A Man with a Mission – Part 2

By David Sang Chul Kim

As far as is known, David Sang Chul Kim was the first Unificationist to set foot outside Korea. In 1954, the year our church was formally registered in Seoul, he travelled to Britain to study on a UN scholarship at the age of 38. Even though True Father did not personally assign him to do so at that time, David Kim took every opportunity to reach out to other churches and witness to the truth.

As Dr. Kim was born in 1915, his words also shed light on a more traditional Korea than we know today – similar to the one Father himself grew up in. In this first installment, he describes his student days, marriage, and early career, and his account is drawn from interviews and testimonies he gave during the later years of his life. Dr. David S. C. Kim ascended to the spirit world in 2011 at the age of 95.

This is the second installment on the early missionary life of David S. C. Kim, which is part of a series based on the words of the very earliest pioneers of our international movement. Some content in this series has never before been published in English. If you wish to read the first part, click here.

Father can’t keep the appointment, but God makes a personal appearance

When I arrived on schedule to visit the group with great expectations, its leader [Father] was absent. Only Mrs. Ok Se-hyun was in the house. She is very spiritual and one of the psychically sensitive people in our church. She had been following Father from the time of his North Korean ministry.

In Korea, it is very unusual to break a previously arranged appointment. Of course, I was very annoyed and extremely upset. I, a third-tier rank official of the Korean national government, highly educated, well-to-do even in the days of Japanese occupation, had been “stood up” after traveling all that way. I was afraid of nothing and no one, full of self-pride and arrogance—and furthermore, I had made this special trip to Daegu at the insistence of my two friends, Mr. Aum and Mr. Lee. I had not really wanted to come, but had done so out of respect for them. I was furious that this group’s leader had insulted me by not keeping the appointment.

My anger and indignation softened, however, when Mrs. Ok talked about visions she had seen during her early morning prayer. In the vision, a young man speaking a foreign language was talking to her, but she was unable to understand him. When I arrived at her home, she realized that the young man in her vision was I. That information made me pay more respect and become attentive to her, and softened my anger toward the group. She treated me very nicely, with good meals, and prepared my sleeping room with comfortable bedding. When evening came, some very important spiritual phenomena occurred. Mrs. Ok and God worked as a team, and through her, God directly revealed my life’s mission from that day on.

In that house, the Supreme God appeared a second time in front of me, this time through Mrs. Ok, during a very deep conversation with her. Suddenly her body shook, and jerked, and the voice of God controlled her and totally occupied her body and mind, causing her to act differently from Mrs. Ok. Now God was speaking directly with a man’s voice, just the same voice as I had heard in my vision in 1950, on the mountain during the Korean War, in the form of that old, gentle, loving man” in purple robes.

With awesome feelings and deep reverence, I listened, immediately humbled myself, and became obedient. I heard God’s voice solemnly say: “Listen, dear Sang Chul! I have been training you for 30 years, since the age of 9, in your search for the truth through various religious experiences and groups. The time has now come and this is the place I wanted to lead you to. Unconditionally surrender. From now on your new name is David, after King David who destroyed Goliath in the Old Testament. You will be going overseas for pioneer missionary work for this group. You must go overseas and fight as a general, like King David did in Biblical days.”

Then God left the body of Mrs. Ok. Without hesitation or doubt, I heard the message and accepted it, then bowed with gratitude and appreciation. With my spiritual experiences in the past and my psychic ability, I had no doubt God was talking directly to me, giving me instructions about my future mission for our True Parents.

When I went to bed late that night with great excitement and thanksgiving, God gave spiritual confirmation and evidence of His message to me through Mrs. Ok. At around 2 a.m., in a state of semi-consciousness, rather like a trance, a dramatic and dynamic scene occurred. Someone was running straight toward me in the distance from the opposite direction. At the same time, I was running straight toward him from my direction. Both kept running, shortening the distance rapidly. Finally, he and I approached one another and I reached out my right hand to shake his right hand. Immediately a powerful surge of electricity came from him that penetrated my hand and entire body. I clearly looked at his smiling and joyful face, when I received that tremendous shock. Immediately, I awoke from the trance trembling because the electric shock was so great. Whether you believe it or not, the face I saw in my vision was the very same face of our beloved Father whom I did not meet until three months later in Seoul. Father was thirty-four years old at that time. Glory to God and our True Parents. Hallelujah!

A house with two rooms

In my own heart, I already believed in the reincarnation of Buddha, Mohammed and Confucius, even the incarnation of Jesus Christ, because I had been receiving messages for so many years from the spirit world. With these two spiritual experiences in Daegu, I realized that Father was the Messiah, even before I met him in person, and even before I heard any part of the Divine Principle. Since then until this day, I have never doubted who Father is or the contents of the Principle.

When I did meet our True Father in February 1954, I was still an official in Syngman Rhee’s national government. I visited the so-called “three-door house” (sae dae moon jip), located in Bukhak-dong, Sung-dong-ku, Seoul, where Father and a few followers resided. The house had only two small rooms: the one for Father had barely enough space for one person; the other, a little larger than the first, was where Mr. Eu lectured and stayed. There was also a small kitchen. In contrast to the great name on the sign, the house was small and miserable-looking to the outside world. Now it is the origin and very root of our worldwide movement, which includes many wonderful buildings in the United States such as our World Mission Center [the New Yorker Hotel]. At that time, Father and a small group of followers from North Korea were under investigation and surveillance by the police. They moved from Busan to Daegu to Seoul as part of a new witnessing campaign to recruit converts. I, a high-ranking government official, showed up unexpectedly at this critical juncture of our movement.

Our True Father and a few followers were constantly changing locations to avoid probable arrest or confrontation with the authorities. Following my acceptance of Father and Divine Principle, I visited after work on a regular basis. New contacts were coming to listen to Mr. Eu’s lecture on parts of the Divine Principle. We copied each other’s notes to study and practiced lecturing. Mr. Eu was teaching in the small room, lying down because his left leg had been paralyzed earlier in his life.

At that time, there was very little money. A few spiritually open members were living near the place where Father and Mr. Eu stayed, which became the new headquarters of the movement in Seoul. Interesting spiritual phenomena were happening. The constant changing of locations made it difficult for some members, except those in the inner circle, to find the home to which True Father moved. The spirit world would give them instructions to buy some of Father’s favorite food and guide them spiritually to the new place Father and his key members were staying. These psychic phenomena were like those that occurred to the Apostles in the New Testament, as described in the Book of Acts. I was well acquainted with this type of spiritual phenomena from having lived with my grandmother from the age of nine.

Naming our church movement

On May 1, 1954, according to the dispensational timetable, centered on Father, a trinity was formed, including Mr. Eu, Mr. Lee, and me, that pledged to follow Father and his truth. The next day, Father called us, and one other person residing in Seoul, and explained to us the need and purpose of starting an organization even in the midst of continuing persecution to Father and his early followers in both Busan and Daegu. Three names for the organization were given by Father to the four of us. Two of them were so complicated that we could not even comprehend the meaning of the Chinese characters.

Among the three names Father showed us, we agreed to adopt the present name, which is made up of eleven Chinese characters. We translated these characters into English as “The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity” (HSA-UWC). We translated Shil-Ryung (two of the Chinese characters) as “Holy Spirit,” but it actually means “spiritual.” The name is sometimes confused with the Holy Spirit (one of the three beings of the Trinity in traditional Christian belief), by outsiders and theologians, but no other translation was adequate at the time. The name actually means “spiritual association to unite all Christian churches.”