“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 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 then a church member 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.
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.
OHS, June 4, 2021
(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. Some of the events described may seem hard to follow or understand but other spiritually open members have also testified to seeing Father deal with spiritual events of great magnitude during the course of True Parents’ providential work. This is the sincere testimony of one such person.)
By Peter Paulo Alves Pinheiro
Part 3 (Click to read Part 1 and Part 2)
The blessing of 360 million couples happened in stages. The first stage was at Salobra, second at Nabileque and the third at Punta del Este in Uruguay. In 1997, True Father prayed to separate the providence of Pantanal and the providence of Jardim. He said that they were already separated in 1996, and Pantanal was connected with Alaska. The Alaskan providence has a direct connection to the Pantanal providence. The Pantanal has fresh water and salt water because it used to be under the ocean.
Holy ground
True Father found in Salobra an area where no human being has stepped in. The original form of creation was intact within this wetland. Salobra has a great importance for God’s Providence, not only for the future, but now. At the same time, He said that this is the mirror of Korea, on the opposite side of the globe. What happened here reflects there. It is very dangerous to think about selling these lands. We should not underestimate these sacred fields. This land is of immense value for providence, not only in the future but now. In fact, it should be in full operation of education of conduct, ethics and spiritual teachings. This is part of the Ocean Providence. We talk about the Pantanal Providence, but this is also Ocean Providence in the sense that it is connected by water, fishing and boats.
I was going back to Salobra in 1998 and 1999 when the conditions were made for the first, the second and the third stages of 360 million couples. I received my blessing in 1998. True Father was always concerned about my family situation, often asking about my wife, where and how she was.
True Father would often pray in the boat. I was curious about what He prayed and He communicated with me using body language while President Kim interpreted. Why did He try so hard to communicate with me even though I was not His follower and did not even know the Divine Principle yet? It was because He knew of my loyalty and that I was going to keep my promise to Him.
Satan weakens
True Father said, “my prayer before I arrived in Pantanal was to resolve all the lineage problems in 1,000 years. However, because I came to Pantanal, everything will be solved in a blink of an eye. When we close and open our eyes, everything will be different. It will be at this speed that everything will be solved.” He was speaking about the conditions of sacrifice and rescuing criminals and Satan’s surrender.
True Parents never struck Lucifer. Lucifer surrendered to True Father in a natural way, only due to the Messiah’s sincerity and devotion to God and His Providence. True Father managed to love even His enemies so Satan could not accuse True Father. When True Father met with His enemies in North Korea and Russia, He embraced them, who had direct connections and influence from Satan. Through these people, Satan felt true love for the first time in the physical world.
When True Father caught the fish that represented historical figures, True Father asked us to take three photos of Him and the fish, so that the record would not be lost in some way. When True Father was taking these photos with the historical criminals represented by the fishes, He was sending His true love to Satan. While Lucifer was trying to attack and kill, True Father broke the barrier that Lucifer created and accessed the essence of the angel Lucifer. Lucifer was able to perceive his own conscience and seeing the possibility of 360 million blessing, he was able to realize that he would be eliminated if he continued to attack. When he realized this, he did not want to attack anymore. He became a weak leader in the eyes of the fallen angels that followed him.
If there was a righteous leader or a king, people would usually follow him. However, Lucifer was a corrupt leader and thus others wanted to take his power in the fallen angels’ world. When Lucifer showed weakness, those angels that Lucifer trained to be evil wanted to kick him out of the throne to take away the power for themselves. There was a battle between them, and Lucifer fell down in Salobra on March 21, 1999. But he fell with his authority as Satan, the creator evil, intact.
Father brings Satan to his knees
It happened around 6 am on March 21st, 1999. I was walking down to the river and suddenly I felt something fall on the ground. It felt neither physical nor spiritual. I even felt the wind from the impact of Satan falling to the ground. I recognized the smell of Satan, who appeared before in Salobra, which is another story. But this time, I felt it lying there with this strange smell on the ground. But then I saw True Father arriving in his car and I started running towards the boat at the river. It was already dawn.
When True Father arrived at the boat, He shouted “bbali, bbali! (come quickly)” while President Kim was bringing the lunchboxes and was almost falling down in panic. True Father said “Go. Go!” and I knew something special was happening because I had seen something strange fall to the ground. I was feeling apprehensive tension, with my adrenaline flowing. I was agitated, but I started the engine and accelerated. I looked to my left and saw that there were other cars arriving with ice boxes and someone shouting “stop, stop” but True Father ignored them.
So I kept driving the boat and as we were traveling, I could smell the thing that had fallen to the ground earlier. True Father was still saying, “bbali, bbali” and as I accelerated in what was a bumpy boat ride, I saw True Father’s body rocking while His hands firmly grasped the sides of the boat so hard that I thought His hands would pierce the aluminum.
True Father asked me to stop a few times, but then asked me to keep going up the river repeating “bbali, bbali” as if He were searching for something. We passed all the usual fishing spots until we reached a place where we saw thousands of butterflies concentrated, mostly yellow but with some white. They flapped their wings and generated a cloud of powder in the air, which made it hard to breathe. So we had to leave the place right away. When butterflies landed on President Kim’s arms, he tried to hit them away, but True Father told him not to kill any of them.
When we passed the butterflies, True Father took my hands and prayed. He prayed that Satan had surrendered, and from that day forward, Satan would no longer be able to listen to the plans between God and True Father. He also said that Satan can no longer see where True Father is, while True Father can see where Satan is. While interpreting, President Kim was asking True Father, “Satan? Satan?” But True Father looked at me and put His finger on His lips to tell me not to say anything about what I saw that day. I said, “I understand.” He put His hand on top of His heart to tell me to be calm and quiet.
Satan was actually walking as if he was a human, along the river. We heard branches break inside the forest. It appeared like he was trying to overtake the boat, to get ahead of the boat. However, we drove the boat to a point where there was a large fallen tree in the river, and Satan could not catch up with us. This showed me that, from that day forward, Satan could not find True Father.
I never imagined I would see such things.
After all these things happened, Mr. Oyamada came to us on another boat with food. I was still very emotional and full of adrenaline, and I said “wow, you will not believe what I saw just now, and unfortunately I can’t say it.” It was a very unique and strange adventure, full of adrenaline. I had never experienced something like it before and I don’t think anyone else did either. Then Mr. Oyamada asked what happened. True Father explained about the surrender of Satan and He pointed at me and said that I was the witness to this event. After that day, we went back and forth between Nabileque and Salobra.
To be continued next week.