FORWARD

by Lloyd Pumphrey

When my parents first met Miss Young Oon Kim in Eugene, Oregon, I was just a baby. Growing up, I saw the church grow from my earliest memories in the 60's to the international movement it has become. Unfortunately, I have only one perspective of what it was about. I never grasped the deep importance of the sacrifice my parents made. Since reading my fathers account of the Early Church, I could finally understand what they went through. For the first time in my life, all the stories I heard from my parents, and some I didn't know, finally came to light in my brain.

My father began working on this history over 20 years ago, when he realized the importance of recording this time. His view point is a very powerful and moving testimony of the Early Church and should be read carefully.

When I first read this, I was tempted to edit it but on second thought, I decided not to because this is his account and not mine. I hope you enjoy this and find it informative. I know I did.

-Lloyd Pumphrey

INDEX

Introduction

Ch1 The First Missionary to the United States

Ch2 The Early Beginnings in Eugene, Oregon

Ch3 The first center on Oak Hill

Ch4 The 1st Center in San Francisco

Ch5 Where were the prepared people?

Ch6 Some of the people who passed through our center

Ch7 The book and printing and The New Age Frontiers

Ch8 Our Second center in San Francisco

Ch9 The beginning of satellite centers

Ch10 Problems we found with members - paying your dues

Ch11 Further expansion of the centers into states

Ch12 Father's arrival in the United States

Ch13 Father's 40 day trip to make holy grounds

Ch14 Who were these first members

Ch15 Testimonies

Miss Kim's testimony given in Sacramento, California, August 24, 1963

INTRODUCTION

In 1959, Young Oon Kim arrived in the United States with a mission to bring the message of Reverend Moon to the Western World, and I was fortunate to meet Young Oon Kim, learn about the Divine Principle from her and to be an early participant in establishing the Unification Church in the United States. She is now gone but I am sure more active than ever. To many, she is only a name and to many new members the name has no meaning.

Many times I am asked about the early church by members who want to know about the roots of the Unification Church in the United States. Except for occasional articles that appear, there is little information about the early church in the United States.

There are occasional articles, and a book, "Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church", that give some information about the early church. Also, there are a couple of academic treatises which give an account of the early church. Although all the early members were alive at the time the book was being written, not a one was interviewed. The authors seemingly going out of their way to belittle the early church and it's members, partially for their lack of education. Yet, these members seen as educationally unprepared, laid the foundation of the church in America and other countries outside of Korea. For whatever reason, the negative view of the early church is too eagerly embraced by later members and in the treatises that are considered the authority on the early church. Others distort the history to benefit their own place in the church history.

This writing is not intended to be a scholarly objective history of the early American church, but to a great extent, my own experiences in those early days along with the chronology of events. I only cover the first five of the first forty plus years of the Unification Church in America, a period that was so much a part of my life, the period up to and including Reverend Moon's arrival in the United States.

During my years in the Unification Church, I have made some observations and drawn some conclusions from my experiences. Sometimes I climb on my soap box, but my hope is that someone can benefit from the mistakes of those who have gone before. However, experience tells me that is not the way things work.

The fast moving events of today’s world and the level that the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is operating, makes our early efforts in America look puny and I often wonder if it is really worth writing about. Maybe instead of being a part of the reality of the day I am just an old man living in the past, trampled by the march of time. Yet, I feel a need to record the early events of the church as best I can remember after over 40 years. What I have written is less about the spiritual significance or a analysis of the early church than it is a record of the simple every day events in our lives, which many later members will be able to relate to.

There are literally thousands of stories that can be written about the early Church. There are stories of those who have sacrificed everything for God's work. There are many interesting and inspiring stories about dedicated members that have been fulfilling God's work throughout world but few will be recorded. My contribution is small, the only value in my own personal story is timing--being in the right place at the right time in history.

Because I am writing about my experiences and observations more than a history encompassing all of the early movement the work of others is only briefly mentioned. It is not my intention to slight the work of other early missionaries in America such as Dr. Bo Hi Pak who went to Washington D.C. at fathers request to be the assistant military attache at the Korean Embassy, and founded a group in Washington D.C. There was David S.C. Kim, who came to the United States the fall of 1959, after Miss Kim arrived in January 1959. He attended a seminary in Portland, Oregon, where he found members and established a group. Later in the 1960s there was a successful group started in San Francisco and Boonville, by Mr. Choi and later carried on by Oni Durst. They all worked for Father and were a part of the early history of the Unification Church in America.

My only desire is to give a better understanding of the early church in America which is all but lost to a new generation of members. For those who did not have an opportunity to know Young Oon Kim personally, I try to convey a little about her character and personality. She was a great influence in my life and the others who were fortunate in knowing her personally. Her unwavering dedication to God, and her mission inspired many. She was born for her mission, prepared by God for it and stayed with it till the end of her days.

If I were to tell Miss Kim about writing this book, I can hear her say, "Why do you write about all those things, they are unimportant". That may be true, but because of the scant understanding of most members about the beginning of the Unification Church outside of Korea, I hope to give a better understanding of the early history. For those who were not able to know Young Oon Kim personally, maybe this will give a little understanding of her, and how the Unification Church was started by a handful of early members.

Galen M. Pumphrey

2004

CHAPTER 1

THE FIRST MISSIONARY TO AMERICA

It has been more than a generation since the first Unification Church missionary came to the United States. Young Oon Kim arrived in January 1959. She was sent here by Reverend Moon to bring the Divine Principle to the Western world, and as the first missionary played an important role, not only in the spread of the Unification Church in the United States but also the world. Many church members throughout the world can trace their spiritual genealogy back to Young Oon Kim, and the early members who joined through her efforts.

She arrived in America a lone woman bringing the message of Sun Myung Moon to the United States and the World. It is hard today to understand what a gigantic mission facing her nor the many roadblocks she would encounter along the way.

At this point I recommend reading her testimony which is included with this writing. The following was written before found her testimony.

HER BACKGROUND

Young Oon Kim was prepared from childhood for the mission she undertook. The preparation led her to become a devoted Christian and dedicate her life to God. After learning of Sun Myung Moon and the Divine Principle, she spent the remainder of her life working to teach the Divine Principle and establishing the Unification Church throughout the world.

She was reared in a Buddhist family in what is now North Korea. While in her teens she searched for an understanding of life. What is the importance of life? Is there a God? If there is on God life isn't worth living. She would go into the hills and shout at God to give her a sign. One day she heard the words of a song, a song she had heard many years before as a young child. Someone had taken her to a Sunday school class at a Christian church. The song she heard was "Jesus loves me this I know". Through this experience she found Christianity. She worked at a bank during the day and then went to church at night to pray, often for many hours. It was during this period that she had a vision of the crucified Jesus.

The Western world does not understand the deep prayer and devotion practiced by Korean Christians. The Christians in Korea may have been the strongest, most devoted Christians in the world. All this was during a period of occupation and oppression by the Japanese.

Through her connection in the Christian church, she received the opportunity to attended college in Japan. She was accepted to a prestigious Methodist university in Japan and was the first woman to be admitted formally to the all male university. While at the university, she felt herself losing the spirit of Christianity, and missed deep spiritual life experienced earlier. She began wondering for what purpose was the studying theology, while losing the spirit of Christianity. She heard a voice while praying one time. The voice told her "You must know your enemy". She graduated with a degree in religion -- her major being comparative religion.

When the Communist took over North Korea after the Second World War, she and many others made their way through the Communist lines at night into South Korea. Christians were guided spiritually through this hazardous journey by spiritual lights guiding every step. People of means bought bolts of silk cloth and had porters carry it with them in their escape to South Korea. Once there, the silk could be sold and thus converted to cash. She said that after the World War II her family, which was well to do, traded a Singer Sewing machine, valued at about $125 American dollars, a very large sum, for a bushel of oats to keep from starving. Although she never said she was one of those guided to South Korea spiritually, I always suspected that she was. Her description of the trek was very vivid.

Later, she continued her education when she was chosen to go to Toronto, Canada. At the theological seminary she worked toward a master's degree in comparative religion. While studying in Canada in 1950 Korean War began. This news of war devastated her. She was alone in a Western country far from home, knowing Koreans were suffering miserably from the war. At that time, she then heard a voice saying "I will preserve my remnant" meaning God would protect his people. Little did she know the war also freed Sun Myung Moon from a North Korean communist slave labor camp, so he could make his way to freedom in South Korea. She continued her studies and received her masters degree and then returned to South Korea.

Upon her return, she took a position teaching comparative religion at Eh Wha University. The university was sponsored by the Methodist Church, and at the time, the largest women's university in the world.

She became a professor at Eh Wha in the early 1950s. During this time Sung Young Moon was establishing the Unification Church in Seoul. At the time, his group was very small and virtually unknown. One of the very early church members, a lady, told Reverend Moon that she knew Miss Kim. He told the member, bring Miss Kim to me I want to talk with her. At that time Miss Kim was very ill, suffering from nephritis, a kidney problem, along with her life long battle with anemia. She was confined to bed and physically very weak.

