How Rev. Peter Koch began his mission and the key to faith; as told in 1983, the year before his ascension.
Rev. Peter Koch was one of the earliest members in the West, and the first person to bring the Principle teaching to Europe—even before True Father’s first world tour in 1965. Rev. Koch notably did pioneer missionary work in Germany and Austria. He is perhaps best known for masterminding the Butterfly Mission, for which members studied Eastern European languages and witnessed quietly and carefully behind the Iron Curtain.
Part 2 (final) Click to read Part 1
It’s nice to have miracles, but the problem is you cannot rely on miracles. But you have to produce most of the miracles yourself. As Edison said, “Genius is five percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration.”
One point I really want to stress: Many of our members do not realize how important prayer is. Through the Fall, man’s love for God was destroyed. It was that which was destroyed, so that is what must be restored. That means the restoration of heart is the most important thing in the restoration process. God loves us, but He is waiting for our response. If you love somebody, and he does not respond to your love, wouldn’t you feel very, very miserable? The same is true for God. If we want to liberate God from His grief, then we should express our love to Him not only with our emotions, but also with our actions.
If you pray and establish a base of heart in your prayer, you will be filled with the spirit of God and that will change your entire life and you will never, never be able to leave God again. Such experience gives you so much strength that you could walk to the end of the world. During tuna fishing, for example, I had deep prayer experiences with God. I was all alone with God, and the water and the sky. These kind of prayer experiences are really necessary in our [church] family. If we pledge to “charge bravely forward into the enemy camp,”[i] we can do so only if we have the right spirit. Otherwise, we may try to hide behind a lot of excuses. And in the end, we just spiritually die, and lose everything that we have already won. This is one point members should remember.
Father visited us in Germany in 1965, and established the three Holy Grounds. We travelled around with Father in a Volkswagen bus for two weeks. This was an unforgettable experience. Although at that time we only had 12-15 members in Germany, Father told us to send out at least three missionaries to France, Spain and Austria. After the 43-Couple Blessing in 1969, Father sent me to take over the mission in Austria. At that time the Austrian family had about 30 members. We did mainly street witnessing. Right after the Blessing in Europe, all the European missions had a very fruitful time. Many members joined at that time in several nations.
Our problem in Austria was that we could not do fundraising, since it was absolutely illegal. In 1974, the Unification Church was declared illegal and was dissolved by the Austrian government. Being forced underground makes life an interesting experience. If you constantly have to dodge the police, you either become very strong, or you drop out. It forces each one to really mature. If, first thing in the morning, eighteen policemen came into our center and turned it upside down, we could not start explaining to the members what to say. Everybody had to know what to do. Furthermore, this underground work taught us a lot of things that we could use in underground work in other nations.
We are still not a legal body in Austria,[ii] but things started normalizing. The public just got used to our presence. Everybody knows us, and this is even improving our situation with the media. They have spread so many horror stories about us already that now they have to bring stories about something else. That takes some of the pressure from our neck. The government and the churches are trying their best to make our life miserable in Austria, but we see this more as a challenge than as a difficulty.
Restoration of Heart
It is not against the law to help your neighbor, so home church is the ideal solution for our situation. Almost everybody in Austria is doing home church. There is no full-time office staff anymore. One positive side effect of our situation is that we cannot have a lot of paperwork and no statistics, so we can concentrate on the practical witnessing mission. Austria is a very, very beautiful country and the Austrian people are very warm-hearted and not at all nationalistic. It was not difficult to explain to the members that they have to think on the world level. We have always tried to send out as many missionaries as possible and support them until they really get established. During all these years six out of every seven Austrian members have been sent out to help other nations.
Before a man does something, he thinks. Before he thinks, he is motivated by some emotion. This means restoring just the actions of man without restoring his thinking and his emotions will be no solution. Also restoring man’s thinking would restore his actions, but would not restore his emotions, the source of whatever he is doing. This means that at the heart of restoration is the restoration of the heart. Or in plain language, we have to learn to love God.
People make mistakes simply because they are not in harmony with God’s heart. They do not know the truth, so they cannot act upon the truth. They are not motivated in the same way that God is motivated in that particular situation; therefore, they act in the wrong way. If you have any problem, no matter what kind, there is one solution: fall in love with God. This is my life motto.
If restoration is our business, then we should start with the restoration of the heart. Our own heart first, then the hearts of the others. How did I receive help from God to carry out my mission? This is very difficult to answer. Of course, there have been some miracles, but I think mainly you are guided by your intuition. If you have a prayer life that really reaches God, then you will know by intuition what you should do.
What is receiving instruction by intuition? Some people understand this to be spiritual openness, but the spirit world is very large and quite mixed. If you were to run around with a TV screen in front of your eyes with all the TV programs of the world channeled in at the same time, you would only be confused. What counts is that you get the information that you need and nothing else; that is intuition.
A Letter from Korea
June 24, 1963
Dear Mr. Koch,
In the name of our Master [True Father], I have the privilege of writing this letter to you.
You are so far away from us in the distance, but so near in our hearts, because you are a pious son to our father, doing his urgent work before he urges you. Above all, we know you well enough, for Miss Kim has written us so many times about you while you yourself wrote so many nice, informative articles through “The New Age Frontiers.”
Your personal testimony on paper helped us positively to make a vivid picture of you, together with many other stories of witnessing experiences, which made us laugh and cry with you. Especially, your letter to our ‘Little Prince’ was a very touching one. Your farewell letter to Miss Kim from New York compelled us to weep over the departure, but in the next moment we felt as though you were coming to us after leaving America.
Miss Kim in her latest letter to our Master, wrote about how you challenged the American family to the ‘Divine Battle’ by saying, “Remember, I am a German,” meaning that you are confident in establishing the Foundation of Restoration on the Continent of Europe more rapidly and firmly than the American family. Master smiled a big smile as he read the letter aloud to a few of us. Ever since, he is talking about you so often and taking your example when he encourages the young members being trained in the Forty-Day Training Course.
Remember, he is proud of you! We hope and believe that you will live up to his expectation. In sending you to the vast continent of Europe, which is as yet a spiritual wilderness in light of the Divine Principles, our Father is concentrating his loving care on you. You will hear his encouraging words in time of distress and his shouting voice louder than yours when you are in joy over winning people into the Way of the Principle. You can be sure that He will walk with you, His protecting arms always stretched out to help you when you stumble. Believe it, and He will work in place of you. When you do his work, you are his substitute.
Like one conspicuous star among the vast number of constellations, you are going to shine upon the vault of the European sky.
Here in Korea, 120 couples of young members will be blessed in marriage during the summer months. You know we built a fishing boat to conquer the marine world both spiritually and physically; we are going to have the launching ceremony on the 26th of June.
You shall hear more about what is happening here.
Sincerely yours,
(Mrs.) Wonpok Choi, in Father’s name
Rev. Peter Koch ascended to the heavenly realms in the summer of 1984.
[i] From “My Pledge,” which members recited before True Parents gave us the Family Pledge
[ii] This testimony was given in 1983. In recent years through the work of our members, our church movement won government official recognition as a faith community, which gives our movement and its activities legitimacy for its activities.