Father Speaks to the Foreign Missionaries on his 60th Birthday

[Charles Kamins]

World Conference 1980

Sun Myung Moon
February 25, 1980

You missionaries were dispatched to your mission fields approximately five years ago. Since that time in 1975, I have been praying and wishing you success. After five years, we gather here together in this auditorium to see that we have made some progress. We must thank God for the prosperity.

I know you have also been praying. You have met me in your prayer. You have been looking forward to the day when you could come to mission headquarters to meet me. That dream has now become a reality. Yet now, what do you feel?

There is inevitably some confusion when we meet as such a large group. For example, some of you undoubtedly feel very happy, yet others feel somewhat hurt and disturbed. Yet, you don't know how I feel. On top of that, you don't know how God feels. All these components come together and create mixed emotions.

I would like to hear some vivid experiences of the missions. I would like to know how you have been struggling, and how you have won the victory in your own mission area. Your report will be the record of suffering for the sake of God. You may have been imprisoned; you were mistreated; you were persecuted; you shed tears; you even may have had to run away from the eyes of the authorities.

But then, who knows more about suffering than I do? If I have any field of expertise, it is the field of suffering. I would never get tired of listening to you. I want to hear everything that you have to say.

The first thing you must describe in your report is how difficult it is to have different people with different cultural backgrounds gather together to live one common life. You must have had to overcome very many cultural barriers; there was one American, one Japanese and one German, each thinking differently on the basis of his own upbringing and standard. That in itself is already history-making. No one can find at any time in human history that three people from such contrasting cultures as Japan, America and Germany came together and tried to pursue a common purpose and goal. Why? To save a country and a people. It is a virtually impossible task, yet backing you was an organization and a leader who believed it could be done.

During this process of working together, you naturally exposed your entire weaknesses. That is the process you have gone through for five years. One goal of sending you out five years ago was that you gain eternally important instructive material through your living experiences.

I was hoping that as soon as you reached the mission field you would be faced with enormous persecution and suffering. Then you would have had absolutely no time to worry about internal difficulties. You would simply have had to unite and face the situation.

Perhaps you feel that Germans have such incredible power, trying to grab everything and pursue everything in their own way so strongly. You may feel they are the most stubborn people you have ever seen. Or perhaps you just cannot stand the American brother; although he is always smiling and saying "OK" to everything and seemingly doing so well, inside you feel he is proud and arrogant. Maybe you sense that he considers himself a first citizen of the world, and you hate this about him. Or you may feel that it's the Japanese who is not very special; you hate that little Japanese guy. He is too small to walk fast; you could just blow him over; yet he feels that just because he came to the movement first he should be Abel, and he clings to that position.

Why are you all laughing? Yes, these three characters I have described may be impossible to unite. But God determined to make the three become one.

There is only one secret, one way to become one. Simply try to serve each other. That attitude alone can make people unite. When you try to do that with a person you don't like, then you come to feel the heart of God. You will know how much anguish His heart has felt. A great moment is born then, because you can tell God that through your own experience you realize how hard it is for Him to restore His own children. You can tell Heavenly Father that since you yourself tasted the depth of anguish in His heart, you want to become His son who can comfort Him.

The second difficulty you had to face was that of language and communication, and differences of culture and way of life.

Describe in your report how difficult these barriers of language and culture and custom are.

Thirdly, report all the spiritual phenomena that you and the members of your native country have experienced during the last five years. Maybe you have had visions of Father and Mother, where they came and embraced you, speaking softly to you and shedding tears with you at a time of utmost difficulty. Many members have experienced this direct kind of comfort coming from Father.

Also, report how much you invested in devotional prayer for the sake of one person. You should record the vivid experiences of giving your entire heart and soul and mind in prayer for the sake of saving that one person.

Lastly, record the concept with which you went to your mission field. You came as the forefather or Abraham of your nation. How full was your realization of this concept? When you are the forefather of a nation, you have to look at everything from a responsible point of view, deciding in what direction you want to steer your country.

Cultures revolve just as a day revolves, with God's blessings being shared by every civilization. Therefore, in the history of God, you don't have any reason to complain if another culture is dominant. Your turn is coming, so if it is the time of blessing for another culture right now, just think, "This is your turn, so go ahead and enjoy it."