The woman, whom Miss Kim only knew slightly, came to her and told her very bluntly of Sun Myung Moon, his message and his mission. She said that Reverend Moon wanted to meet Miss Kim. The way the lady introduced Reverend Moon and the Divine Principle to Miss Kim would be enough to dismiss the woman as a crackpot, and especially by someone well educated in Christianity, Miss Kim thought, if there is any truth in this whatsoever, I must find out.

She could not travel normally because of her weakened physical condition, so two men were sent from the church to bring Miss Kim to meet Reverend Moon. They carried her on a stretcher through the streets of Seoul to the church. Reverend Moon began to teach the Divine Principle to her. She stayed at the church for 3 days listening while he explained his revelation. As he taught her the illness began to disappear and by the end of those 3 days the symptoms she suffered disappeared. She was told that it was the power of the Divine Principle that healed her. During this time ladies from the church were in another room praying almost continuously for her.

She returned to the university pondering what she learned in those few short days and the man giving this message. She began to witness to Reverend Moon and his message. Her friend Mrs. Won Pak Choi, a professor of English at Eh Wha University also joined. When the University heard of their involvement with Unification Church, the ladies were fired from their teaching positions. There were a number of students at the university who also joined the church and later were expelled from the university because of their religious activities. After this group from the university joined this small church, there was a drought period when practically no one joined.

This was the beginning of a period of extreme persecution. They were given the cult label. The persecution was perpetuated in Korean newspapers. When Reverend Moon became known in America, the Washington Post sent some of it's staff to Korea to dig up all the dirt on the church that was to be found there. For many years, practically all that was printed in the United States about Reverend Moon and the Unification Church was a rehash of the Washington Post articles.

At some point Reverend Moon asked Miss Kim to prepare a version of the Divine Principle in English then go as a missionary to the United States. She was chosen for this mission because of her theological education and command of the English language because of attending school in Canada. Because of Eve's role in the fall of man, it was also important that women fill a prominent role in reversing the the fall and the restoration of the world. She was well qualified for this mission, and indeed had prepared for it her entire life.

Miss Kim approached her difficult mission with some reluctance. She was plagued with doubts whether Americans could understand the Divine Principle or indeed would even be interested in it. She began working on the book, and often found excuses to delay the writing. All the time she wrestled with doubts about the Americans accepting Reverend Moon and the Divine Principle. But, when she delayed the writing and the mission, her previous illness returned. This she took as sign convincing her to return to the writing, and when she did, the illness left.

She planned not to translate the Korean Divine Principle book, but to write one in English approaching the Divine Principle from Western thought and the Western understanding of Christianity. The very first copies were individually typed by members. When I once mentioned, "you mean they typed all that by hand?" she replied with a typical Miss Kim reply to a dumb question, "do you think they typed them with their feet?". A later version was mimeographed in Korea and bound in a small paperback version which she brought to the United States, but never used. She immediately set about rewriting the Divine Principle.

Young Oon Kim arrived in the United States in January 1959. She entered the country as a student at the University of Oregon, and became established in Eugene. Thus her mission began.

CHAPTER 3

THE CENTER ON OAK HILL

As the group grew, Miss Kim decided to move from the Eugene Woman's Club and into the Pumphrey house on Oak Hill.

She decided to take the upstairs rooms, where she could have a bedroom and an office and would be insured a measure of privacy. The upstairs had been used for a bedroom and an art studio for me. It was dry walled but never finished or painted. While moving in, she proceeded to clean out the upstairs with typical Miss Kim efficiency. She opened the window above the front yard and threw everything out in a pile. Anything she thought important, which was not much, she carried down stairs.

The Pumphreys with their three kids lived in a house that was supposed to be a church center. That proved not entirely satisfactory. Kids are sometimes known to disrupted the tranquillity of the center, and a family living there would not allow room for any expansion as a center.

Patty and I were buying a small house next door, and it was vacant. The house was relatively new, but never completely finished and had water but no further plumbing. I worked on it periodically, building a septic tank system, and dry walling the ceilings. Before moving in, I needed to install a cast iron drain line to the bathroom. Miss Kim got me to accelerate my effort on the house. We moved our family into the small house and soon afterwards, George Norton moved into the center with Miss Kim. A Korean university student also moved in, a young man whose family were early church members in Korea.

Thus the first of many centers was born in the United States. This established a tradition of a communal type living which was unheard of at the time. It later became popular during the hippie and drug culture era in the following years.

George Norton and I both worked the night shift at the International Paper plywood plant at Vaughn, Oregon. We would talk about the Divine Principle every chance we had, and we witnessed to people in the plant. One person at the plant, a Methodist adult Sunday school teacher accepted the Divine Principle and began to teach straight Divine Principle in class. His class stayed on and discussed the Principle and missed church service. The minister didn't much like that and the Sunday school teacher was called on the carpet before the bishop. He did not however come to any of our meetings, meet Miss Kim or become a member.

After working our night shift at the plywood plant, George and I would arrive back at Oak Hill. Miss Kim was usually in the kitchen early in the morning. We would corner her and flood her with questions sometimes talking for hours. In later years when I found people who studied the Divine Principle and had no questions or curiosity about it, I just couldn't understand it. We wanted to know everything, the more we studied the more questions we had.

MEETINGS ON OAK HILL

We began to hold the study session and service on Oak Hill, they were held on Saturday afternoon. One time someone in Korea sent a tape of a church service that Father led in Korea. I think this was before there was such a thing as a cassette tape. They were singing a hymn, as I remember "Amazing Grace" and father was keeping time by pounding his fist on a table like a bass drum. His prayer was especially moving, it was in Korean and we could not understand a word, but we could feel the great emotion and power in his prayer, which brought us to tears. It was a moving experience his voice for the first time. Miss Kim translated the prayer for us.

JOINT MEETINGS WITH DAVID KIM'S GROUP

At the same time in Portland, Oregon, David Kim was finding members. It was difficult for him work openly because of his status as a student in the United States and also being under the scrutiny of the fundamentalist Christian college he was attending.

During early summer of 1960, we held monthly meetings on a Sunday. David Kim would come to Oak Hill with his members - including John Schmidli and Vernon Pearson who were later in the 1969 blessing of the 13 couples in the United States. We would have a service and a study session, this went on most of the day. Miss Kim did an excellent job of "bringing people to the conclusion" which meant bringing them to the understanding of Reverend Moon’s mission. She did this for the Portland members.

It was at one of these meetings that I first remember hearing the Holy Songs, which were not yet translated into English. David Kim and Miss Kim sang several songs together in Korean, Arerung and others. Then we would have a potluck dinner in the evening. There were some other people in Eugene who came to the meetings.

There were other people that Miss Kim worked with, there were some other people in Eugene that studied with us. In Albany there were some Pentecostal ladies she had witnessed to, she often spoke to small groups. These ladies could feel the high level of spirit surrounding the message and would speak in tongues and prophesy, but they never grasped the importance of the Divine Principle, and even remoter was their understanding of Reverend Moon. There wasn't the slightest curiosity about Reverend Moon. We even traveled to their homes in Albany to hold Sunday meetings and they came to Oak Hill several times. After awhile, Miss Kim recognized they showed no spiritual growth. They just plugged into the spiritual atmosphere, she quit wasting time and effort on them. We were shocked that she would quit working with them, but later understood why.

At these small meetings, the entire membership of the Unification Church in the Western world met in the living room on Oak Hill. It would be a number of years before a living room would be too small to hold our members.

Our monthly news letter dated December 13th, 1960 mentioned the following:

The Joint meeting for November was held at Eugene on Nov. 6, 1960. Four members from St. Helens, and six from Eugene shared a potluck dinner. After an informal discussion, the meeting was started at 5:30 P.M....

The hard bound copies of the Divine Principles will soon be available. Since this book is a limited edition the price of it will be higher than we had earlier anticipated. It has been decided that all books purchased must be paid for at the time of sale. The price of the new book will be four dollars.

Miss Young Oon Kim addressed the group. She spoke on the qualifications necessary for the Lord of the Second Advent...

Miss Kim explained the three judgments which we will all face...

We closed our meeting at 9 P.M. with half an hour of prayer.

Miss Kim announced that she was leaving this area and committed the Oregon groups to Mr. David Kim.

In the process of finishing the new book it was inevitable that we combine the Monthly news Letters of November and December into one...

November 19th (October 1st according to the Lunar Calendar) has been observed as the first Thanksgiving Day in the New Year of the New Age. This day was celebrated as the day of restoration of all things and also the harvest of people. March 1st and October 1st will be observed as the Day of the True Parents whereas October 1st, seven months from March 1st, will be observed as the Day of the restored Children. There was a ceremony and than offering on this day in Seoul...

