Elder Moon Young-Sun’s Testimony
Elder Moon was the eldest of Father’s three cousins. These words are taken from a testimony he gave at an anniversary celebration for the couples blessed in 1982, at Camp Sunrise, New York, on July 7, 1991 and include his impressions of True Father.
During the three months I’ve been in America I can feel myself changing outwardly and inwardly. Of course, when living together with True Parents, that change is well to be expected. I mention this because it is significant and very desirable to lead a life that makes one change noticeably. I trust that you also feel a significant change in your thinking, attitudes, and perspective taking place day to day, year to year.
Thank you for being together like this, as blessed couples. Without doubt our blessing has been made within God’s hands. We were matched, married and blessed with God personally present. I am sure it feels overwhelming to you as it feels to me that for the first time in human history people from such a variety of nations came to be not only blessed by the hands of God, but also centering on True Parents. Now most of those families have children. This is the tremendously inspiring result of True Parents’ hard work and God’s dispensation, and is almost like a miracle.
No other gave more
I fished side by side with Father for three months. Father hardly spoke any words; he always concentrates one hundred percent with such seriousness and heart on the future of mankind when he fishes. Just think, for three months I have been sitting right beside the greatest man on earth in the entire history of mankind. Here is the person who gave the most precious teaching of how mankind should live and what their relationship is with God and the universe. No saint or other teacher ever gave more than our True Father did. Sitting on a tiny boat with such a super teacher who works for the future of the world’s people that do not understand him gave me a deep sense of the urgent human situation today.
All of us now come to understand why Father gives one hundred percent, thrusting everything into this life hundreds of thousands of times more seriously than all of us do. Is it for his own sake? Clearly, no. The answer is that he has been and still is working for each of us and all the rest of humankind, and for God Himself.
For so many years Father has steadfastly invested all his energy into this work. When he should rest, he cannot. After a hard day’s work is over, he spends even more time working hard in prayer for everyone except himself. And he’s been doing that all his life. Here we are with the name of being his children. Do we treat him correctly? Do we understand his heart in even the smallest extent? Is it fair to treat our Parents the way we treat them? When I thought about this my tears flowed in spite of myself as I repented for our wrongdoing.
Materially there are many things we want, many things that are needed for our life, for perfecting our ideal, but we don’t have them. So we fight sometimes. I fight with my wife because I want to shift the blame to someone else. But as I become older and wiser, I come to think, “These are my tests to overcome and should never be a cause to fight with my wife—she is not to blame. The blame is on me and I have to surmount it. This is the way of life that God is expecting me to go.” Then I learn to close my mouth and handle all the problems by myself, quietly never trying to shift them to someone else. In that way I experience peace in the family and determine that from this time on, I will live for the sake of what God is trying to achieve. I live for that purpose even though I am 70 years old.
He misses his hometown
Do you or don’t you often think about your hometown, the place where you lived with your parents that you call home? So what about Father? He left his hometown while he was very young and that sense of belonging or attachment to his hometown is like nothing we can imagine—so strong, it is his second self. But he cannot even visit his hometown, let alone return permanently, and he doesn’t even know the whereabouts of his relatives or friends or when his own mother and father died. Though he misses his hometown so much, he has to overcome his longing with tears. Several times a day he feels this.
We have a real goal ahead of us now. God wants the unification of our Fatherland, which happens to be Korea, so our Parents are working in such an intense way toward this goal.
Isn’t it our deep wish that we want to remember and be remembered by our hometown? We want our offspring to connect with the soil where we grew up and the ideals we had, and to prosper forever and ever.
Father’s coming on earth was not haphazard or accidental. It has been exactly 48 generations since the Moon family came to Korea and initiated the Moon clan. In the twenty fourth of the 48-generation tree there came a man, Moon Ik-jeom,[1] who is a great person in Korea. Of course, Westerners have no idea who he was, but learned scholars of Korea and Japan know how important he was to their cultures. Twenty-four generations later, Father came.
In the earlier days of following Father, I was simply very close and dedicated, loving him very much. I did not attend church per se, but as I came to understand more about our own Father, my perspective broadened. I began to read all the writings about Father, and now see from a historical perspective what a truly great person our Father is.
Heaven’s clues
The name of the village Father comes from is “Sung Sa Ri,” which means “thinking about heaven.” Heavenly Father gave us another clue in saying that his particular area of the village was called “Sung Chi Por.” Here, “Por” means “value.” Father’s teaching will have universal value. Taking all these things into perspective, it seems that God has clearly pointed out that a special person would come from that village.
Do we fully understand Father’s value? We must conclude that we have a lot of repenting to do. In fact, as I grow older, I am so overwhelmed that I cannot help but weep in repentance for how little I deeply understand him.
When I was young, I didn’t care about that so much. But now I have learned the great Confucian teaching: “If you do not till the land in the springtime, there is nothing to harvest in the autumn.” I now realize at the age of 70, “Yes, I must teach these words of the Principle to thousands of people. I must take care of my health so that I can live to be 100 and teach until the last person here on earth knows. This is my mission.” When I see American members who are already doing that at such a young age, I cannot help but feel grateful and close to you because you are doing what I am doing—precisely the Will of God: teaching the Word.
Have you experienced this? No matter what small mission you may have, by putting all your heart into it without reservation, as Father has been teaching us, then soon you learn to become spiritually sensitive. I often experience this, so you will too soon enough. Our spirit man becomes so sensitive when we put everything we have into whatever we do.
No two individuals are exactly the same, right? A person’s character, personality, even his fate and how he is going to end his life are all told in the face. That art is almost like common sense for a certain level of learned people. With the surge of Western civilization, it has been diluted, but still it exists very much. Father can tell so much about us just by looking at us. He mastered these laws of the universe so that with computer-like speed he comes to a conclusion that is always correct. That’s how he matches us, isn’t it? And Father knows everything about the individual, so those who did bad deeds cannot go to Father because their conscience won’t allow it. Similarly, Father recognizes those who have done righteous things.
We are experiencing the most incredible precious Second Advent on earth. But if we fail, it will be a catastrophe. We cannot let that happen. Father has put more emphasis on the providence here in America. If America fails, other countries will carry this out, and the will of God will be established here on earth while Father is alive, but Americans will have missed their opportunity. The Bible promises us, “Knock and it will be opened.” Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given.” That means if we don’t ask, it will not be given. Oriental sages teach the same thing: “Whatever you do not sow, don’t even expect to harvest because it’s not going to be there.” That means if you don’t plant you get nothing.
A treasure washed in front of Heaven
So we should not doubt. We should have absolute confidence in how we live today. We must understand how different our life and values are from the secular world as clearly as Father before we can safely carry out our life. Then please devote everything you have. Don’t think, “Oh, I don’t want to do this or that.” Indemnity is a fate and is with us for the rest of our lives and even beyond. If we don’t pay back indemnity, our children have to carry out that indemnity, and if they don’t, their children will have to. Then we suddenly understand, “Yes, no matter how difficult it is, I must fulfill the indemnity and never pass this along to my offspring. When it becomes impossible for me, then I have to weep ten times more deeply and do what’s necessary. Especially blessed couples must realize how much indemnity we must finish in our generation.
Remember, you are a treasure. A treasure can be buried under the mud, and you can even scrape it with a hard object; but still as a treasure, it never changes. All you have to do is wash a treasure in clean water and it shines as brightly as ever. It doesn’t matter what circumstances you go through. What you are is a blessed couple destined to inherit all the tradition from Heaven.
[1] A Korean Confucian scholar that brought cotton seeds from China to Korea in the 15th century and revolutionized the cloth industry.