Based on extracts from his speeches throughout his life
Earlier installments are available for reading.
The 1970s: Vision of the Global Mission
Father and Mother spent three years researching the land along Cheongpyeong Lake, east of Cheongpyeong township and in the end purchased land for the training center and, later, many other initiatives. Father also speaks about the pioneer witnessing that the blessed wives were doing all around Korea.
Part 89
Three years of prayer and purchasing of the land in Cheongpyeong (1969–1971)
For land to be a good place, it has to be next to a lake or water. But the east coast is too far from Seoul. There are a few cities concentrated on the west coast but the tides are extreme. When the tides go out, it becomes a tideland, a quagmire, which is not suitable. The only large body of water that is close enough to Seoul is Cheongpyeong Lake.[1] After looking around at a place that took more than thirty minutes to get to from the beginning of Cheongpyeong Lake,[2] I ended up choosing Songsan Village. It is such a beautiful area. I have managed to secure the most beautiful place in the Cheongpyeong area.
The first time I came here and saw this land, I felt that it was a very good place. So, I established myself here and began praying. I have spent my life dedicating myself with complete sincerity, and I began to create a path in prayer. It seems like only yesterday that I went up to the top of a mountain there by myself and prayed.
At that time, the group of tents we had erected became well known. It was thought that people with health problems were coming there to cultivate their minds, or that it was people from Seoul who had nothing else to do but pass the time. It wasn’t that. At that time, I was checking out the whole area. Do you think I spent my time fishing? Because we have to acquire the land without spawning rumors, I had already dispatched people here three years ago.
It took me about nine months to buy the land, because I had to buy it from more than a hundred landowners. It took an average of three days to make one contract. No one in the world could achieve such a feat. Do you think they sold those plots easily?
Building the Cheongpyeong training center
The position of assistant district leader was done away with and through this structural reorganization, about thirty people went to the countryside. I called those who had been district leaders to come and start digging the ground in Cheongpyeong.
The people staying in Cheongpyeong prepared the ground, digging for many days, but they still only slept for four or five hours a night. What I am saying is that the course of the Unification Church is one of pioneering. I ordered them to start preparing the ground from the beginning of July, so they started from July 2.
The rainy season had begun and this was a problem. Even though the weather was bad, we proceeded with building, according to plan. Even though it was raining cats and dogs yesterday we had to go out to buy some building materials. To buy the materials I had no choice but to go by boat, and I got thoroughly soaked by the rain. The rain was absolutely pouring down.
Yesterday, I asked those who had gotten hurt to step forward, and eight out of twenty-six had. A third of the men were injured. I looked at their faces and I saw that none of them was gravely wounded. They had nicked themselves with a pickaxe, or their foot was swollen because it had been pricked with a nail. Yet, they were claiming to be injured and limping around. So I told them that here we needed to have people who were genuinely injured, actually bleeding. “This is a place where indemnity needs to be paid.”
Even when the workers were laying stones to make the floor-heating system, I had to coach them. Yesterday, we called some people to dig up well, and they asked me where they should dig. “You’ve dug wells for decades,” I said. “How have you managed until now if you don’t know such things?”
Some thought the building would take two months to build, but we completed it in eight days.
When we were tiling the roof with slate, the contractors were supposed to come three days before they did. But the person who was supposed to keep in contact with them had gone somewhere, and the roofing tiles hadn’t been put up by the last day. We were in serious trouble. Our church leaders were scheduled to come [for a meeting] on the twelfth. If we weren’t finished by then, everything would be ruined. Though the slate seller said he could not give me any tiles unless I paid him, I begged and persuaded him to help me. Then I had to rent a motorboat to deliver the tiles. We finally got them on site at around 2:30 am. It was too late for the motorboat owner to go back, so he slept on his boat that night.
When he woke up the next morning, he saw that all the slate had been laid down on the roof overnight. He thought they had been laid temporarily to keep the rain off the roof. He looked closer, though, and saw that the slate had been perfectly put down in a few hours overnight. That’s why people said the training center had been built by ghosts. [Laughter]
The building we erected in Cheongpyeong covers ninety-three pyeong [307 m2]. The hall itself is about seventy pyeong [230 m2]; about two hundred people can sleep in it. We actually finished on July 10, but it took an extra two days to paint it. So it took ten days to finish the whole thing but the construction itself took eight days. We held a meeting there on the twelfth and we finished painting on the twelfth. We managed to hold the public opening without any difficulties.
When you look at it closely, you see that it has been colored to fit the landscape. It’s a flattish building, and it looks like a religious trainee prostrating himself as an act of atonement. [Laughter]
Cheongpyeong age of prayer and devotion
Every opportunity I get, I visit Cheongpyeong. Not that someone is waiting there for me. No one is. I go there because I miss the place where I endured hardships on the path I pioneered, and also because I miss the fields and mountains, the sound of the wind blowing, and the birdsong. I go there because I miss the feeling of being in contact with the heart-stirring world of Heaven through the flowing providence of nature.
Everyone, you miss spring, don’t you? When you live through summer and autumn, you come to miss spring. That yearning is something that no one can take away from you until you die. I miss the hours I spent on building a connection to Heaven when I was in difficulty or when I was in meditation while enduring hunger.
Sometimes, when I feel the wind on my skin, it brings perceptions of the past back to the living environment of the present. Whereas in the past, they were motives that propelled me to move forward, in the present they become motives for me to live everyday life, and Cheongpyeong is the place where that takes place. This is why I like it.
Some people may say that I have no reason to go there, but do you think so? It’s not like that at all. When I go there, I pave the course I need to follow, in my own way. It’s a serious task. When you are fighting in a war, carrying a sword becomes a way of life; I need to do that, too. I’m not pursuing my own happiness there.
Not once in my life have I ever thought about how to live in comfort. I never think about how to put nice clothes on my children. I only think about what I should do for the nation and the world.
Visiting the mobilized members
I didn’t send you out and then just say, “This is good!” and live a comfortable life. In order not to become indebted to you, I traveled to every part of the country this year from January 1 until the end of July.
When I went to those areas and met the women who were witnessing there, they shed a flood of tears when they saw me. Even some of the ladies I used to see every day at the Headquarters Church and who did not always greet me shed tears because they were so happy to see me. When we see this, we can realize that working for God enables you to meet someone with more joy than you could exchange for gold.
Even though I was the reason they were suffering, they begged me not to leave. After this kind of thing, even if I fail, or we all fail, this country will prosper. The tears that have woven the tradition of the Unification Church will bring the Korean people to weep and will melt the hearts of all of humankind.
To be continued…
[1] It is about 50 kilometers from Seoul
[2] Cheongpyeong Lake is formed by a dam near Cheongpyeong township on the North Han River. The area where True Parents acquired land and built the training center is some 15km to the east.