PRINTING THE BOOK

Miss Kim was working on a new version of the Divine Principle. We decided that we would print a book and have it bound.

She asked me if I could help her in correcting grammatical errors and reworking difficult passages. I wasn't an English major or anything close, but had to write in college and was probably the most qualified to help her. I was getting a weeks vacation soon and promised her I would help her then. As vacation approached, I thought wouldn't it be nice to pack up my family and go to the Oregon coast for a few days. I could help her finish the corrections after returning from the coast.

That Sunday we made a trip to Albany to hold a meeting with the ladies there. During the trip my left leg became cramped or something and was very painful, I could hardly walk. It was even uncomfortable to sit. After returning to Oak Hill, I hobbled into the house, hardly able to walk and in great pain. I went to the bathroom and thought that maybe I should help Miss Kim with the corrections during my vacation, I had promised. I would go to the coast after helping her with the corrections. Immediately, the pain that I had been experiencing that day disappeared. It took the full vacation time to make the corrections, and I never have been able to vacation at the Oregon coast, well maybe some day.

After finishing the book, we made a trip to Portland and rented an IBM Executive typewriter. The typewriter had a Mylar ribbon and gave what today is known as letter quality copy. The copy could then be photographed to make plates for offset printing.

The typewriter was unique in that it used proportional spaces for the letters. An "i" took two units while a "W" took five units. To type a justified margin you first typed the page, drew a line down the right margin, counted the spaces between the last word and the line. You then marked where you wanted the spaces inserted in the line and retyped the page with a justified margin. I don't know if there was a simpler method, but this was the way Miss Kim did it. A very tedious job to say the least. All this is done in a flash by today’s computer word processors, this writing as an example.

We had the typewriter rented for only one month, that was the time-frame that she had for getting the copy ready for printing. She sat at the typewriter night and day for that month to finish the book. This meant typing at least 500 pages, typing the book twice to get the justified margins. If you made an error your only choice was to type the whole page over or type the correction on a sheet, cut it out and paste it over the error with rubber cement. This worked well for camera copy.

After renting the typewriter, we decided to buy one in Eugene. Miss Kim needed it and she was already planning another revision of the Divine Principle before the first on was bound. The IBM Executive typewriter cost over $800.00, and considering value of the 1960 dollar and that you could support a family on a little over $2.00 an hour, that was a considerable amount of money for us. I bought it on a monthly payment plan.

We had the book printed in Eugene, by a small printer. George Norton sold a piece of property to finance the book printing. The printer was only a printer and did not do binding. We needed to find a binder to do that. In those days work at many binderies was done by hand. Women were hired to gather books. This consists of putting the pages in sequence on tables and walking around picking them up until you have gathered a book, you then stacked it and started around again. We saved money by folding--with a rented folding machine--and gathering the book ourselves.

In order to bind a book the pages have to be to be folded and gathered in the what is known in the bindery trade as books consisting of 32 pages. Each book is then sewed up the back by a person with a special sewing machine. These are then assembled the back and cover are glued on and they are pressed in press for a period while the clue sets up.

At least that was the way it was done to a great extent at the time. Everything is done by machinery today, and the book is hardly touched by people in the process of binding.

When we moved to San Francisco, the pages of the book were taken along in the trailer, we then had to locate a binder to do the job of binding.

THE EXODUS

Eugene, Oregon, was a rather small community, the rumors were spread by the people working against us. People were calling the FBI. having us investigated claiming that we were probably a Communist group. Some people were afraid to be caught with the Divine Principle, and destroyed the books Miss Kim had loaned them. They were afraid of being connected to this handful of people with a religious message. We were somehow perceived as a threat.

Doris and Pauline's husbands became a great problem which probably started when they cut their husbands off sexually because of the fall of man. The husbands became angry and began to accuse Miss Kim of breaking up families. And to compound the problems, the more the girls witnessed the meaner the husbands got.

One Sunday morning Doris, Pauline and Patty had been witnessing in a church and Patty dropped Pauline off at her house. Both husbands were waiting at the Pauline's home. They had a big confrontation the husbands were angry made the ultimatum, either go with Miss Kim and loose your children or stay with us. The girls made their decision at that moment. They made the decision to leave. No woman in her right mind would leave her home and children but they felt at that moment God needed them and relied on their strong faith and connection with him. They decided then and there what road they must take. A very difficult one. Their husbands probably thought that they wouldn't go through with it, that they would go off and be back later.

Pauline had her bible in her hand and that was all she had, she didn't even take her purse. Later she told Patty where the purse was and Patty sneaked into the house and got it. They had walked over the hill past the Pumphrey house and down the other side to Doris's house. Doris grabbed her car keys and a check book, and with the clothes on their backs and Pauline's Bible they left in Doris's car, a green Jeep station wagon. They cashed a fifty dollar check on Doris's bank account.

Later Pauline's husband took all her clothes and personal items out in the yard and burned them.

That night they called the Pumphrey house, and wanted to speak to Miss Kim. Patty had to go next door and bring Miss Kim to the phone. Miss Kim told them to please think about this, we will talk about it. They were adamant and would not tell Miss Kim even where they were, they wanted to spare her.

They made the decision to go to California, and just as they got to the Oregon-California border the Jeep broke down and they abandoned it. They flagged down a truck and the truck driver took them into Redding, California.

They went to the bus station in Redding, and purchased a ticket to Fresno, which is all the money they had. Doris heard a voice that told her that a place was prepared for them. In Fresno they bought a newspaper and looked in the want adds for a place to stay. They called about one of the adds, and the woman told them they must be the two girls that God had told her to prepare for. The lady was a very devoted Seven Day Adventist.

Doris had worked one time as a waitress and soon found a job for her and Pauline. In the meantime Doris's father and their husbands hired a detective to find them. When the husbands found them they went out the back door and went to the bus depot and fled to San Francisco, again with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

They were led step by step by spirit world. They called Miss Kim from San Francisco.

Miss Kim felt that because Doris and Pauline's faith was so strong, that they would sacrifice their families, they were the ones to work with in building the foundation in America. This level of devotion and not academic records or secular achievements is the strength and character of the early members.

It was at this point that Miss Kim decided the work should be carried on in San Francisco with Doris and Pauline had gone. The thought was, the larger city would be a better place to work and the work would probably be subject to less persecution.

Because of the fall having been caused by Eve, the task of the reversing the fall, the restoration of fallen man, had to be carried on by Eve. In the early church, many of the founding members were women and much of the work of witnessing was done by women. Reverend Moon stressed having women witness, and go out as missionaries. When Miss Kim began her mission in the United States, she needed to find 3 women who would give up everything and follow as a foundation for the work here in the United States.

In the fall of 1960 Miss Kim went to San Francisco with George Norton. They took a car and a trailer and their few belongings with them. In the trailer were boxes of pages of the Divine Principle book that we had printed in Eugene. They were yet to be gathered and bound.

Before we left Oregon, I put our property up for sale. It was difficult decision to make, I loved living in the country on a hill overlooking a valley. I had just signed the agreement with the real estate company to sell the property and was worried if quitting my job, dropping any chance of finishing my degree and moving to San Francisco was the right thing to do?

I went in and laid down, it was the afternoon and I needed to sleep before going to work that night. I had a vision of the restored world. I could see a landscape running for miles where architecturally everything was in harmony with their surroundings. The buildings were beautiful as they harmonized with the country side. It was a moving experience, and it assured me the move was right.

Patty and I took the two oldest boys, Richard and Stephen Parks, on a long trip to Idaho to live with their father, who lived in a small town in Idaho. Our son Lloyd, who was a little over a year old at the time, came with us to San Francisco. All three boys are now blessed. Richard later became one of the first state leaders. Steve worked in the church. Lloyd was on CARP for sometime.

This was when a made another great sacrifice for the cause, I shaved off my beard and mustache. Patty had never seen me without a beard before. I guess it was only a small sacrifice for the cause. At the time, San Francisco was populated with bearded beatniks and I didn't think a beard would be fitting. Gee, I was handsome in a beard, although everyone else held a different opinion.

We sold one house, packed up everything in a trailer and went to San Francisco. Miss Kim had rented a large flat, 7 rooms, at 410 Cole Street in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. At that time a working class neighborhood, in pretty decent shape. Later the neighborhood became famous as the Hippie and drug capitol of the country. It was also somewhere on Cole St. that the notorious Manson Family lived in 1967.

Eileen Welch soon moved to Portland, Oregon, where she worked with David Kim and later went out to pioneer in Salt Lake City and Chicago. Eileen was the first member to join in the United States. She was later blessed with the late Hank Lemmers.

CHAPTER 4

THE FIRST CENTER IN SAN FRANCISCO

Neither Miss Kim or George Norton knew anything about San Francisco, only that Pauline and Doris were there. They had a room and were working as waitresses to support themselves. Before George and Miss Kim left Oregon, we bought a San Francisco newspaper and looked for a place to rent. Not knowing the first thing about the city, we found some in a suitable price range. When they arrived, one of the flats we found in the paper in Oregon turned out to be just right, and they rented it.

