Mike Leone, “With Father in the Early Days”

Father and Mother, Mrs. Choi, David S. C. Kim, Neil Salonen and myself went downtown shopping at a large department store to buy gifts for some members. As we walked into the department store, Father walked up to a large mannequin. He shook her hand and said, in English, "How are you today?" We all rolled with laughter. It’s not easy to convey, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

*

Father was examining a building we were considering buying in downtown Los Angeles. We went through this large building, floor by floor, with two well-dressed men representing the owner. Father walked through the building quickly and did not say a word to the two men. Then we arrived in the basement, the boiler room. There was a man who was the only one working in the whole building, because it was vacated. He was covered with grease, as if he’d been there 20 years. Father went up to the man, introduced himself, and proceeded to talk to him for over an hour, asking questions about the building. He never addressed the owner’s representatives at all. When I thought about it later, I thought it made a lot of sense.

*

When Father first started the seven-city speaking tour, I was there the night that he announced he would do it and we did not believe. After one or two cities were done, he returned to Upshur House and he and Col. Pak met all night, until 4 am. I was doing security and kept serving them cold drinks. Then at last they got up and we went out to Dr. Pak’s Volkswagen van, and he drove away and we waved goodbye to him. Father looked up in the sky and said to me, "It’s late, let’s go to bed." We went in to bed. Later, I realized that Father had been talking to Dr. Pak about giving up his job and serving as Father’s interpreter. Dr. Pak had agreed that night.

*

When True Parents arrived in America, they had very little clothing. True Father had one ill-fitting suit and a beaten up belt. True Mother had two blouses to her name. Mrs. Choi had no western clothes. Betsy Jones had to beg for $800 to buy them new clothes. True Parents slept in a small bedroom and used an adjacent room for sitting. Here Father would conduct his business, plan his speaking tour, lead pledge service and have get togethers. He would eat in the basement or in the room near the door. He shared with all of us. I picked up Rev. Kamiyama at the airport when he first came from Japan. The first bus team was started out of this house, led by Miss Young Oon Kim and Dr. Joseph Sheftick. The first fundraising team started here, connected with Upper Marlboro. It was amazing when someone made $50 in one day.

*

When he was here, one brother and I set up appointments with senators and congressmen to meet an important evangelist from Korea. We met Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, Trent Lott, about thirty in all. I drove Father and Mother with Mr. Salonen to the Hill. Father always told them the message about the two thieves on the cross, representing democracy and communism. He told them that communism would surely fall; this was 1972. And he would tell them that he would spearhead the effort to overcome communism. He told them of the other two headaches of God, and that he would spearhead the effort to help the youth overcome drugs, and to unify Christianity. After 20 or 30 minutes, he would take pictures with them and give them ginseng tea and be off.

The night before Father met President Nixon, we prayed a long time at the holy ground and then drove around the White House seven times.

From 40 Years in America, p. 56.

Mary Cloutier Yasuda, “He invested everything, gave everything and persevered no matter what people did”

We were called to attend Father’s speech at Madison Square Garden (September 18, 1974). When our team arrived, we couldn’t go inside. After a while some people got up and left, so we were finally able to go in. The victory of True Father was not the fact that the hall was packed. It was something different. When I saw my beloved Father, the Messiah, I was shocked. He was investing everything and people were sleeping. People walked out in the middle of his speaking. I saw someone carrying on a conversation with the spiritual world. I was shocked by the audience. Some people were listening besides our members. The atmosphere was so terrible, though, people couldn’t hear or receive his words. His victory, in my opinion, was that he invested everything, gave everything and persevered no matter what people did.

From 40 Years in America, p. 100.

Laura Taylor Hayashi, “Pioneering America in the early 70s”

The first Day of Hope tour was starting, and we heard the news that True Parents would stop in Iowa City, which was a four-hour drive away. We made urgent preparations. At that time Rev. and Mrs. Moon were not called our "True Parents." We called Father "Master." I remember seeing a formal picture of them, and thinking it was too intimate for me to look at! He was touching Mother’s shoulder.

Members from as far as Tennessee came. Their state leader came wearing a turban (he is not Indian) and playing a sitar! It would be our only chance during the tour to see True Parents and most of us had never seen them. We felt very fortunate. We invited all kinds of crazy guests, whom we had just met.

We were all so young, and had a zeal for witnessing. Including the new IOWC teams that had arrived in the United States, there were no more than 800 members in the whole country. Yet at that moment we felt so large. There couldn’t have been 40 people in that humble house. I remember I was shocked that Mother wore pants. I caught myself right away; I wondered what I had expected her to wear? The thought must have come from some spiritual influence. David Kim was in fine form, dancing all around with great excitement to translate for Father. Father had to trounce him, with a smack of his hand a few times, especially when he jumped up on a chair, higher than Father, to explain a point. David Kim didn’t seem to mind at all, it was funny and warm.

