“For Korea and Japan, the Pantanal is at the other end of the pole. The Pantanal is at the end of the earth. But the Original Holy Ground, Root Holy Ground, and Holy Ground of Victory can all be found there. This is something tremendous. The Original Holy Ground is set up in our hotel in the Pantanal.” (Rev. Sun Myung Moon 304-110, 1999.9.10)
There is a story in the Pantanal of a historical meeting between God and Lucifer. It is the story of the Second Coming who opened the gates of hell through endless love and forgiveness and completed the Providence of Restoration, culminating with Satan’s natural surrender in 1999.
It is a story that must be told by our Brazilian brother, Peter Paulo Alves Pinheiro, who was the main witness of the historic meeting of God, True Father and Lucifer on May 14, 1999 in room 14 of the Hotel Americano in Nabileque and of the events at Salobra that led to this meeting.
Paulo had met True Father when he was a young boat captain at the age of 21 at Salobra Hotel, the first property that True Father purchased in the Pantanal wetlands. Paulo was the boat captain that served True Father for all of the fishing trips in Pantanal. Although he was not a church member at first and was not educated in Divine Principle, Paulo saw and experienced the actual spiritual activities of True Father in Pantanal. He was the main witness appointed by True Father. In 1998, True Father blessed him and his wife, Marcia Cristina Alves Prado Pinheiro, as the first of the 360 million couples.
Through Paulo’s testimony, we can understand why True Father called these undeveloped wetlands the Original Holy Ground, Root Holy Ground, and Victorious Holy Ground. We receive immeasurable blessing in forms of ancestral liberation and blessing with very little indemnity paid in Korea, but we must also understand why we are able to receive such blessing. It was because True Father opened the Gates of Hell in these holy grounds and shortened our indemnity course of 1,000 years to cleanse our lineage.
OHS 2021.6.4
(Original editor/translator’s note: The original testimony was recorded in Portuguese in May and June of 2021. It was transcribed then translated to English with the approval of the author.)
By Peter Paulo Alves Pinheiro
Salobra was purchased in 1996. However, True Father originally tried to buy it in 1995, when I first met with True Father. In 1995, the land was for sale, but when True Father tried to buy it, it had already been sold to another buyer.
In 1996, True Father asked Dr. Yoon-sang Kim, president of the Jardim Project, to go and find a piece of land that could be purchased in the wetlands of Pantanal. Dr. Kim, accompanied by a real estate agent named Luis Ribas, was one day returning from an unfruitful search for such land. On the way back, they lost their way home. Actually, President Kim was sleeping and his driver entered the Salobra Hotel to have lunch there. While having lunch at the hotel’s restaurant, he learned that the Salobra land and the hotel were being sold again. It had been sold before to another person, but it was recovered in court because the previous buyer had gone bankrupt and could not complete the payment. Dr. Kim found that the owner had once again put the property up for sale.
Dr. Kim returned to the New Hope Farm in Jardim and reported to True Father that he had not found any farm on sale in the wetlands. But when he mentioned that Salobra was on sale again, True Father reacted quickly and instructed him to purchase it. Then, Dr. Kim said, “But Salobra is not a wetland, there are rocks…”
True Father said, “If it is Salobra, you can buy it. Buy it.”
On the same night, President Kim asked Luis Ribas to call the owner, who immediately traveled from Miranda to Jardim, approximately 200 km, the next day. Within two days, they agreed on the sale. That was between August 4 and 5, 1996.
On the 8th, True Father arrived at the Salobra land between 8 and 9 in the morning. When he got there, he said: “This is very beautiful.”
True Father had actually already packed his suitcases and was ready to go to Africa if President Kim did not find a property in the wetlands. True Father told me directly on three separate occasions that he had intended to go to Africa if the Salobra farm was not found. Salobra is geographically located within the Pantanal wetlands. The farm itself has wetlands.
This is how True Father purchased the Salobra farm. He moved to live on the land with True Mother, some of his children and grandchildren.
Fishing on the Salobra River
At the time True Father purchased Salobra, I was working at Salobra as a boat captain for tourists. Although I was not yet a member of the church, True Father was searching for the best captain in the area, and so I was selected to drive the boat for True Father for fishing. In the beginning, when True Father first started spending his time at the farm, he appeared to me like a tourist who was there to research and study nature. He was calm but with a sense of depth to his demeanor. His day-to-day fishing activities appeared quite normal.
One day, we introduced True Father to the Salobra River for the first time. We were not catching fish in the Miranda River, which was muddy. The Salobra River was clear and appropriate for tourism, so we suggested going there. Until then, True Father did not know about the fish called pacu because he had been focused only on dorado, the golden fish, up to then. When we started to fish in the Salobra River for pacus, we could not catch any. Then True Father started to investigate how to catch pacus. We also went further up the river because he wanted to know more about the region.
Then we brought True Father to Bahia Preta (Preta Bay), which is a place we used to go with tourists, located past a forest. That day, we saw all kinds of animals, such as deer and alligators. True Father saw the animals and the landscape and said: “It is very similar to Africa. But there is a difference that no one understands.”
This was how the first period of True Father’s stay concluded; and Father suddenly left Salobra. At the time, I did not know where he went.
Searching for a sign
One day, True Father came back to Salobra. He told me that he was coming from Kodiak and said: “I am going to stay here for three days. I came to look for a sign. I need to find this sign. If I don’t find this sign, I am leaving for Africa.” One person was interpreting this for me. As I listened, I was facing the interpreter. However, True Father put his hands on my face and turned my head so I could look at True Father directly in his eyes. True Father was sitting very close to me, and he reached to touch my shoulders and I felt him expressing how important my responsibility was during this three-day period. I did not understand it at the time.
Because True Father told me he would leave for Africa if he does not find the sign, I really felt that he would go away and never come back to Salobra.
I saw that there were many people who followed and respected him, but when he told me about the sign, I felt that it would be my fault if he did not find any signs and had to leave South America. Actually, the atmosphere of the surrounding people who were listening to this conversation seemed very clear that it was my responsibility whether he could stay or not. So my friends, the co-workers and the boat captains also started to help look for this sign. But no one understood what this sign was. The three days felt very, very heavy. On the third day, True Father caught a pacu. I understood that this pacu represented the sign that True Father was looking for.
It had been very difficult for me during the three days. I tried to communicate with True Father via other people in order to advise him how to fish. But nobody wanted to tell him. They even told me that the Messiah already knows many things. So I asked them, “Why couldn’t he snap his fingers and make the sign appear, and make the fish jump into the boat?”
True Father asked me to prepare the boat before 5 in the morning. He did not say what time exactly, so I was already waiting from 2 o’clock. Many people who were close to him said that he was already old and that he did not have to go out so early. I told them, “You don’t know the father you have, or the strength of the person you call an old man.”