Our first center in San Francisco was at 410 Cole St. The building was an old 4 story white frame building consisting of 6 or 7 flats, probably built in the early 1900s after the great quake. It was located on a corner on the south side of the panhandle of Golden Gate Park, in the Haight Ashbury area.

The flat at 410 Cole St. was a walk up flat occupying the 3rd and 4th floor in that corner of the building. The entrance was atop a few worn marble stairs. Upon entering the door you were confronted with a long steep flight of stairs. The stairs and hallways were covered with Japanese straw matting, installed by some previous resident. At the top of the first flight of stairs, was an awkward turn of wedge shaped steps and a shorter flight leading to the third floor. The stairs were good daily exercise, especially when packing up groceries and furniture.

The flat consisting of 9 stark white rooms verily heated by two small gas heaters. There was an old kitchen with a gas range and an antique sink and a pantry. Oh yes, I must not forget the classic water closet in this flat. It was one of the originals with the wooden water tank high on the wall. The bowl design was one that lost favor about the turn of the century, a design that is extinct today - with good reason.

At the time the Haight Ashbury area of San Francisco was a well kept, working middle class neighborhood with shops and stores along Haight street, a typical San Francisco neighborhood. The community was sprinkled with an occasional artist or beatnik type. This was the beatnik era, but they were mostly centered in the North Beach area of San Francisco.

The neighborhood was a mixture of races and nationalities living together--mostly white, many of recent European origin, some orientals, and a few blacks. No particular group seemed to be a majority. It was a quiet neighborhood and some of the residents had lived their entire lives in the neighborhood. At that time you would feel safe walking to the Laundromat or back from a bus stop late at night.

On Sunday afternoons during football season we would return from witnessing at a church only to find there were no parking places. Keysar Stadium, where the San Francisco Forty-niners football team played their home games. I remember having to drive back from town and taking a bus home. Some of the more enterprising local citizens would stand by their car, with a sign "move my car for $5.00". Given the money they would drive off and let you have the parking place; park some place further away and either walk or take a bus back.

A few years later, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was to gain dubious fame as the hippie and drug Mecca of the United States. Seeing the neighborhood on television during the hippie era, it was hardly recognizable. I wondered how the long time residents survived the Hippie generation, I am sure some of them went through that period still living in the neighborhood. In later years it became an upbeat area with real estate values skyrocketing as the popularity of condominiums grew. I think Charles Manson later lived in our area.

SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco is a cosmopolitan city, a world class city. It is often said that it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It definitely has character but at this point I would like to make a comment. The beauty of San Francisco lies in its surroundings, in it's geographical and geological locations, we will forget the San Andreas fault. On the west of the city, you have the beauty of the Pacific Ocean on the east you have San Francisco Bay. This is enhanced by the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakland Bay Bridge. There is the quaintness of the cable cars clanging their way up and down the hills. There is Golden Gate Park and a number of interesting architectural structures, Fishermen's Wharf, and China Town.

San Francisco was where we chose to begin our work, with the hope that there would be more people and people that were a little more open to our message.

THE PUMPHREYS MOVE TO SAN FRANCISCO

During the last few weeks in Oregon we made a trip to Idaho to leave our two boys, Richard and Stephen Parks, with their father and stepmother. We chose to take our son Lloyd with us, he was just a little over a year old.

We packed our household belongings, all that we could take, the rest we gave away or left in the house. We loaded a rental trailer with the washer & dryer, and refrigerator along with assorted furniture and personal belongings.

We left for San Francisco, one late fall afternoon, towing the trailer behind our 1951 Chevrolet sedan, which we still have.. It would be some twenty six years before we would return to Oregon and visit Oak Hill. The old house, that had been the first center in America stood vacant and run down. It is now gone.

We arrived at the center in San Francisco around 4 A.M. and slept till morning when we unpacked the trailer and carried everything to the 3rd floor, up the steep winding stairs. When we got to the washer, dryer and refrigerator I had it. We looked in the phone directory and found a small mover. Two men came and carried them up the stairs on his back using a strap at a very reasonable cost.

The center was sparsely furnished by anyone's standards. It now had an assortment of furniture and cooking utensils from the Pumphrey house in Oregon. We later furnished the center from the Salvation Army stores, at a very reasonable cost. This was before the Salvation Army stores lost their original intent and became antique dealers.

LIFE IN THE FIRST CENTER

In the first center, the members all found jobs and that was the way we supported the center. Fund-raising as it is today was unheard of at the time. With the exception of Miss Kim, everyone worked somewhere. Doris and Pauline took jobs as waitresses and in the beginning were the main financial support of the center. George found a job as an orderly in a hospital, during his time in the army he was a corpsman. Patty found job as a bookkeeper at the Wells Fargo bank on Haight Street.

We took our paychecks and pooled them. The secular world would say the members gave all their pay to the church. That is not true, there was no such feeling, our feeling was like a family. We simply pooled our money and Miss Kim managed it. We kept whatever money we needed for bus fare, food and clothing. In later years, I often heard later members in a church center complain about only having an allowance. Most of them were single and never managed a household, or experienced feeding and clothing a family. I had been maintaining a home, feeding and clothing children, and believe me, money was very foreign to my pockets. Many people with families can relate to that I am sure. I felt a real financial freedom during those early days, and remember those days as one of the few times in my life when money was no problem.

The money I brought from Oregon was quickly disappearing and I could not find a job. Doris kept telling me that she could get me on as busboy at Fosters restaurant chain where Doris and Pauline worked. I assured her that was the last thing that I would ever do. Doris also regularly reminded Miss Kim that there was plenty of opportunity for me as a Foster's busboy.

One night, it was about midnight, Doris called the center. The busboy hadn't showed up for work and if I came down the manager would hire me. Miss Kim was very persuasive in suggesting with firmness that I take the job. I quickly became a busboy at Fosters and also learned a lesson in humility. I also removed the term "I will never" from my vocabulary. Later I found a job as mailman at the post office in Burlingame, about 20 miles south of San Francisco.

MISS KIM AND MANAGEMENT

Miss Kim was not only our spiritual leader and teacher but she also managed the household, in her unmistakable economical way. A way well known to anyone who knew her. Whether it was words, time or money, she never wasted anything. She was not stingy, we had whatever we needed, but she never wasted a penny and could account for every single one. In later years, she was often distressed to see the money wasted in the Unification Church, often by young and inexperienced members trying to emulate success by spending money.

She was a frugal manager, she never missed a trick when it came to saving money, including gas for heat. Luckily the climate in San Francisco is very mild and only occasionally do you really need heat. She also did the grocery shopping and found many bargains often taking a bus to downtown San Francisco where she could buy groceries at a real bargain. If and when anyone had to talk with her by long distance telephone, it was virtually impossible to talk longer than 30 seconds.

Miss Kim frequently did the cooking and did a pretty good job of it. She often cooked and did dishes so the members would be free to attend church meetings and witness. She had really never had to cook before coming to the United States, but picked it up fast. She introduced us to kimche which she made from regular cabbage. It wasn't till some years later that I learned what real Korean kimche was like. She did introduce us to a number of Korean dishes which I really enjoyed.

The sisters took turns at cooking and we certainly had some, shall we say, interesting meals. That could be partially attributed to some of Miss Kim's bargains. One of the real favorites, chicken gizzards and gravy. I won't even mention the time Doris cooked pork kidneys. Kidneys may be fine, but there is a certain art in their preparation. On thing needed to make kidneys edible is a good overnight soaking in salt water and then a par boiling. This is the way you get rid of a certain distinctive smell and flavor the result of the kidneys function. To Miss Kim's surprise I didn't go for seconds on the kidney delicacy, which had the strong smell of urine.

She even taught us such simple and practical things as water conservation, and thought Americans were very wasteful. I was told that I was wasting water when I ran the cold water into the pan of boiling water to cool off the eggs I had just boiled. The proper way was, first dump out the boiling water then just full the pan with cold water, not just running the water over the egg. I guess with the abundance of everything in America few think of such simple things. I learned something else about eggs from her, she used soy sauce on her boiled eggs instead of salt and pepper. I tried that and found it very good, and I use soy sauce on boiled eggs it to this day.

Something I learned early about Miss Kim, she was very intolerant of complaining people. Often in an attempt to save money, she would get some strange bargains, like the cheapest no-name instant coffee. Any serious coffee drinker can understand my plight when confronted with that problem. I issued some small complaint and she let me know her opinion of complainers.

She was raised to believe that nothing and especially food should not be wasted. She was told at an early age by a member of her family, you must not waste even one grain of rice. If you do, people who died of starvation would be your accusers in the spirit world. Some would even accuse you on earth.