Right now the white culture is leading modern civilization and dominating the world. But that civilization will definitely decline with the dawn of a new civilization led by the yellow culture. So white and yellow will alternate, and then it will go on to the black culture. It will not stay there, but go on to the Spanish people, then come back to the white race, and so forth.

Have you ever tried to imagine the kind of conversation a sparrow might have with a swallow, who moves from north to south according to the season? The sparrow must stay in one place all year round, so he may say, "Mr. Swallow, even though you enjoy the long trip back and forth, you have never experienced the ecstatic joy of living and eating in the snow! You poor thing." In the same way, the swallow might reply, "But Mr. Sparrow, did you ever see that dark crimson and green of the jungle on a summer's night? Do you know the beauty of the vines and the hot ocean? It is you who doesn't know anything about the taste of life."

Everything has strong and weak points, and everybody finds a certain portion of excitement, whatever his course. I am telling you this because you Unification Church members should appreciate your lives, enjoying everything in the entire world. Sometimes you have the privilege to go north to the cold country, and sometimes you have the privilege to go south, where it is hot all year round. Because we don't recognize the boundary of races, we travel everywhere, Europe, America and on to the Orient. The world is our stage. We can taste God's creation in its entirety. How privileged we are!

The way we live will give rise to the artistic masterpieces of the future. Imagine a scene where a beautiful white American woman with a black African husband holds her child to her breast to feed him. A masterpiece portrait can be created from a scene like that. In the future you will see this kind of contrasting, harmonized beauty appearing more and more in the world of art. Wherever this way of life is practiced, there will be a dynamic, harmonized culture.

When you consider the world's population, there are far more black and yellow people than white people. I am telling you this because I want you to realize where Christian missionaries have gone wrong in the past. Although in the minority, white missionaries have gone to black, yellow and Spanish countries assuming supremacy over the native people. It is very important that our missionaries do not make this mistake. I'm sure in your countries there are many Catholic and Protestant missions, where the white missionaries have built their own white culture around them. Unification foreign missionaries must not separate themselves from the people by creating this kind of fence.

You are dwelling in a culture which has its own unique qualities. So you must embrace the differences. Now can you see how important it is to change your outlook'? I am not saying that the American culture is all bad, but I am trying to justify the other cultures. When you can see the pros and cons of both high and low places you will be able to appreciate the depth and harmony of any culture at a glance. The Unification Church way of life involves the integration of every culture.

By now, you definitely know your countries and can speak their language. I knew that after you persevered for four years under such circumstances, I would be able to travel anywhere in the world. It wouldn't make any difference how backward the country was or how many dialects were spoken. I would always have an interpreter. Now your goal and dream should be to quickly learn Korean. The native language of your country should already be so automatic to you that when I am invited to your mission country, you will be able to hear me directly and interpret my words into local languages. What an incredibly beautiful scene that would be!

You can create a language school and teach English, German, Japanese and any other languages you may know. If you want to create such a school, all of you foreign missionaries will need to support each other. What we initiate may look small and trivial at first, but it will become important. Each country should operate a school, whatever the form. A language school is probably the best.

Rev. Won Pil Kim has become a wanderer, going through Europe and the Scandinavian countries. He has visited America and Brazil. I asked him, "What would you like to do at your age?" He told me that he wanted to be a pioneer missionary, in Brazil or some other country. I felt very good that this man who has been following me longer than anybody else did not feel the urge to settle down, but instead wanted to go out on a pioneer mission.

People normally think that if your wife and family are in Korea, for example, you would like to get back to them. Yet that is not the way Rev. Kim feels. Then I asked him to come to be a foreign missionary to New York. Here he is trying to unite and make himself available to the American leaders. He never tells me what he himself is doing, but rather what the others are doing. He is trying to become a part of the whole instead of trying to have the whole come to him. That is the right way of thinking.

That is how I am thinking of you, trying to be helpful. Instead of having the missionaries help me, I want to help them. When I hear how in the mission country the missionaries and native people together are trying to promote a tremendous crusade in their country, I feel good. I have such a parental heart; instead of being boastful and proud of myself, I would rather want to be proud of my own children. I would like to say what was great about someone else's work.

