I was born in Los Angeles, California in 1946. My ancestors were early pioneers of California from the 1800s and settled the land between Los Angeles and San Francisco. As I grew up, I wanted to become a missionary. I believed literally that God was my Father and I was His daughter. My life of faith was very real, and I talked to God daily about all sorts of issues. In February of my 21st year, I was "reborn in the holy spirit" in a little attic in Berkeley. I was visiting a friend of mine who was a re-born Christian. We were having an ongoing discussion about God and Jesus and how to live a life of faith, when my friend said, "Jesus taught that the purpose of life is to be loved by God and to return love to God. God is our Father. We are born to love each other. We are supposed to be God's family. We are actually all brothers and sisters." It was so simple, so beautiful. I cried as the Holy Spirit filled me 100 percent.
For days following I danced with happiness. At that time I was working in a hospital in Oakland, California. I said "I love you," to everyone I met, even to dogs and flowers and the food I ate. I hugged patients and their family members. I didn't want to go to sleep at night. Carrying that love was more precious to me than food or money or even my own family.
I was praying daily to know the will of God in my life, and how I could help God change the world. I opened the Bible each morning to any page randomly, and put my finger somewhere on the page. I opened my eyes and read the passage. That became my direction for the day. I studied any book I could find about the life of Jesus, and I felt genuine regret that I was 2,000 years too late in meeting him. I used to daydream that I was his follower. I imagined that I would make him sandwiches and make sure he had a place to stay at night. I cared for the people around me as if we were living with Jesus during his time on earth. I hoped and prayed that this was the time when the messiah could return, and I was a person prepared to follow him.
One morning in March 1968, I had stayed up all night typing a thesis paper for my college friend. I banged away on the manual typewriter until around 4:30 a.m. When I finally finished, I went outside to watch the sunrise. I was disappointed as the sky got lighter that there was no sun peeking over the horizon, just lots of clouds. As I watched the cloud formations, I thought that even if there were so many clouds, the sun was really shining behind the clouds. I was thinking that God is like the sun, always shining, and our lives on earth were restless like the clouds: unpredictable and shifting, sometimes cloudy, sometimes raining, sometimes just plain foggy. Yet the sun was always there.
It was a comforting early morning meditation; then all of a sudden my eye caught a cloud formation in the middle of the sky. It was the face of Jesus! His eyes were closed and he looked very serious. I couldn't believe it! It was the face I had seen over the years of the Holy Shroud. I stared at the sky with my eyes wide open. Then I closed my eyes and shook my head because I thought for sure I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. I looked again and the face was still there. It was truly remarkable. Then the clouds shifted and the early morning sunlight began to pour through the eyes of Jesus, and finally his whole face dissolved in sunlight breaking through. I was so moved, I began to cry. I went to my Bible and opened up to a page. The passage I found read: ''At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens." (Mark 13:26-27) I knew I was having a sign from God.
Through my continued studies and prayers, I concluded that Jesus should have married and had a family for God. Despite the sins of humanity, he made every effort to teach each person he met about God, to uplift their spirit so each one could become God's child. I wanted to emulate him. During this time, I received in my prayer, "Pamela, you are a bride of Christ and you will have blessed children." I asked God who would be my spouse for these special children, and God said to me, "I will choose your spouse.”
In April of 1969, I went to Europe. I set out with only my air ticket, a little cash, and the clothes I could carry. I wanted to prove that if I just cared for the people that God sent on my path, they would care for me. My message to others was that we are brothers and sisters, and that we did not have to be afraid in this world if we loved God first. In June I found myself in Spain. I was caring for a sick man, living in a little house on an island in the Mediterranean. I ate goat cheese and figs; I meditated and studied the Bible. One day I was meditating in the early morning under a fig tree, and I received a message: The Messiah is on the earth, return to America. I did not want to return to America and I struggled a whole lot about leaving my idyllic life in Spain. I did not respond right away, and misfortune began to find me. I got the message real quick that I was no longer in the right place at the right time!
I arrived home in Berkeley, California on July 4, 1969. Forty days later, I came to the Ashby House Center of the Unified Family, having been witnessed to by several different members. When I came to hear the Principle of Creation lecture that August 15th evening, it was Dan Fefferman who opened the front door to welcome me. He was 21 years old, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, and he was to be my Divine Principle teacher. I listened to the Principle all week long. When I found out that I could create a family for God, I was overjoyed. I was deeply grateful to Dan, because he not only taught me the Principle with much love and passion, but he also fasted for me and helped me understand my unusual dreams and revelations.
I moved into the Unified Family Center on September 9, 1969, and each time I came home to the center, I ran to the prayer room and wept in gratitude to live the rest of my life with Heavenly Father, and that I had found the Master and His Bride. There were less than 20 members in the center when I joined, and for the next three years we doubled in membership each year.
From Tribute, pp. 327-31.