This she believed and lived by, and was adamant that no food be wasted. She would often insist that I finish off something so it wouldn't go to waste. Like why don't you clean up the chicken gizzards, you haven't had seconds yet. She also thought because I was large, I could use the extra food. I ended up putting on weight, not entirely from chicken gizzards. There was plenty of good food and one of my favorite pastimes has always been eating.

Through our efforts and Miss Kim's management, we soon began to build our financial resources. Pooling our pay checks enabled us to print books, buy vehicles and purchase a center in a relative short period of time.

MISS KIM "NOW I TELL YOU"

There were some very memorable times at the Cole street center. Some of the most memorable were around the dinner table. We were finished with dinner and just the old members were there, no new people. The conversation at dinner would be going well and after dinner we would just stay in the kitchen and talk, mostly inundating Miss Kim with questions. She would say "Now I tell you", this was followed with some story about our Leader or some stories about the early church in Korea. These stories would be followed by more questions, along with more explanations of the Divine Principle or the spirit world. On these special and spontaneous evenings we wouldn't go witnessing or to churches. The sessions would go on till late at night, just sitting around the kitchen table and talking.

Sometimes after coming in from an evening of witnessing Miss Kim would be in her bedroom working on her writing and someone would come in to talk or ask a question. Soon the whole bunch would be in there, she would explain many things always related to religion. She would often break out her cache of goodies which she kept in her closet. She kept cookies and such kept for guests and special occasions. She had learned early on that if anything was left in the pantry, it would soon evaporate.

These special times were mostly during the early days at 410 Cole Street. In this way we were privileged to learn many things that added to our depth of understanding. As new members moved in she wasn't as free to talk about many things until matured in their understanding of the Divine Principles, and grew spiritually. Unfortunately, many never did grow.

CHAPTER 5

WHERE WERE THE PREPARED PEOPLE?

Our purpose for moving to San Francisco was to find people and build a foundation for the dispensation in America. This mission now became the center of our lives. Finding people, prepared people, was the way to accomplish the mission. Who and where were the prepared people, and how do we find them?

Who are prepared people? We believed, and I still do, that many people are prepared for this dispensation. As it is often said in Christianity they are ready to be called. Some people, because of their spiritual heritage, are desperately looking for something -- something new. Unfortunately, there are many paths available, but often they lead to nothing new. When prepared people confront the Divine Principle, they are ready. Their acceptance is not just happenstance. The spiritual heritage of their ancestors or parents has opened the door. Some are ready and recognize this as something they have always looked for, while for others it does not come easy, those challenge every paragraph.

We were in San Francisco to witness. The word witness held negative connotations for myself and some other members, mostly because of its association with the Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian fundamentalists. However it is a very respectable Christian term and activity. Raised in a Methodist church, with little emphasis on fanatical things such as witnessing and salvation, I found myself involved with something very foreign to me. I did witness and found that my ability to witness was directly related to my spiritual level at the time. The Christians speak of being filled with the Holy Spirit. When this occurs, people are able go beyond themselves.

THE FAMILY MEETINGS

We had been in San Francisco several months when Miss Kim called us together one night for a "family meeting". The family meetings sometimes, but not always, had a feeling akin to being sent to the principals office in grade school. She was very upset, and said since we arrived in San Francisco, not one intelligent person had come to hear The Divine Principle. It was true.

Miss Kim was capable of becoming angry, and on this occasion she chewed us out thoroughly. She was totally frustrated and laid it out to us, if we didn't shape up she was either going to dump us, and start all over again or return to Korea. Having made her point very clearly, she closed by giving a very tearful and moving prayer in Korean. After this we became very serious at witnessing.

WITNESSING

During the early days, we witnessed to some incredibly unprepared people, maybe because it was easy. We would improve in this area as we grew spiritually and gained experience. We pioneered a tradition that was carried on faithfully for many years in the Unification Church, witnessing to the young person with the backpack in the bus depot. This was a witnessing tradition that probably peaked during the hippie era. The results there were frequently discouraging. That is not to say that some good people did not come from Greyhound stations.

To be effective in witnessing, Miss Kim always stressed the importance of a strong prayer life among the members. In order to attract spiritually prepared people, it is important for the person who is witnessing to keep high spiritually. Miss Kim always told us that a we could not bring in people spiritually higher than ourselves. We therefore needed to keep spiritually high through prayer. As we grew spiritually, the quality of people improved.

We witnessed everywhere, at bus stops and on buses, at work but especially churches. We attended as many as four five on a Sunday. The church services and group meetings yielded few results. The orthodox churches were spiritual deserts, they were filled with elderly people and only an occasional youthful face. The people were probably good people but definitely not ready for a new message. Years later, in a much changed world, the churches are much more prepared, with thousands of ministers going to Korea for a workshop on the Divine Principle, and many even being blessed.

Doris and Pauline were our stars when it came to witnessing. They were fired from several restaurant jobs for witnessing to customers. Some of the men they found were far more interested in Doris and Pauline than in seeking higher spiritual truth.

We had one man arrive at the center, dressed in a suit and tie with a bottle of wine. He thought that he had lined up a hot date. When he found out the girl wasn't in, and was confronted with Miss Kim planning on teaching him the Divine Principle, he made a hasty exit. He seemed a little miffed by it all.

At the time we were still young enough to go to young adult groups at the churches. There we found young adults in their twenties going to meetings sponsored by their church. They were often dull, with anything but inquiring minds. I remember a young Catholic girl that went through the Divine Principle. She thought it was great, probably because she had a very vague understanding of Christianity and Catholicism. She said that she would have to ask her priest what he thought about the Divine Principle. Needless to say we never saw her again.

We attended a revival temple that had an ongoing nightly revival, seven days a week. I don't know how good they were at reviving their congregation with marathon revivals but they certainly excelled in making appeals for money.

One Sunday, Doris and Pauline got several of us to attend a very large black church. That was a real experience for a former middle of the road Methodist. First off, our presence was immediately suspect. They had us stand up and introduce ourselves, and wanted us to testify to when became saved. In later years some members would have found this an opportunity to give a powerful testimony, but we were not quite up to it in those days. The black church's method of collecting the offering was interesting. They didn't pass the collection plate like good old Methodists, but you marched down in front of the alter and threw your money on the table for the congregation to see. Some of the brothers sat at the table counting the offering as it as people filed by. It also seemed strange to have people passing out advertisements as you entered the church, I think one was from a funeral parlor. Our results at that church were minimal, to say the least.

We once went to a flying saucer convention in Oakland, hoping that these people might somehow be prepared for the New Age. We did pick up two members there, however we soon learned that people at flying saucer conventions are not exactly involved with a high level of spiritual inquiry, mostly just phenomena.

None of us had experienced a spiritualist church. Miss Kim told us about mediums and spiritualists, and used examples of experiences in Korea to give us an understanding of the spirit world. One Sunday evening she took us to a spiritualist church. The mediums gave us some very impressive readings and sensed something different about us.

We began attending spiritualist churches to witness, feeling there might be young people there who were searching for something. This proved to be true, the first real member we found in San Francisco was a German girl, Ercila Schuman, whom Doris found in a spiritualist church. Ercila knew Peter Koch and later brought him to hear the Divine Principle. Peter at the time was in his 3rd or 4th year engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

We found many small spiritualists churches in San Francisco, but soon learned that the faces we saw at one meeting were the same faces we would see at the next meeting. Some little old ladies would be in attendance at almost every meeting, getting their umpteenth message from long departed Aunt Flora. You would see a person getting a reading one night. The next night he would be the minister leading the service and giving the readings. We did find a couple of spiritualist ministers who accepted the Divine Principle. The older one passed away some years later but the younger one adhered to the Divine Principle, although not actively connected to the Unification Church. They even came to meet Reverend Moon when he first arrived in the United States.

One of our favorite churches for witnessing in on Sunday night was Florence Becker's, a handsome stone church near downtown San Francisco. Mrs. Becker was a very large lady and one of the most famous mediums in the country. A story was told about her, that during the Second World War, President Roosevelt had her flown to Washington for consultation. I guess it could have been true, after all Hitler planned everything in consultation with his astrologer, and knowing this, Churchill used an astrologer to figure out Hitler's plans.

Reverend Florence Becker would tell people of the conversations they held before coming to her church, and how they planned to trip her up. This was a shaking experience for doubters, and she made believers out of many skeptics.

At first she gave us some very good readings sensing a different spiritual atmosphere. It soon became apparent why we were there, and we found several members at her church, and we soon became persona non grata at Becker's church.

During our witnessing we found many people, who we thought might be searching of something new. They did search for something new, in reality they were spiritual and phenomena junk collectors. They learned everything they can about religion, phenomena and the occult, but never draw any conclusions or make any commitments, unable to sort the meaningful from the garbage. They did nothing more than add the Divine Principle to their collection and continue their endless quest, having no idea where they were going.

