By June Darby
June Darby is originally from South Africa but joined in Europe during the early days of the church there. Since the 1960s when she joined, June has done missionary work all over the world. She wrote the following testimony more than 30 years ago.
Part 1
When I was seven or eight years old, I was attending a Catholic convent boarding school. Often, when I was alone in the fields and gardens of the school, Jesus would come to me. He was my best friend and I shared everything with him.
My family was Anglican, and sometimes the children from the convent school would tell me we were going to hell. At times I used to fight them, rolling in the dust! But mostly I would get upset and run away to cry. On one of those days, I had run right away to the woods and was sitting on a bench crying. And I saw Jesus. He asked me why I was crying. He told me that the next time other children tell me I am going to hell, I should tell them that he, Jesus, said that everyone who loves Jesus goes to heaven—no matter what church they belong to. I felt so much love and protection.
When Jesus was there with me, I felt so happy, safe, peaceful, and loved. He told me that if I wanted to be happy when I grew up, I should pray every day to do God’s will. So, from that time on, I prayed to do God’s will every night when the first star appeared in the sky.
I committed my life to Jesus when I was 16. I seriously contemplated becoming a nun, but after I prayed about it, God showed me that He wanted me to become a mother.
When I finished high school, I attended a teacher’s training college. I was involved in a church at that time, but I could never accept that Jesus came to die on the cross to forgive men their sins. I would cry every time I heard that preached and I totally rejected it, feeling that it was a tragedy and should never have happened. I stopped attending church because I did not want to be a hypocrite.
Guided to Our Movement by Jesus
A year later while I was in a prayer meeting, Jesus again came to me. The room was filled with a bright light, and I felt a feeling of deep calm and peace. I felt my spirit leave my body and be embraced by Jesus. With great understanding, kindness, and love, he told me not to worry about the question of his crucifixion. He wanted me to go back to the church and serve him there, and he told me that I would find the answers to all my questions later.
I threw myself wholeheartedly into the activities of the church, doing my best to sincerely follow the teachings of Jesus. The words “If you love me, keep my commandments” moved my heart at that time. But I was concerned because I saw that the church was not able to combat the teachings of communism; nor was it able to show people how to expand their hearts and overcome racial prejudice so that all people could truly become brothers and sisters under God. It was not able to teach people how to love centered on Jesus and God, nor could it explain why I had Jove, become which dirty should and be sacred defiled. and noble, had become dirty and defiled.
I prayed that, if God willed, He would use me as His instrument to write a book about the truth that could solve every problem and bring peace to the world. I knew He had all the solutions.
I was offered a scholarship to study in California and become a missionary. When I prayed about it, God showed me that He wanted me to work at helping the whole continent of Africa, especially South Africa, to become truly Christian and God-centered, but not with the missionary group that had offered me the scholarship. Instead, God showed me I had to understand the problems and suffering of people before I could practically and constructively work toward that goal, so I studied social work.
Soon after I finished my studies, I went to Europe to experience the different cultures there. I then realized that the time had come for me to totally offer my life to the service of God, and that I should now become a missionary. I was in Rome at the time, looking for a church group where I could be a missionary. I didn’t mind which church or group, so long as it was working on the world level. I wanted my actions and service to help the world become a better place. I also wanted to experience the dynamic, living presence of God, because I felt that the spirit of most churches was dead.
I wanted to be a missionary but didn’t know which church or organization to join. I had come to Italy. As I felt Italy was like the mother of the church, I thought I would surely find my answer there. I was just praying to find the church or missionary group that would make God real to the world. That’s all I asked. I was sincere in wanting to just do God’s will. I would have been a missionary in Africa, but I knew mission stations in Africa, and they didn’t have a wide radius of influence. I really wanted to be able to influence governments and people that could change society and a nation. That’s partly why I became a social worker, so I could influence city leaders and the government.
After I had visited many places of art and culture, I spent three days praying for God to show me which church or organization to join. I went to the Episcopal [Anglican] church in Rome to ask for help, and the minister put me up in his daughter’s bedroom in the bell tower. Remarkably, he had just come back to the church for a few hours to sort out some affairs, and he asked his secretary to take care of me.
When I spoke with the secretary, he told me he was staying with some friends in Rome. I had the strongest feeling to go down on my knees to beg him to let me meet the people he was staying with. But I thought, if I do that, he will think I am very weird! So I kept quiet. But then, when I handed the keys in three days later, he started talking to me, asking questions about me, what I thought of Christianity and what I was looking for. Then he invited me to go to meet his friends, and hear a new Oriental Christian philosophy.
In those days they taught the Divine Principle from Miss Young-oon Kim’s Divine Principle book. In that book, the introduction says we have entered a new era because the cosmic winter is over and the cosmic spring has begun. My ears pricked up, because my father was a Rosicrucian, and I knew that the Rosicrucians also teach that spiritually we are entering into a new era of cosmic spring. And I knew from what my father had told me that it would be the returning Lord who would introduce that cosmic spring.
My father had had a revelation, around 1954 when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, that Christ was already on the earth and that he was an oriental man, dressed in white. I had argued with my father, “No, no, Jesus will come back on the clouds.” But my Father said he had to be born as a baby and had to spread his teaching by word of mouth, one by one; that he couldn’t possibly be Jesus. He insisted that he was an oriental man, and that they wore white clothing in the country where he was.
As time passed, I forgot about all he told me, though I did believe that the Second Advent would take place in my lifetime. When I heard the introductory talk, I immediately remembered my father’s revelation. When they told me the Principle revelation came from an oriental country, Korea, and that the national dress was white, I thought, “Oh! This is what my father saw!” Immediately I knew it was true.
God’s presence was so powerful as I listened to the Principle. I felt a warm wind blowing around me. After the first few paragraphs, I knew what the conclusion would be. I knew immediately that Jesus had led me there and that it was God’s will for me to join.
Beginnings of the European Mission
This was soon after True Father blessed the Holy Grounds in 1965, and had sent missionaries from America to Europe and Australia. Missionaries were first sent to Germany, Italy, Britain, and the Netherlands. After some months, missionaries from Germany went to Austria and Spain. The missionary in England at the time was Sandi Pinkerton, and I became her first member. (She was not the first missionary to England, but the fourth.) Soon two more South Africans became members, but no matter how hard we witnessed and taught, no British people joined. While Marion Porter (nee Dougherty) was leading in England, we received guidance that British people would join once a fourth person from the British Commonwealth joined. That fourth person was a Canadian, and no sooner had he moved in with us than two British brothers accepted the Principle, and within a few months we had a foundation of 12 members.
This experience showed me very clearly that we are not working in the Unification Church just as individuals. Each one of us represents some providential purpose, and we are working as representatives of our nations and of many generations of people.
Continued next week….