Father asked for questions, and we were so embarrassed with some of the strange questions that were asked by these guests. One asked why it wasn’t okay to smoke. Another asked about people from other planets. I groaned inside, grateful that they weren’t my guests.

But Father replied with so much love, and so wisely. He said, "When we have solved all the problems of this planet, then we will worry about life on other planets." How grateful I felt to be with our "Master." Then he initiated some games, which we played into the night. Yute was one of them. We laughed and were all squashed in together. I can’t imagine where we all slept, but in fact, we didn’t sleep at all. We kind of sat in a corner of the hallway, with bunches of others. No one minded at all.

*

In the early times, Father wanted to visit the members, and there was no money and no internal education about attendance. He would often just have to stay in cramped quarters together with our members. The One World Crusade (OWC) had just been changed to the International One World Crusade (IOWC), and what a mess it was with different languages and cultures, all traveling around together.

And of course, not much money. In one such place, there was only two bedrooms, one for brothers and one for sisters. And one toilet, which was between the two rooms. Well, Father had gone into the bathroom, and might have fallen asleep, because when he came out, he was sort of disoriented. He went into the wrong room -- the sisters room! It was morning, and everyone was half awake, in various stages of dress or undress. The tendency in this world is that a lady would scream, in such a situation, but this was our True Father! It is the joy of an original child to see their parent anytime. Thank God for one sister, who in her bra and pants marched up to Father, and said, "Good morning, Father!" He was happy. But of course, he left.

Another time, much later, we were a small group in Washington, D. C., after the Washington Monument Rally. True Parents came almost every week. It was intoxicating. They were filled with a kind of joy, which they wanted us to inherit. One time, Father was saying he had to go. I am sure he did have to go, but it also seems now that he wanted to stay more and share more with us. One sister stood up and said, "Father, please don’t go." He beamed. His heart had been received, and returned to him. Later, he spoke many times in many places about this event. How important it was that that sister had felt that way about him, and expressed it.

Another occasion during this same period, Father was trying to make the point of self-sacrifice. How when you love God, it is a joy to sacrifice and we want to take the bad things so others may have the good ones. He had been speaking like this for some time. Then he wanted a foil, and chose a sister in the front row to make the point. Now this sister had escaped from a communist country, and many of her family were suffering great hardships. They suffered both because she left, and because of shortages in her country.

But this sister was intoxicated with True Parents, and steadfast in her understanding of why she was with us, and how she would remain for their sake. Her English seemed good, but it must have been an interesting combination between her understanding and Father’s expressions. She was enraptured when Father asked her, "So, now what kind of food do you want?" She replied ecstatically, "Good food, Father!" He drew his whole body back. She was supposed to say, bad food.

He reassessed this situation. Again, directly with some force, very close to her face, he asked the same question. She replied exactly the same, and in the same manner. Father tried one more time, but he dissolved in laughter when she replied the same. He tousled her hair and grabbed her head. We were all laughing so much. He gave up. His speech took a whole new direction, one centering on joy. It was beautiful to behold.

From Forty Years in America, pp. 75-76.

John Williams, “An ancient torrent of feeling, power and authority was pouring through him”

When I first met Rev. Moon, I had been acquainted with the group for a few months. It was in Oakland, California, in 1973. I was 19, living with the members, working with them and studying the Principle. At one point, I understood the founder was coming to speak on the campus of UC Berkeley on the Day of Hope tour. Though I understood by then that he was held to be the Second Coming of the Messiah, my interest in him was more from the respect that my new friends showed him and less from theology. My days had been taken up with the practical day to day concerns of living with God and serving others. I knew that the sense of hope that made our community and enterprise possible was due to this Master Moon, but I didn’t think that much about him at that time.

On the day of attending Rev. Moon’s speech, we had had a regular day of flower selling, getting up early with my team, buying flowers at dawn and heading out to sell them business to business in a nearby neighborhood. We must have come home early and changed clothes, before heading out to the campus. The event was held in a campus auditorium of no small size. The place was becoming packed. I had performed some service that left me coming in just as it was about to begin. The only seat was in the very front row, directly below the lectern.