It was easy for Miss Kim's spiritually young members to fall into the trap of talking phenomena with these people, which was what they were looking for. Miss Kim was not easily distracted by them and she would stick strictly with The Divine Principle and questions relating to it. She could cut them off sharply, when asked some question about the spiritual phenomena, with "Why do you ask that, that is unimportant", and return to The Divine Principle. She had a sense about whether a person was just a curiosity seeker or seriously seeking something. The serious seeker usually had many difficult and probing questions and she would spend hours answering them point by point.

WHERE WERE THE PREPARED PEOPLE

Our assumption during this period was that God had people who were prepared do work in this dispensation. Our mission was to use every means of finding these prepared people. But with all the time and effort we invested in this mission, the results were meager. The big question was, where are those prepared people that we were so sure were out there?

We rented a lecture hall and advertised in the newspapers, one person showed up. We aired a 15 minute radio program on Sunday morning with Miss Kim giving the Divine Principle. I think it did bring some small result.

Another time we mounted loud speakers on our van and drove through residential areas inviting people to come to meetings. That is not as simple as it sounds, you have to buy a by a permit and have the system inspected by the police department. The results, not even a phone call.

One of our more brilliant ideas for witnessing was when we went to the Jehovah's Witness convention at Candle Stick Park. We were putting fliers on the cars in the parking lot. That time they unceremoniously kicked out of the parking area and told us not to come back.

Doris and Pauline tried street preaching. They went to down town San Francisco and street preach. If our results were meager it was not for lack of effort on the Doris and Pauline's part. The results were not really meager, there were many people who were given the Divine Principle but there were few that really became members.

One time Doris and Pauline came up with a great idea -- at least they tried to convince the brothers it was a great idea and solicit their help. They got about a six by eight foot piece of canvas, painted a message on it. They attached it between a couple of ten foot poles.

There idea was that a couple of the brothers would carry the banner while they street preached. You can imagine how inspiring this idea was to the brothers. Anyway, I didn't do things like that in the Methodist Church when I was growing up.

They were undaunted by our negative reaction, and carried the banner themselves. It was quite a feat traveling on busses with their banner secured on ten foot poles. I am not sure they met any great success using their banner.

The banner was maybe most remembered for the time they took it to a bluff overlooking the ocean at the northwest corner of San Francisco. There was a restaurant and museum there and it was a popular tourist area. While they were marching down the sidewalk with their banner a gust of wind came up, the banner worked like a sail and about blew them into the ocean. I think the banner was soon relegated to a place in the basement of the center, much to the relief of the brothers. The girls tired to lay a guilt trip on us for not enthusiastically carrying the banner while they street preached.

THE MARCH ON UNION SQUARE

While on the subject of street preaching and carrying signs I must not forget the marches on Union Square. Another of the things we tried at a later date, while we were at Masonic Ave., was to have a march on Unions Square. It was probably sometime in 1963, when someone came up with the idea that we should make ourselves known, become more visible. We will hold a rally in Union Square, a downtown San Francisco park, known mostly for it's assortment of soapbox orators, pigeons and park bench residents feeding the pigeons.

All the members came from the surrounding areas, Sacramento, Berkeley, San Jose etc. I remember coming from Burlingame, joking with Jim and Mary, that we were going to carry sandwich boards, and signs down Market Street. Like myself, and coming from a similar background, this was something that was strange, something that radicals did. I didn't know what we were going to do. We just stepped into the center, when the first thing we heard was someone saying get the signs.

We loaded into cars and the van and headed for Market Street. There we marched down the sidewalk, carrying our signs and sandwich boards. After marching a number of blocks along Market Street we then turned up a street a few blocks to Union Square. Someone got up and started preaching as other members witnessed to an assortment of people in the park. There were few people in the park, a few transients along with the usual residents on the benches. Downtown San Francisco on Sunday afternoon wasn't fertile ground for witnessing, again the results were nothing to shout about. I think our catch for the day was one young fellow that stayed overnight at the center who, and as we found later, was wanted by the police. He was a Chinese seaman, who had just jumped ship, and couldn't speak English. There may have been others.

These marches may have gone on for a couple more weekends. In Burlingame we became very active and arranged to teach the Divine Principle on Sunday afternoons so we just couldn't make the marches.

Although the results were meager, it did one thing, it brought a sense of unity among the members that were strung around the Bay Area.

WHAT METHOD IS SUCCESSFUL IN WITNESSING?

Again, the most successful way to witness was personal contact, but obviously Market St. and Union Square on a Sunday afternoon was not the place to contact people.

No matter what we tried, it all comes down to one thing, the only real results are through personal contact, a personal connection with people. Personal contact is the way to bring people, no matter what extravagant schemes are launched, success comes from one on one contact with people. The success of such evangelists as Billy Graham lie in the follow-up by an organized army of individual Christians connecting with the people that came forward during the crusade.

METHODS OF PRESENTING THE DIVINE PRINCIPLE

In the beginning we brought people to study sessions, where we read and discussed the Divine Principle, page by page. Miss Kim led these meetings; She did not feel any of the members were prepared to lecture, or teach, which we weren't.

At the time, Miss Kim felt that she could not express herself well in the English language, therefore felt uncomfortable lecturing in English. She summarized the Divine Principle and recorded the lecture on a four hour tape. In recent years this method has been employed by many members with the videotaped lectures. It works, however there is no doubt that even a poor lecture is better. The personal contact is important.

Using the taped lecture method of giving the Divine Principle, we would bring new people to the center. We than sat with them for the four hours in front of the tape recorder, listening to the recorded lecture. People listened to the lecture and joined even using this crude technique. Peter Koch was the first lasting member to come from this method.

He later led his sister Barbara to check out this crazy group that her brother had become involved with, she also joined. Barbara Koch, at the time was an interior architect in San Francisco. She was later blessed with, Reiner Vincenz, and they became leaders in the Unification Church in Europe and the United States.

Deciding that the 4 hour taped lecture was to long, we trimmed it to two hours. Which was very condensed, it was finally put onto a long play record. There were a couple of problems with getting so much of the Divine Principle in such a short period. It was so condensed that they couldn't possibly absorb much of it. Another problem was, it completely blew some people away. It was said that we threw the bomb and then got caught in the blast.

Another of the early methods of giving new people the Divine Principal was, to meet with people and read the book, with questions being answered during the reading. These sessions would start at 8 A.M. and go till 10 or 11 P.M. with an occasional break. This was a return to the earlier method used by Miss Kim of simply sitting and reading the book over a period of several weeks. The difference in the later method was that it was done in one session. People joined who heard the Divine Principle through this method.

Later the members began to lecture, after the way was pioneered by one member. Miss Kim realized that we could learn to lecture. Many of the early members later became very good lecturers.

Miss Kim stuck to the Divine Principle. As the final part of giving the Divine Principle to someone, she would give them the "conclusion". This was a testimony to Reverend Moon and his mission. It would be easy to get a following by watering down the Divine Principle, or disguising our purpose in order to attract more members, which also worked for some. Miss Kim felt, the whole purpose was to give people the Divine Principle and then introduce them to Reverend Moon. Her idea was to quickly wean them and then feed them meat. This was the method she used to establish a strong core of early members who understood The Divine Principle.

I am sure her approach, of giving them the entire Principle and letting the chips fall where they may worked. No matter how crudely the Divine Principle is presented, people accept it not by how slickly it is packaged but for the contents of the Divine Principle. Likewise, it seems that no matter how well it is presented, if the people are not somehow spiritually prepared, they reject it. That is certainly not to detract from a good presentation which must be not only the standard but also our duty in presenting the Divine Principle. Our best is necessary.

MEETINGS AND STUDY SESSIONS

After witnessing to people we would invite them to meetings, sometimes we had meetings almost every night. Miss Kim would present the Divine Principle to them often by sitting down and each taking a turn reading. If they were interested we would invite them back for further study. Sometimes it took several weeks of meetings to give the whole Divine Principle.

After that we would have weekly meetings to study. This was the standard, often the older members would go out to witness at night, and Miss Kim would conduct the study session with new members.

There were some people who came faithfully to our meetings, much as they would attend a Sunday service at any church, but they had no real commitment. Here again in San Francisco other than Peter Koch and his sister, Barbara Koch, and Ursula Schumann, who were Germans, we brought no one in.

It was not because we were not working. We had a constant flow of people coming to the center. In the period of a few years we had taken over 1500 people through the Divine Principle. Still no one came from San Francisco, no Americans, no American residents of the city of San Francisco became members.

Gee, maybe we should have brainwashed some of them as we have been accused of doing. If we were to brainwash someone through some devious psychological method, and that can be done, what value would they be to God? They would be people of little value to God or the church with only a superficial understanding of the Divine Principle and of Reverend Moon. People who join for superficial reasons don't stay around long, and the ones that do hang around, sometimes working into very responsible positions usually end up causing untold damage.

