 followers who lived in other cells. Every morning, when the guards ordered the prisoners to come out of their cells, we had 15 minutes to line up. During that time, many prisoners went to the latrine, but when it became too crowded, we had to wait in our cells.
Since the guards watched us closely, my followers in other cells could not come to where I was. We could not pass over the boundary line. For those followers, to see me and greet me was the most honorable moment of the day. It was the moment they received life.
Therefore, they would even crawl from their cells to come to see me, hoping not to be seen by the guards. If they were caught, the guards would beat them with the butts of their rifles.
They would be accused of planning to escape and put in solitary confinement for one to three weeks. If they were caught three times, they would be punished more severely. The problem could become more complicated.
Nevertheless, they risked it anyway, considering that to see and greet me that day was a great honor. When they had something to eat, they would ignore their hunger and feel honored to share it with me.
You have to understand such relationships of heart. They are a hidden tradition in the historical background of our church and will remain theirs forever. (074-095, 1974/11/14) 28.
The reason I suffered harsh oppression and mistreatment in Hungnam Prison under the communist regime was because heaven mandated that I must carry out substantial restoration.
Hence, even in front of Satan's guns and swords, heaven sent me people who were prepared, who, by following me, would enable the prison gates to open so that I could leave.
Even though I did not say a word to them directly, spirits in the spirit world witnessed some inmates and brought them to follow me. I kept silent, but their ancestors directly appeared to their descendants in prison and witnessed them.
In this way, I was able to find and restore in prison more disciples than the 12 disciples who abandoned Jesus and fled when he was on the cross.
Before leaving for work every morning, my followers tried to meet me despite the strict prison security.
Amid the din and commotion of people going outside to go to work, the first thing they wanted to do was to come and greet me, the man whom the spirit world had guided them to follow.
Even if they had to crawl, even with the guards standing there with their guns, they came. God worked like that. This is how, in prison, I established the condition of indemnity to restore the four-position foundation. (023-288, 1969/06/08)
Sun Myung Moon