I don’t recall what preceded the speech, but I remember the mysterious Asian Master sitting off to the side. When he was introduced and stood up to speak, I naturally joined the faithful in vigorous applause. Rev. Moon began to speak passionately in Korean, his face, voice and gestures uninhibited, expressive, emotional and intense. I had never seen anyone express himself so explosively and urgently. His elastic face ran the gamut of child-like joy to heartbreaking anguish. His compact body was forcefully animated as he spoke of God’s purpose, His providence and the present age. I was struck by this sense that an ancient torrent of feeling, power and authority was pouring through him, like a mighty river through a narrow crevasse. What was coming through was much bigger than his body could contain or convey and the man was bursting with the intensity. It was almost too much to bear. I sat as tears rolled down my face.

Looking back I am reminded why he elicits so much loyalty. One wanted to help him, he seemed so burdened by the urgency of what the Almighty had put upon him to say and do.

From 40 Years in America, p. 127.

Yolanda Watanabe, “When he looked at himself”

I had the opportunity to attend the first international 40-day workshop in New York. At that time, we had the opportunity to meet Father in a very intimate way. One day we were all sitting tightly together in the living room of his little apartment at the New Yorker Hotel, sharing cheesecake with him.

Father gave us a chance to ask him questions—any question. I raised my hand, and Father picked me. I asked the question I had always asked to missionaries or elders of our church who came to Argentina. Everyone had tried to answer that question, but I could never feel completely satisfied with their answer. The question was, “Father, what was the exact moment in which Lucifer turned into Satan?”

Father became very serious, understood exactly what I was asking, and answered very simply, “When he looked at himself.” He went on to elaborate more, but honestly, I couldn’t focus on what he was saying after that, because behind those simple words there was a revelation being unfolded for me. I just knew exactly what he meant. Even today, those words carry a lesson that I need to learn again and again. I will treasure that experience forever.

From I Am in This Place, p. 16.

Susan Fefferman, “The extreme time in which we were living”

One morning, Father Moon talked about the extreme time in which we were living. He said there would be a need for martyrs (meaning people who loved God so much that, like the followers of Gandhi or the people who worked with Martin Luther King, they would be willing to go into dangerous situations and even risk death in order to help the cause of peace). I was sitting up front at his feet, and after I realized what he said, I wanted to dig a hole under me and escape. Die! I wasn’t ready for that. So I struggled with it all day long on the cold streets of New York.

Finally, that night I left my usual sleeping place and found the coldest place in the house. I needed a showdown with God. I wrote out all my fears and anger and confusion. I wrote them out, emptying myself of the struggle, with tears flowing until my eyes were nearly swollen shut. I could finally say with total conviction, “Heavenly Father, I give my life for Your cause. I will die if that is what You want me to do.” Then I felt Him answer me, “Now that you have given Me your life, you don’t have to die. Be a living offering.” The next morning I was back at Father Moon’s feet, listening with red, swollen eyes but with a big smile on my face.

From I Am in This Place, p. 7

Superintendent William Ephriam, “The spirit within me related to the spirit that was in him”

I had the pleasure to experience being in Rev. Moon’s presence at the Senate hearings in Washington, D.C., when many religious leaders were being persecuted for their beliefs. Reverend Moon happened to be one of them, and I was part of the religious freedom movement. After everyone else had testified, I noticed that over on the far side of the room, there was a stirring, and a gentleman was led in whom I could not see well. As he sat and read his testimony, men all over the room began to cry, including me. Hardcore Baptists and staunch Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and even men who had no religious faith of any kind, began to cry because of the sincerity that came through as Reverend Moon testified.

We went out in that great hallway, and I was standing there as Reverend Moon came out. The news media was crowding around him, snapping pictures. We were about ten to fifteen feet away as he passed us. He stopped and paused for a moment, looked at me and pointed saying, “I need you!”

He poured into my mind everything that he was about. I understood immediately that he loved Jesus, he loved America, he loved people, he loved God. The spirit within me related to the spirit that was in him.

From I Am in This Place, p. 33.

Richard Francis, “Father Moon touched my right hip”

As a young church member, I was always curious as to whether Father Moon could heal people. Then in 1982, I got the answer through a direct experience. I had injured my right hip during a martial arts training accident one Saturday afternoon and had to be carried out. I did not want to go to the hospital, because I did not want to miss our early 5:00 A M service, even though I was in excruciating pain. “I will see a doctor after service,” I thought.

But during the night Father Moon came to me, looking very serious, and touched my right hip. He pointed his finger at me with that look in his eyes, as if to say, “You doubting Thomas,” and then he left. I was awakened at 4:30 AM, and my thoughts went to my injured hip. Suddenly, a voice said, “Get up,” which I apprehensively did. To my amazement there was not an inkling of pain. Everyone was shocked when I walked into the room. After service I gave my testimony.

From I Am in This Place, p. 14.