Based on extracts from his speeches throughout his life
Part 29
Earlier installments are available for reading.
Across the 38th Parallel into North Korea
True Father’s public mission began in 1945. In the late spring of 1946, Father received the instruction to go to North Korea. Since that time many members have willingly gone to challenging mission countries, but Father was, in a sense, the first missionary. He had to lay a special kind of foundation at great personal cost. That story begins with this installment.
Crossing into the North (1946)
I decided now that I had to move on, so I thought to go to Munsan and visit Kim Baek-moon’s retreat where he was holding a special meeting, and say my farewells. In spite of everything, it was the proper thing to do. In meeting and parting from people, you offer a greeting.
After that, I was here in Seoul. The house in Sangdo-dong[1] is still there, isn’t it? There was a company called the Kashima-gumi Construction Company. It was a big electrical company from Japan …. At that time, I was working at the company and was responsible for a church.
We had no rice because it was just after the liberation. I bought some rice in Baekcheon, Hwanghae Province. I put it in the truck. On the way home I received the command from Heaven saying, “Cross the 38th parallel.” I received the command on May 27, and immediately I went. It was morning and I left abruptly. Sung-jin had been born on April 2; I left on May 27. He was just over a month old. I arrived in Pyongyang on June 6.
It was difficult to cross the 38th parallel, but God guided me in everything. There was a rainbow. You wouldn’t believe everything I could say, and so I won’t tell you everything. I was guided to the point where to cross the 38th parallel, and I entered North Korea. A rainbow led me across. It directly led me for 120 li.[2]
Following only God’s command and will
I gave up everything in order to follow God’s will. I already knew what I had to do. I knew that God would surely command me in some way. Would I go the way of my family, or would I go God’s public way? I firmly separated the two and said, “I will go the way of Heaven.” I went to North Korea in accordance with God’s command. Such a critical peak exists—you cannot do both. You have to choose between two. I gave up a comfortable home and chose the way of death.
There was no back-up plan. It is a small thing to sacrifice one’s family for God and the world. “I can’t go because of my sons and daughters,” is not acceptable. If it were possible at that time, I wouldn’t have cast aside my family and gone to North Korea. Only God’s ideal for the restoration of Canaan was engraved in my heart. All I wanted to do was find the people and the land that could receive God’s blessing. To this day, I have been doing my utmost to accomplish this.
In the lowest position, Satan’s headquarters
When you go down, you have to go down to the lowest place. That’s why I had to go to North Korea and start working my way up again. When King Herod was after Jesus, the people of Israel and Judasim should have joined forces and supported Jesus, opposing King Herod. They didn’t fulfill their God-given mission, however, so Jesus had to go to Egypt. I had to follow a similar course.
Even when I went to North Korea, there was no one I could talk to. I was always alone. I put on my backpack. I still can’t forget my prayer then, “My loving wife and child, I have to leave you and go. I have no choice but to go.” The features of that young man, who was traveling on the path of a wanderer in search of Heaven’s way, were like those of a lamb that was being pursued and chased.
My going to North Korea meant that I was going into Satan’s headquarters. Northern Korea was the world-level Satan. I went into the communist realm resolved to die. I had gone into the enemy’s headquarters. Because the foundation of the will centering on Korean Christianity had gone over to Satan, I had to go north into Satan’s den in order to recover it. God is sorrowful over not being able to relate to Cain, not being able to like Cain and not being able to receive Cain’s offering. That’s why I had to put Sung-jin aside and cross the Thirty-Eighth Parallel into North Korea. It meant I had to discard my child, in the spiritual sense, and love the people across the 38th Parallel in North Korea.
Sacrificing my family for seven years
I had a family because it was God’s will for me to connect my family with the church and with the country, but I was unable to connect my family with the nation or the church. I had to start from the beginning again. I had to establish all the indemnity conditions until I could recover everything that had been lost.
If a letter came, I used to send it back or tear it up at the front gate. I treated any kind of news as my enemy. Sung-jin’s mother had to make a living selling apples with Sung-jin strapped on her back. She was even chased by the police. Even though I heard this news, my heart was unmoved.
After having realized this, Sung-jin’s mother should have passed over the peak and come back to me. She had to go through a seven-year-course. The mother should have cooperated with the child. With the mission of Eve, she should have sought out her husband, who had not yet established the vertical standard on earth, and for seven years on earth, she should have embraced the baby and raised him more beautifully than any other prince. I had already explained all of this to her when we got engaged.
Pyongyang (June 1946–February 1948)
There were so many Christians in Pyongyang that it was called the Jerusalem of the East, which is why I went to Pyongyang to begin again.
After the liberation [from Japanese colonial rule], the churches in Pyongyang were being reconstructed in order to fulfill a new, historic mission. It was into this kind of environment in Pyongyang that I went and began a new Principle movement. At that time, the Christians felt the joy of liberation and the sorrow of their life of faith had lifted. Their faith had been full of sorrow from oppressive Japanese domination, but now they were full of new hope.
At that time in Pyongyang, a new revolution of faith and church renewal was bringing hope. I was witnessing in Somun and nearby Kyongchang-ri. It was the beginning of the foundation for the Unification Church.
Kyongchang-ri meeting place
I was twenty-six years old when I went to Pyongyang. I was a young man. My way of interpreting the Book of Romans or Revelation in the Bible turned everything upside down. Everything in the world. If those people then were still alive now, they would say, Rev. Moon, you knew everything. How is it that everything you said has come true?
Choose the smart people. Bring them all. Then I will assign them…. If they don’t listen, I will persuade them myself. So I chose all the youth leaders, the good talkers, the enthusiastic deacons and deaconesses, the intelligent people; I picked them all. If I took away five from each of the churches in Pyongyang, the churches were in an uproar.
The Jangdaejae Church was a large one in Pyongyang. Long ago, Rev. Gil Son-ju held revival meetings there. I prayed there and received a lot of inspiration. The church had a congregation of about one thousand five hundred people. I took fifteen very bright people from that church, which caused a commotion. Some elders threatened to kill me. There was an absolute uproar. Because I did that kind of thing, I was bound to be cursed at.
I used to pray, “How many people are here that God can use? In the Bible, it says that Sodom and Gomorrah could have been saved if there had been only five righteous men. How many people might be called righteous? If there aren’t any, please wait a few months, I will raise such people.” You can imagine how busy I was.
To be continued next week.
[1] Father moved to this small house in October 1945, near the Kashima-gumi Construction Company, where he worked as an electrical engineer.
[2] About 47 km; one li is 393 meters