The extraordinary story of an early Unification Church family.
By Margot “Moes” van der Stok
After their eldest son witnessed to them, the van der Stok family – including all their grown-up children – joined our church in 1967. From the Netherlands, they were one the earliest Western families to join our movement. This is the testimony of the mother of the family, Moes van der Stok, who was born early in the 20thcentury.
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Exactly four years after my eldest son left for America in September 1967, he came back to Holland with Miss Young Oon Kim, who was of course one of the pioneer missionaries sent in 1960 by Father to the United States. She was then on a tour in Europe. She stayed in our home in Holland for four days. I remember she gave us a gift of a beauty product. At that time, members were supporting themselves in America by selling those products door to door.
Already in 1965, the first missionary from the United States was sent to the Netherlands to bring the Divine Principle to Holland, but there were not so many members as yet. When Johan and Miss Young Oon Kim went on a tour through Europe they met Doris Orme in Italy. The first missionary Teddy Verheyen paid quite a lot of indemnity because he was living in a very old boat and the rain came down the inside. It was not good enough accommodation for Miss Young Oon Kim to stay there. This is why she stayed at our house. When they went on the tour through Europe, Doris Orme (before she was blessed in 1969) was asked to go to Holland to help with mission work there. Doris, the future wife of Dennis Orme (who was the Church Leader in England for many, many years), stayed with us for about six months to teach us the Divine Principle, even though Johan, my eldest son who fasted 12 days to bring in our family is, of course, our spiritual parent.
He brought us into the Church but still Doris explained much about the Divine Principle and its teachings to my husband and me. Even though she was speaking in English (sometimes very fast and also the words were not easy to understand), still we understood the core of the Divine Principle message and we accepted our True Parents in November 1967.
During that time, because we wanted to join the Unification Church, we felt that we should resign our membership of the Protestant Church. Because my husband was an elder in the church it caused quite a bit of consternation and the minister and all the other elders came to visit us to try and talk us out of it. Even though they all tried their best to re-convert us back to the old church again, none of them, the minister or any of the elders, took time to study the Divine Principle more deeply, to investigate it, which I found very sad. Apart from our own direct family, our relatives also never really studied the Divine Principle.
In the beginning we received many revelations and dreams about True Parents, that they were the Messiah and I was always surprised that I was allowed to know this. Why me, out of so many people?
We first met True Parents in 1969. First in London in England and then there was the Blessing in Essen in Germany where Johan was blessed with Elke Klawiter, a German sister who actually came from America and was also sent to Europe to do missionary work. Eight couples were blessed in Europe and together with the couples in America and Japan, altogether 43 couples were blessed in March 1969. It was the first Blessing in the West.
At that time the Unification Church Families in Europe were very small and after the Blessing in Essen in Germany, True Parents went to Amsterdam to spend the night and the following Sunday morning at about six thirty we got a telephone call to prepare very quickly a traditional Dutch breakfast because True Parents were going to visit our house. At that time there was already a center in Amsterdam with four members living together. We had previously given all our food, groceries, and so on, to that center so actually we had nothing at home to prepare for our True Parents. Absolutely nothing on that Sunday morning. And all the shops were closed! We had to knock on the door of the owner of the grocery shop, get him out of his bed. He let us in through the back door to provide us with coffee, butter and cheese as True Parents wanted to try a typical Dutch breakfast. You can imagine how excited we all were. There were basically five guests from overseas, that is True Parents, the late Mr. Eu, Miss Young Oon Kim and Mrs. Won Pok Choi. They came to our house to have breakfast and we also could invite one or two guests (friends or ours).
One of these guests was an elderly gentleman and True Father spoke with him a for a little while and also answered questions. Afterwards True Parents expressed the dire to have a drive through the Dutch landscape. My husband was then the chauffeur. He was driving for True Parents through Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague. Mr. Eu, who was then the President of the Unification Church of Korea, had a tremendous back problem (backache). He paid a lot of indemnity as some of you may know. But he could sing very well. My husband said later, Mr. Eu sang so beautifully in the car during that trip through Holland.
In May 1970, the year thereafter, Wouter, his wife Susan and their three children came to Holland from South Africa on a three-month visit. In less than one week they heard the full message of the Divine Principle from my husband and myself and we were overjoyed when they accepted True Parents. In July 1970 they returned to South Africa as Missionaries, sent by the leaders of the Unification Church in Holland.
In 1973 my eldest son Johan and his family were sent from Holland as Missionaries to Indonesia, while my only daughter Gieta went to the USA and later to Japan as part of the One World Crusade team. My youngest son Frank also spent many years in the Unification Church in America.
On December 22, 1976, my husband and I were blessed by True Parents (together with 34 other couples), including my second son Wouter and his wife Susan who were already married. Certain numbers played a big role during our lives like the number 3, and then 12, 21 and 40. Four years later, in August 1980, after 44 years of marriage, my husband passed into the spirit world.
Details on how to celebrate the first God’s Day (January 1, 1968) were passed on to Doris by Miss Young Oon Kim and that day made a big impression on us. That was the first Church celebration we attended while Doris Orme stayed with us during these 6 months. We did a lot of witnessing in our home village of Laren but though all our five children joined the Church, people thought we were crazy. Except for the neighbour’s son Reinier van Hofslot, who accepted and joined the Church, and eventually was blessed, nobody else came.
I also once met True Father himself on a staircase. Father was coming down and I was going up. The staircase was a very narrow one and I was not really looking because normally of course you would stand back and bow, but he was very friendly and smiling. This was during the time of the Blessing in 1969.
The following year, 1970, we sold our house in Laren and went to stay in rented accommodation in the south of the Netherlands. The sale proceeds of the house we gave to the Church in 1972 so that they could buy House Glory (which became the Dutch UC Headquarters), which is almost like a small castle.
House Glory was used as a training center in the Netherlands for decades until, in recent years, it was converted to a small hotel and now the money it generates helps support the movement in the Netherlands.
This testimony was given in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sunday, April 22, 1990. Mrs. van der Stok and her son Wouter (who was our movement’s first missionary in Africa) have since ascended to the spirit world.