Dramatic changes began on January 17, 1975, when I received a letter informing me that I am a candidate for the Blessing on February 8 in Korea. Father has been talking for several months about a Blessing. Rumors of a Blessing appear periodically. My trinity of co-workers at HSA Publications in Washington, D.C. began a 21-day prayer condition.
I call my parents, after deliberation. Perhaps my mother has been receiving revelations. Last December she asked, "Aren’t you going to Korea soon?" Today she says she was expecting a call from me. They talk about how they expected that their children would someday get married. The catch is that I don’t yet know who the husband will be. My father says he would be happy if I brought someone home, said I loved him and wanted to marry him. But since I don’t know who it will be, they worry. I ask my father to lend me travel money.
Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Honolulu, Tokyo and finally Kimpo Airport, near Seoul Korea. It is about 9:00 p.m. on February 3. After clearing customs, about 100 American Unification Church members walk out of the airport to face floodlights and Koreans singing "Tong-Il." By bus we ride through Seoul toward the village of Sutaek-Ri. There are no street lights, but street vendors cook over open fires. We wave, and some people wave back. Soldiers with machine guns guard major intersections.
Buses careen down the narrow streets of Sutaek-Ri toward our church’s training center next to the Il Hwa ginseng factory. High above, Orion watches over us here as well as at home. We enter a hall, pray and receive dormitory assignments. I pray outside, and a man taps me on the shoulder and says, "It’s too cold; you must go in."
Dawn has wakened. Back at the training center, David Kim warms up the crowd of Americans and Europeans in anticipation of Father’s arrival. He counsels a humble attitude. He urges us to accept Father’s first choice, but if we cannot, to humbly decline and ask for another chance.
At 10:45 Father appears and welcomes us to Korea. He says that he matches people for harmoniousness, and he promises that we will uncover that harmony in at least three years. At 1:30 p.m. Father announces, "At 3:00 the matches will begin." People pick at the plates of rice, hamburger and vegetables in the dining hall, but no one seems very hungry.
For the matching, Father has candidates line up facing the center aisle, sisters on the right and brothers on the left. People seem to avoid staring across the aisle. The oldest candidates are matched first and shown to a small consultation room. They set the examples by returning quickly and bowing their acceptance. Afterwards, they go outside to become acquainted.
Father studies each pair before motioning them to the consultation room. He paces up and down, humming to himself. Candidates laugh nervously.
When Father announces a dinner break, I reflect on why I came to Korea. I put aside preconceived ideas and focus on Father. Fewer people re-enter the matching room. Father looks right at me several times and then motions to me and points to the consultation room. I look across the aisle and see a tall, young man. Inside the room we look at each other and discover that we are total strangers. We say our names. After some silence, I ask, "Can you think of any reason why we should refuse Father’s suggestion?" He shakes his head. We come out, wait for Father to finish selecting another couple, bow, shake hands with leaders, and sign the register.
We part to get our things. Then I cannot find him. I look all over, wondering whether I remember how he looks. Finally we find each other. "Have you been to Holy Ground?" I ask. On the way we talk about small things. There we kneel and pray. Returning to the training center John asks, "What kind of person are you?"
Father decided to hold the engagement and holy wine ceremonies that night. He had expected the matching of Western couples to take three days, but it took only about six hours to match 107 couples. A great spiritual warmth fills me, like a garment which dissolves and penetrates my skin and becomes part of my blood. We receive the wine from President Young Whi Kim. I receive the cup, drink the contents and replace it in the container. Then I pick up another cup and hand it with both hands to John, who takes it with both hands, drinks and passes it back to me for returning to the tray. Father and Mother sit on the platform, watching.
From the Monday of our matching to the Saturday of the public Blessing ceremony, the days are quiet and cold. John and I talk about our relationship with God, our life of faith, our church missions. He joined in California and has been working at a printing company with other church members; I joined in Washington, D.C., and have been working for the publications department there.
Japanese and Western couples gather around a bonfire and sing. Groups rehearse for the wedding reception. Rings are fitted, engagement photos taken. We take snapshots, listen to other couples’ stories. At times we retire to our bunk beds to hem the wedding dresses and slips, and to write letters, or just close our eyes for a while.
Visits to the local bathhouse offer the chance for long soaks in hot water and hand laundry. I am grateful that Father chose a husband whom I can respect, like and feel comfortable with. Each night before retiring we pray together. On Friday night John formally asks me to marry him and I say yes. John offers a beautiful and deep prayer and asks, "Are you happy?" "I have never been happier," I reply, and then ask if he is happy. He says he is.
The couples line up outside the gymnasium. We are the front couple in row #29 -- couple #1653 out of 1800. The temperature is -8 degrees centigrade. I eventually lose feeling in my hands and feet. The Japanese couples around us sing "Shiawasate" and the "Little Angels Song." Every now and then a Korean comes by and smiles in sympathy.
The ceremony begins at 10:00 with representatives of each participating nationality carrying flags of their nations. Finally, it’s our turn to enter the hall, marching two couples abreast through the 24 elders dressed in white robes. Slowly we approach the steps to the platform where True Parents are sprinkling the holy water. I grab my skirt to climb the steps to the platform, but the fabric slips out of my numb hands. Tripping, I begin to go down. John pulls me along at the relentless pace of the procession, and the purse under my arm that contains John’s wedding ring falls down.
Finally, we make it past True Parents and down to line 29. Pain claws at my thawing feet. I cry, both out of pain and out of frustration at losing the ring. I wonder if John will forgive me. Cameramen are watching us. I apologize to John and try to explain in pantomime to a Korean about the lost purse.
Father reads the four Blessing vows in Korean, and we answer "Yea."
The Korean newspaper reports 891 Korean couples, 797 Japanese couples, 76 U.S. couples, 35 European couples, and 2 Taiwanese couples.
The couples pile into our buses for our symbolic honeymoon tour through Seoul. On each seat is a large boxed sponge cake. On our seat is my purse, containing the lost ring. During the pantomime to the Korean usher I gave him a slip of paper with our couple number. Apparently when they found the purse they left it on the seat for us. Neither John nor I eat much; I am too thirsty for cake. We stop at a mountain lookout, and John buys me a Pepsi.
We are told to smile and wave, "to multiply our Blessing to the people of Korea." I get a little dizzy waving my hand side to side and watching the surroundings fly by.
Finally we are deposited at the training center to change into our reception clothes and eat our only meal of the day.
The Chang Chung Gymnasium is also the site of the reception. Professional Korean musicians perform. The Little Angels dance. Various Western groups sing. Americans offer a skit portraying a very tall American visiting Korea. We sing "Come and Go With Me to That Land" and conclude with a canon combining "Arirang" and "Tong-Il." Cheers and clapping rise from the stands as we begin each new round.
The remainder of the evening passes in a blur. The buses return us to Sutaek-Ri and we walk two miles or so to the training center in the dark. I bump into a concrete block on the edge of the road and hurt my shin.
We now live in John’s hometown and have two lovely children.
From 40 Years in America, pp. 192-96.
