by Christian Lepelletier-Sao Paulo, Brazil
The morning of October 3 rd 1998, one group of Korean National Messiahs and local leaders and other representatives gathered at the 5th floor temple of the Brazil FFWPU HQ to celebrate the 11th Foundation Day of the Nations of the Unified World.
True Parents, accompanied by Young Jin and Hyung Jin, entered at 7 am to initiate the ceremony.
Rev Kwak called the name of the groups for the representative bows, then True Parents, standing and facing the audience, raised their arms and True Father offered the prayer. After they ate some food from the offerings on the altar, Father gave one piece of rice cake to Young Jin and Hyung Jin. Everybody joined in singing for the cake cutting.
Father then gave a speech in Korean for about two hours. He talked about many different topics; sometimes I could get some translations in Portuguese from Alejandro sitting in the back with a small group of Brazilians. History of restoration, Cain and Abel, Israel, Jesus, lineage, Christianity, globalization of the Blessing; Father mentioned the 5 declarations of Jardim, that the 40 days in Olimpo is compulsory for the Korean NM, etc.
Then Father sat on the floor and started to demonstrate some exercises. Rev Kim mentioned to him that the main temple was full of Brazilian members who had gathered from the Sao Paulo area. Some came from neighboring states, some started to come at 8am and they were singing and waiting for True Father speech. It was about 10:15 am then. Without breakfast Father asked to everybody to go down to the main temple.
Rev Kwak started to talk to the audience of 700 to 800 members with the translation into Portuguese by Alejandro. He explained the history and the significance of the Foundation Day of the Nation of the Unified World and gave an overview of the main providential events until today. The back was quite noisy with many children moving around. True Parents were patiently sitting on the stage and looking and waiting for the end of Rev Kwak speech.
At about 11:30 am, Father started the third speech of the morning, and he talked about basic principles, physical/spiritual, God/Man, Man/Woman, living for others, with many gestures and moving around and touching and hitting the translator to maintain the attention of the audience enduring the long hours since early morning. The doors were opened and we could smell the smoke and the odors of the meat cooking outside on the giant barbecue being prepared to feed the crowd for the late lunch.
The next program was the evening entertainment at 7 pm. True Parents came and were watching from the top balcony with the Korean NM. We could see and hear a diversity of artists, songs, dances, choirs, clowns, from the eastern and western culture, including the traditional Brazilian samba. At the end Hyung Jin sang a Spanish song, accompanied by Kurt at the guitar, with the audience standing and clapping.