Today there is great unrest in the world, caused by God's dispensation of restoration. The turbulence in the spirit world is having a great effect on many people world wide. Many more people are prepared than at our time in the early 1960s in San Francisco.

I am sure at the time there were hundreds and even thousands of prepared people in the United States, but contact was and is the problem. The chance meeting of the prepared person, on a personal level is a problem.

We always had a house full of people, people coming to the meetings, attending and listening to the lectures, but all our effort brought little result.

Anybody that showed signs of being interested in the Divine Principle, we would invite them to move in. Often people would move in, remain a short time and leave. Some only stayed a few days. I have no idea how many. George claimed that this was Miss Kim's method of paying indemnity, it may have been. We sure got some experience from a variety of people through this method. None of them ever joined, but often drained us in many ways.

CHAPTER 6

SOME PEOPLE WE MET AND A FEW WHO MOVED INTO OUR CENTER

As we witnessed to people, we thought we should get everyone we could to move into the center. If they just moved into the center, we would have a much better chance of teaching them The Divine Principle and raising them spiritually. Our experiment had unintended consequences.

We had all types of people move in, they would move in and we would witness to them. We had a Filipino general move in with us at one time, he had come to America with a fortune and lost it all on high living and a woman. Anybody that showed an interest we would try to work with them and we always had this hope that they would grow spiritually and become solid members.

As people came along in the study of the Principles and joined, we invited them to move into the center. The feeling was that the new person could grow better with the family for support. Although this seemed a good idea it really didn't work. At that time we were working to lay a spiritual foundation for the United States and things were very difficult. The people that moved in were often seeking only a family, after experiencing a dysfunctional family in childhood. They enjoyed the family and a good place to live, they saw the Divine Principle as a necessary chore. They would endure the study sessions with little real interest. Many of them were a lot of talk, little action and no growth. I can not recall a single person that moved into the center during that period that is still in the movement. Some stayed around for some time before disappearing or being invited to leave.

The practice of moving people in to live with us lead to many problems. Some people can drain you, although they don't seem to be a major problem, their presence saps the center spiritually and physically. They are takers, and many hung around the Unification Church, it is not until they are removed that members suddenly realize what a problem they were.

I will tell about just a few people who moved in with us. Looking back we had some humorous experiences.

One of the people that moved in with us, let's call him Henry, was one of my contacts at a flying saucer convention. His favorite pastimes were eating and sleeping. He kept a rope and hard hat by his bed in case of the great earth quake. Henry was a big person, not overly fat, but with a gargantuan appetite. His breakfast consisted of hot cereal about 3 inches deep in a huge pot more than a foot across, with half a dozen eggs broken on top. This was put down in less time than one might consume a bowl of corn flakes. Dinner for him usually consisted of at least 3 heaping plates of food, put down in record time, which left him sweating and breathing heavily. Henry made short work of any leftovers, taking the position of center garbage can away from me. With Henry around there was no such thing as a late night snack on leftovers. The refrigerator was bare.

At about the same time Henry came in, we acquired another of the early live in members. This was John, who we soon referred to as the Mad Frenchman. He was French and a total space case, he couldn't keep a job because he could easily spend a whole day doing a thirty minute task. It also took him hours to get started to work in the mornings. When he made breakfast for himself it meant dawdling around in the kitchen until lunch time getting his special health food breakfast together. By the time he was finished with breakfast it was time for lunch which took the rest of the afternoon. He was big on health food and political arguments.

Both Henry and John moved with us from Cole St. to the new center on Masonic Ave. One evening Miss Kim was cooking dinner, and having it mostly prepared, asked the Mad Frenchman if he knew how to use a pressure cooker. He assured her that he did and she went to her room. She had just put the potatoes on a high flame which was to be turned down as soon as it built up pressure. A short time later we heard a huge explosion and everyone rushed to the kitchen. The Mad Frenchman forgot about the pressure cooker immediately after Miss Kim left the kitchen. It is doubtful if he had ever seen a pressure cooker before. The pressure cooker exploded, caving in the top of the gas range, blowing a chunk of the lid up and knocking a hole in the ceiling. The explosion blew out a number of windows and coated the kitchen ceiling nicely with a coating of mashed potatoes.

Henry at the instant of the explosion was doing the second most important thing to him next to eating, that was loading up his plate. He was bent down at the oven loading his plate to it’s capacity with food that was in the oven to be kept warm. When we arrived on the scene he was crawling backwards into the hall on his hands and knees. He then stood up feeling his body, he thought for sure he had gone to the spirit world. This was a traumatic experience for Henry and I don't think he ever quite had the his former zest for eating.

It wasn't very funny at the time and we were lucky that no one was hurt or even killed but later we laughed many times about the pressure cooker story.

As usual it finally became apparent that Henry and John were living there for some other reason than serving God -- namely cheap rent. I don't remember the details but I was probably given the job of inviting them to leave.

A COMPULSIVE LIAR

It was during our time at 410 Cole St., that I had my first experience with a compulsive liar. Al was a Raleigh salesman who met Doris and Pauline at Foster's Restaurant. He sold things to waitresses on their lunch break. They invited him to study the Divine Principle, which he did and apparently accepted it.

He finally moved in with us, and wore a heavy black wool suit and after awhile it became apparent that the suit had never been to the cleaners. Although Al talked big, and told us how to find people and how to make our movement really move forward, he never brought any action only talk. It soon became apparent that Al was little interested in the Divine Principle.

He sounded like he knew what he was doing. He also impressed the members with his past adventures. After awhile it became apparent that he was making up stories as he went along. There was nothing that you could mention that Al had not done nor could you mention a geographical location where he hadn't been. If you took all the things that he claimed to have done and all the places he had claimed to have been, he would have to be at least a hundred and forty years old.

As an example I think Al claimed to have a wife killed in a tragic car accident. He had to support his orphaned daughter who was living with his mother. At one time he also claimed to have been in a German concentration camp during World War II after being part of the French underground. A compulsive liar's stories are always very thin on detail, often conflict and eventually they start crossing themselves up. When confronting one of these liars, there is no reason to disprove the person nor do you want to waste the time to disprove them.

On the other hand, there are people who have done many things. It would almost seem they are making up stories, however their stories stand up. They just happen to be good at telling their stories, and often take a little license with the facts to make it a good story, but they aren't really liars.

Al may have been my first experience with a compulsive liar. I later became aware of others at places I worked and also found a few in the Unification Church. They often impress young and naive people around them with made up stories of their education, intelligence or experiences. If anyone really starts investigating their stories or credentials they don't stand up.

My experience with compulsive liars has been limited to a few people. Not being a psychologist I can't give an authoritative explanation of their problem, but it seems that these people try to impress others by fabricating a background to impress others, such as the amount of education they have, which can't be traced. They often have some pathetic story that can't be traced.

I suspect that Al is still living a strange lonely life, as he was when Doris and Pauline found him in a restaurant trying to sell the Raleigh products. The last time anyone saw Al he was wearing a clerical collar and looked like a priest. He was working in some storefront churches, and probably impressing people with his past and his education.

WE BECOME NAIVE SUBJECTS OF A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

One of our meetings was attended by a university student, who was working on his doctorate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. The students name was John Loflin. He also moved in with us for a period of time, in order to study our group.

The following is an excerpt written by John Loflin for The New Age Frontiers, January 15, 1963, No. 7:

Reflection on My First Year with the Divine Principles

As the beginning of my second year with the Divine Principles movement approaches I would like to share some of my reflections on my first year with the readers of The New Age Frontiers.

Let Me begin with a few words about the nature and history of my religious stand and quest. I am by training and disposition the sort of person who is exceedingly curious about ideas of ultimate truth. But at the same time I have always been extremely interested in systems of thought which attempt to deal with questions of ultimate meaning and truth. A significant part of my life can be written in terms of a pre-occupation with these matters. I have at one time or another given more or less sustained attention to all of the wide range of major alternatives in conceiving man and the universe, and to many of the sub-alternatives.

In the face of the bewildering variety of conceptions of the nature of ultimate reality that exist in the world, each of which has committed followers who feel they have sufficient proof of their position, some years ago I shifted the terms of my concern from one primarily focused on thought itself to one focusing more on the consequences of thought on the way in which persons act. I took up an approach of "by their fruits ye shall know them."

It did not take long to reach the conclusion that the fruits of the established and wide-spread systems of ultimate truth were inadequate, and from the beginning of my sociological training I have focused on New conceptions. About a year ago, in the course of my study and observation I found the Divine Principles movement - or more correctly it found me...

In my first year with the Divine Principles I have endeavored to apply my sociological training to grasp the elusive distinctive character of the movement. Although this effort has in some ways rendered some things explicable, it has left more sociological questions unanswered, and what is perhaps more important, it has raised a range of questions with which conventional sociological formuli [sic] do not a perhaps cannot deal. I have found this in itself most instructive...

