True Mother’s Message
December 5, 1993
Abuja, Nigeria
Interpreted into English by Peter Kim
This is the first time for members on the continent of Africa to have pledge service together with True Parents. There is a tradition in True Family of sharing some food together after pledge. Most of the True Children are in the New York area. With or without True Parents, they all, including the grandchildren, do gyeongbae together. In that way three generations—the parents, the children and the grandchildren—are making their pledge to God. Sharing a snack or treat after pledge service sets a condition that not just the generations of the True Family but all things participate in doing pledge service with God. In that way, the entire universe unites to offer joy and happiness to God. That is the tradition of Unification Church. Have you done the same thing every Sunday?
I am wondering if anyone is meeting me in person for the first time. Everybody is a blessed couple, right? You are blessed?
[Yes, by satellite.]
We call you satellite children. In Japan, we call people who joined after watching video tapes “video children.” Now those who were blessed by satellite we call “satellite blessed couples.” This is a very exciting thing. This is a part of Unification Church culture.
Suppose all five billion people in this world were to gather and celebrate like this with True Parents. How happy we would be! In fact, when the entire world can join in the celebration, Father and Mother will have to pick one particular place to be and then all the other countries will have to watch via satellite. Which country should receive True Parents to celebrate in person? What is your wish?
[Nigeria!]
How big is the population of Nigeria?
[One hundred million.]
The responsibility is on your shoulders to restore all of them. How many years do you need to complete that mission? How long has it been since the missionaries came 5 to Nigeria?
[Nineteen years.]
How many members are there now?
[Four hundred eighty.]
To restore all one hundred million people, how many more years do you need? If you continue at this rate, it will take more than a century. Do you expect True Parents to be alive a century from now? You know how old Father is now. Don’t you think Father will have to enter the spirit world some day?
I understand that those missionaries who came from Germany, Japan and America went through severe hardships and difficulties because of people’s varying lifestyles and habits. In the history of Unification Church, we had much difficulty in the early days. The pioneer history of each nation contains almost the same stories. Each country had its own difficulty in the beginning stages of the movement. However, as the number of our mission countries increases and as our foundation gets stronger and our membership grows, such difficulties are reduced.
Father knew all such the situations in detail. Father was particularly concerned missionaries who were going through hardship and ordeals. Therefore, Father devoted himself to initiating many projects to make an external foundation upon which you can stand, to make a base which you can use to shorten the time of world restoration. The victorious foundation of True Parents helps you do your work and strengthen your foundation. Father has been devoting himself to set the external conditions for your sake.
As my speech explained, after World War II was the providential time for all humankind to receive Father. Yet, Christian leaders worldwide failed to recognize Father as the Lord of the Second Coming. Therefore, all the conditions prepared by God were lost. Father had no choice but to climb up from the bottom again. One step at a time, he had to lay the foundation to proclaim himself as the Lord of the Second Coming and True Parents of humankind. During these forty years, Satan has tried every possible way of persecuting Father to stop him from being able to lay a strong enough foundation to win the victory. Satan opposed Father on the national and worldwide levels. Father focused on Christianity in America. On the Foundation of national victory which father achieved in Korea, Father and Mother came to America and spent the last twenty years working in America to lay the worldwide foundation.
Mother Visits Nigeria
By Missionary Kathy Rigney, then National Leader of Nigeria
Part 1
Mother arrived in Abuja, Nigeria on December 4, 1993 for the twenty-ninth stop on her tour. It was Mother’s third stop in Africa (after Cairo and Nairobi) and the second city in Black Africa, which True Parents were visiting for the first time.
Because of the first time nature of this visit we were all extremely anxious about how well we could receive Mother and what would be her first impression.
We had already come to experience some of the most unbelievable extremes of unpredictability during our preparations in this nation of a hundred million. In just three months we had seen Nigeria’s government change hands twice. In August down a military leader had decided to step down from power even as our delegation stood waiting outside to see him. In November again, the interim civilian president was politely told to resign by another general, fifteen minutes after meeting our promising Women’s Federation delegation and promising to receive True Parents officially in Nigeria.
One minute we were focusing much of our witnessing on the six hundred members of the National Assembly and their staff who lived in Abuja and were very attracted by the support offered by the Senate Majority Leader—a frequent participant in the Assembly of the World Religions (AWR) meetings. The next moment, the National Assembly was dissolved and its members were disbursed back to their home states.
Despite all this unbelievable chaos, we saw God work miracles to bring some of most high level influential people in society to Abuja. An Emir (a traditional ruler) contacted us from the far north and asked if he could come. A blind prophet who leads a million-member evangelical mission and is popular for his healing powers called on the phone to say God had told him to go to Abuja and asked if he could have an invitation.
Most striking of all was that it became clearer to all of us that Father’s own foundation has spread even to the most remote corners of the country. People everywhere said they had heard of Father’s work and showed serious respect for it. In one state a witnesser was escorted into the governor’s office by an enthusiastic advisor who had already attended Mother’s speech in America. In another city a British professor publicly threatened to disrupt Mother’s meeting, but in the end more professors came to attend Mother’s speech from her university than from any other.
On the wings of the storm
Mother’s flight from Nairobi arrived in Lagos on the heels of a huge thunderstorm that produced a deluge only over the area around the international and national airports, causing flooding and delaying flights. Mother’s party was met by the head of airport protocol, who escorted her party to the presidential pavilion at the local airport where we were to board a specially chartered jet to take us to Abuja.
Reports and songs were offered over snacks in the lounge. Unfortunately, half of Mother’s luggage was left behind in Nairobi and wouldn’t arrive until the following evening. Mother must have been disappointed, but she did not show it. Despite the all-day trip across Africa and now through the confusion of Lagos, she seemed to look forward with enthusiasm to her appointment in Abuja.
“A-bu-ja, A-bu-ja, A-bo-ji,” she joked on the way up to Nigeria’s capital city. Several limousines with a police escort supplied by the Nigerian government were waiting for Mother’s party at the Abuja airport, ready to take her to the Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel, the most beautiful hotel in the country.
Even in the warm tropical night, Christmas lights flickered on the trees that lined the entrance-way of the hotel.
“You must miss Christmas in America,” Rev. Kwak commented to me. I said, “Rev. Kwak, today is Christmas in Nigeria because Christ, True Parents, have come.” It was truly better than any Christmas anyone could imagine. Here at long last was our precious Mother in our midst in the heart of Africa, a moment most of us had longed for since 1975.
The next morning, missionaries and national representatives from more than a dozen countries gathered in Mother’s suite for pledge. Mother spoke for a short time afterward and shared some fruit with everyone.
To be concluded next week…