Thinking about his own children going out to suffer, no parent is comfortable. I feel the same. But for the sake of righteousness and for the sake of the mission, we just have to do it. I have given you tough words and a horrendous mission. I ordered you to suffer more. All these instructions go out to you with my tears. That is why they are holy and precious. How many of you have cried in your mission, longing for me? I shed a lot of tears after sending you out.

I want to conclude that what you have done during these five years has been to suffer. You have been setting a record and tradition.

It is almost a motto of the Unification Church to do your absolute best, and then come and say, "I am not really adequate to take up the mission, but you know I am doing it, Father. Have mercy upon me and let me do more." That is the attitude of a genuine Unification Church member. When you do that, God cannot help but come upon you and embrace you, saying, You are truly my son, and I love you."

You can even say to God, "Please don't worry about me. This son is all right, and will go on without your having to worry about him. Help that brother or sister in Africa or South America who needs you so much." Still God will be drawn to go after you, saying, "My son, I want to be with you and to love you."

When you see a laborer, remember that I was also once a laborer. When you see a farmer, remember that I also was once a farmer. When you see a beggar, remember that at one time I was also a beggar; don't mistreat him; treat him as a great human being, as you treat me. By serving people and reassuring them, let them feel that you truly deserve Abel's role, and let them give you the birthright willingly and happily.

This kind of horizontal and vertical love together goes beyond the realm of the spirit world. Once you taste that love and are disciplined by it, you will be intoxicated. No one will be able to measure up to your personality and character or be able to subtract anything from you. It doesn't make any difference whether you go to jail or even to the guillotine. Even if you are tortured and blood is dripping from your body, thank God that you could shed your blood for such a noble and sacred purpose. Remember that you are shedding the same blood that Jesus shed on the cross and that St. Peter and St. Paul shed in Rome.

This morning, when I told you to suffer more, I was referring to feeling the heart of God. Everything hinges and centers upon how much you can give the love of God to your nation, mission field and people. When you can bring that love alive, all the food and vegetables in your country will want to be eaten by you missionaries.

It is their honor to be eaten by a godly man or woman.

Think of it. God created nature everywhere. No matter where you go, you will always find nature. When God saw that the natives of all lands had interaction with the land, how happy and delighted He was. How God took delight in the creation of man! You should connect your heart to this heart of God that takes joy in the creation.

When I want fellowship with nature, I am actually making fellowship with God. I just reassure God that I love Him, and that the love of God is flowing upon me. That becomes a tremendously intense moment of the fellowship of the love of God.

If you missionaries had truly stayed in that state of mind, communicating with God, by now you would have become saints. You would have been dwelling on that spiritual plateau a long time ago. Not only in your own village and town, but at the farthest corners of your country and continent, everybody shall praise that true love through you. They will come for fellowship with God through you. In that respect, you are truly the mediator between God and man. Have you been living that kind of life as a foreign missionary?

I wish so much that we could strengthen our ranks, but there is such a long way to go before that will actually happen. Until his armor is ready, the champion cannot be ready either. Ultimately, we must become the personification of God, making love the supreme power in our lives. As we become more loving, humble and meek, we will be able to conquer the people with love.

You are not necessarily a well-educated individual, yet this one teaching of the Principle gives you understanding. You fulfill a great purpose for every nation of the world without their even knowing it. You blocked the room for accusation from the entire spirit world, not just for this present time but for the future. No nation's spiritual world can accuse me for not sending anybody to its people. The spiritual world has come to depend upon us, and at the same time they are working desperately to make your mission successful in their own country. Do you think it was a good and righteous and honorable thing for me to send you out to suffer for five years? I feel that the time has now come when those people who have been adamantly and violently opposing you will surrender to you. Until 1988, the external world shall still be plagued with upheavals and problems, but it will calm down and become more organized.

When we reach 1988, I will lift all limitations. At that time it won't even be necessary for you to do Home Church or witness.

The time will come when everybody will want to do witnessing, and everybody will want to have 360 homes. But there will be no more homes to distribute. There will be a time when everyone will want to do fundraising, but there will not be a necessity for it any longer. Still people will want to do more. When that day comes, it will be precious.

At that time, people will read the new Acts of the Apostles. The records and testimonies of suffering and victories will become a book. Everybody who reads it will say that he too wants to go through this suffering. Yet at that time, there will be no more chance to suffer.

There is so much distance to cover. As you look at the future and capture this vision, you begin to realize just what a difficult task this will be. If you only look at your own position and say how tired you are, then you take on a defeatist attitude. You are in the wilderness. If you stop your march in the wilderness, you will die. You should persevere and hang on, despite anything that comes.

If there is a place for suffering, claim it as yours. Is there a place where somebody needs to be sacrificed? Volunteer to go there. That is the kind of men and women God protects. Do you missionaries just want to stay here all the time, or do you want to get back to your mission? You have been fearful, but are you confident that you can overcome?

The final word to you is to be bold and strong. Joshua and Caleb, succeeding Moses' mission of pulling all the people of Israel into Canaan, were bold and strong. You are now at the threshold of Canaan; be bold and strong!

From the Book 40 Years in America, Edited by Michael Inglis

[Kevin Winter]

Thank you for this, Charlie!

[Pamela Stein]

One more thing Charlie, do you still have your winery? My nephew is getting married in Livermore in August, and I'd like to give him a case of Blessed Wine -- mixed red and white -- with a personalized label. Can you do that? The lable would read "Scott and Sarah Currington, Blessed in Marriage August 8, 2010" or something like that. Can I do business with you on this? Let me know, my personal email is [e-mail]. Many warm greetings to your wifey-poo

[Pamela Stein]

Charlie, the last time I heard of Nancy, she was living in Arizona and I think was working with Phillip Burley. I can get his contact info if you want. Nancy took my Congo-Brazzaville testimony (where I originally went in 1975) and edited it for Today's World April 1981 issue. I have a copy of that to this day. The original testimony was 28 pages long, and I kept that copy. I typed it up in Kinshasa Zaire where I went after I got out of prison in Brazzaville.

I'm writing alot these days, very serious about it. I'm enrolled in the UCLA Online Writer's Program for Creative Non-Fiction. It's a certification course. I've learned alot. Larry Moffitt and I have created a partnership called Stein-Moffitt Writing Service, and we specialized in memoir and biographies. We work as a team. We are just getting started, but it's what we both want to do fulltime so we do this part-time until we can do it fulltime. I'm psyched! Hope you find your missing testimony. That is such a bad rap! You remember the CB watches that Father gave out to those who went to prison during the mission? Well, it took 14 years for that watch to find me! I was living at Aetna Springs when I got a call from Yoshia telling me there was a watch on the shelf with my name on it. That it was the only one left. I mean, really. Anyway I keep that watch safe because it's engraved.

[Charles Kamins]

Pam : It's just as well you didn't send in your testimonial since, apparently, the World Mission Department lost the ones that were submitted. Or that's what I've been able to determine in researching the matter thus far. The story is that they were entered onto a computer that was either lost or stolen. I've been trying to track down Nancy Neiland because if anyone would know, it would be her. The one person who I thought for certain would know her whereabouts, Claire Bowles, hasn't heard from her for six years. If you have any idea of where she might be, I'd appreciate it if you could let me know. I'd be fascinated to read what I'd turned in 28 years ago (has it really been that long?). But I keep thinking that, one of these days I'll start writing. I'm pretty sure there will never be a time when I've got lots of time on my hands so maybe I should just start. Anyway, nice to hear from you. Please deliver my best wishes to Danny.

[Pamela Stein]

Charlie! This is so precious! Wow, it brings back so many memories. I tried writing my Zaire story after this meeting, but because I had a public position at that time I didn't have the time I needed. I have it in my files, half way done. How to remember those days? ARGH

[Robert Williamson]

great photo and inspiring
thanks Charles for "rediscovering" all this material

[Charles Kamins]

This is another remarkable speech from Father. Part of why I find it so amazing is that this is the speech in which Father asks the missionaries to write our testimony after five years in the field. Anybody remember this?

I would like to hear some vivid experiences of the missions. I would like to know how you have been struggling, and how you have won the victory in your own mission area. Your report will be the record of suffering for the sake of God. You may have been imprisoned; you were mistreated; you were persecuted; you shed tears; you even may have had to run away from the eyes of the authorities. But then, who knows more about suffering than I do? If I have any field of expertise, it is the field of suffering. I would never get tired of listening to you. I want to hear everything that you have to say.