All the things I have said are, of course, well known to members since they precede from revealed truth. I am sure that members will continue to have patience as I discover for myself, and within the point of view with which I must work, what they already know.

John Loflin

We had welcomed him with open arms, hoping he would see the great truth of the Divine Principle, recognize Reverend Moon and eventually become a member.

As I remember, in his youth he was a "born again Christian" youth leader who had turned atheist in college, and following the pattern of many who give up Christianity for agnosticism. He could not be satisfied in just dumping Christianity, but had to go to great lengths to justify what he had done, maybe to the point of obsession. He probably thought anyone following any religious persuasion definitely inferior and mentally deficient; even more so, anyone following a small insignificant cult led by and unknown person from a small eastern nation. The results of his study were predictable and was especially suited for the academic climate at Berkeley. Several people with academic credentials went over his dissertation, and commented that it was lacking in objectivity and they were surprised it was so easily accepted at the university.

Loflin seems obsessed proving religion wrong. The people who make religion -- especially a "cult" -- a part of their lives do so because they are weak in character, or lack the education to understand the better explanations of man such as sociological and psychology. This is the way people who deny God often spend the rest of their lives convincing themselves that theirs is the right stand.

He had set out to justify his personal feelings about religion. The early members were portrayed as inept, uneducated and rather dull people. A concept that has been embraced even by some Unification Church members today. He later published a book about us, based on his study, that wrote the Unification Church off as just another garden variety, little cult which had no future.

His hero was a famed sociologist named Blumer who lived with a street gang in Boston, gaining their trust, and his sociological study established a new method of study and he became famous. Following Blumer’s example, John followed that technique and moved into the center, to observe this weird little "cult" for his dissertation.

At the center, we kept a guest book which everybody signed when they came to hear the Divine Principle. It contained the names and addresses of some about 1500 people who had come to hear and study The Divine Principle over a period of several years. All of this work had brought little visible results, however it was like pouring a footing for a foundation of a building. Later, the guest book was stolen from the center on Masonic Street. A guest book would not be an item of value to many people. Allegedly John Loflin stole the book. There were reports of him interviewing people who had studied with us, their names and addresses likely from the stolen guest book.

It was said by one of our later members, that we had never been confronted by a disinterested scientific observer before and there for we just couldn't and hinted we were probably to uneducated to understand anything as profound a sociology.

This same disinterested scientific observer, made a trip to Wyoming to testify at a divorce proceeding. One of our members had her children taken away because of her activities as a member of the Unification Church. This was partially because of his disinterested testimony.

John Loflin later became a professor of sociology, one of the textbooks in sociology contained a chapter on religion by him. He was and maybe is, considered an expert on the Unification Church. There have been reports of him showing up at our Science Conference or trying to attend other Unification Church activities from time to time. If he had been truly objective he could have done a celebrated sociological and historical study of the Unification Church from its inception in the United States.

I am sure that we have not heard the last of John Loflin. At some future date, I expect he will come out with another book, a definitive work depicting the Unification Church. It will be from the same tiresome academic viewpoint. He will have a book full of explanations and jargon, and it will undoubtedly be embraced by the detractors of the Unification Church. A lifetime of studying something without the slightest idea of what he had seen. It would seem the definitive statement is Reverend Sun Myung Moon's and the results he has brought with his small unimportant "cult" that will never amount to anything.

At last report John was teaching at some college in California and probably retired by now.

OTHERS THAT STUDIED WITH US

There was Bill, a San Francisco detective who didn't move in with us, but was active for a while and maybe slightly interested in the one of the girls more than the Divine Principle. He was psychic and used his abilities often to solve crimes, although he didn't let it be known publicly that was how he did it.

The last I heard of Bill, was during the height of the hippie era in the Haight Ashbury district. His moment of fame came when he made national news. He busted the famed ballet dancers, Rudolph Nuryev and Dame Margot Fontaine for smoking pot in the Haight Ashbury district. The charges were quickly dismissed.

For those old enough to remember, there was at one time a classic Saturday morning radio program for kids called Big John and Sparkey. Their creator came to our center and went through the Divine Principle. He had been down on his luck for some time, and became a born again Christian. He hoped to get a Christian Big John and Sparky going but I don't think it ever got off the ground.

One time while living on Cole St., we ran adds in the newspaper. Miss Kim received a call from a priest a nearby Catholic Church. He wanted to learn about the Divine Principle, but didn't want to be seen coming to the center, or even be seen by our members. So on the evenings he was to meet with Miss Kim to study the Divine Principle, we went out to witness. He would go out for a walk, and when he came by the entrance to the center, would just walk up the steps and through the door, which was to be left unlocked.

Miss Kim studied with him and took him through the Divine Principle over a number of sessions. He thought it was just great; I don't know if he understood about Reverend Moon or not. He was in his fifties and said that the Catholic Church had been his life and that he entered the study for the priesthood at an early age. He said that it was too late for him to change his life and that he knew nothing else but the priesthood. After studying the entire Divine Principle with Miss Kim, he left and we never saw him again.

Along with those who studied the Divine Principle, there was an array of people who moved in and out of the center. Some could only make it for a few days. They quickly felt uncomfortable with us, because of the spiritual atmosphere. We always hoped they would grow spiritually and become good members, but none ever did.

These people did not grow spiritually and usually were only casually interested in the Divine Principle. However, some found a family and a home. There were some who had never experienced living in a real family and like it. In some instances the were attracted by cheap room and board. All they had to do for these great rates was attend an occasional meeting.

Miss Kim thought I was too soft in nature, and usually gave me the job of booting them out, a job that others would quickly have jumped at. This was to toughen me up, it didn't, and I still dislike that type of confrontation. People were not asked to leave without working with them for a long time, and trying to light a spark in them. There was always hope that when someone moved in they would grow and become a member but of those that moved in I don't remember any who became lasting members.

CHAPTER 7

PUBLISHING THE DIVINE PRINCIPLE BOOK

We carried the printed pages of the new Divine Principle book to San Francisco. We still had to have the book bound. This meant finding a book binder to do the job.

In order to bind the book, the pages had to be folded and gathered in the what is known in the bindery trade as books consisting of 32 pages. They are then assembled with the other books to make up your volume which have to be stitched and a back and cover put on them. In those days much of the work was done by hand. We decided to save money by folding and gathering the books ourselves we could save money. For the folding we rented a folding machine. We gathered the books also. This consists of putting the pages in sequence on tables and walking around picking them up until you have gathered a book, 32 pages, you then stacked it and started around again. The binder then sews and binds the books into a volume.

After the books were bound, we found there were many typographical errors. We had carefully gone over the final copy checking for errors. With the exception of a few nearly imperceptible errors, we had corrected the errors in the camera copy. This was done by pasting the corrections over the errors with rubber cement. In camera ready copy this works well, any lines from the edges can be opaqued out in the negative. The thin strips that had been used, sometimes correcting just a word.

The printer we chose in Eugene, although a professional, was beginning his own business and had his small operation set up in the garage of his home. We had seen some of his work and it was very good. It turned out that he was sloppy in handling our camera copy before photographing it to make the offset plates. Many of the corrections came off at his print shop causing many of the corrected errors to appear in the finished book. Any spare time we had in the center, was spent correcting the new books with pen and in some cases pasting in new printed paragraphs, in 500 bound copies. We spent hours and hours making the corrections by hand. After our next printing, these first copies were sent to Korea where members working on the English were happy to have them.

Miss Kim had already started on a revised version of the Divine Principle, always trying to make the book a little clearer and more professional. This time she had help from a professional writer we had met, a former professor at the University of California Berkeley.

He liked us, and worked with George Norton at the hospital. He was not interested in the Divine Principle, however enjoyed giving Miss Kim advice and technical help in making the writing more professionally. In turn we were to print a book for him, a book that never materialized. It must be understood, that Miss Kim wrote a number of books, at this stage she still had problems expressing herself fully in English. Even in later years she depended on assistants to help in writing making sure she was coming across as she wanted, and she listened to suggestions.

In recent years all this has been replaced by the word processor makes such a project very simple--as an example the what you are reading now. For us incorrigible "do-it-yourselfers", some things never change. When Miss Kim was leaving to go to Korea for the last time, I asked her if she had used a word processor. She said, that people had shown them to her, but they were very complicated for her to learn, but she could see the advantages. She said she didn't write so much any more, but if the word processor and computer would have been so accessible ten years earlier she would have learned to use one. Knowing her she would have undoubtedly mastered it quickly.

OUR DO-IT-YOURSELF PRINTING JOB

Being incorrigible "do-it-yourselfers" of the first order, and being burned by the printer in Oregon, we decided to do this printing job ourselves. We bought an A B Dick table top offset printing machine, and a copier to make the offset plates. I printed the next version of the Divine Principle in my bedroom. We had printed pages stacked everywhere and the aluminum offset plates hanging on clothes lines in the hall.

We again did the folding and "gathering" ourselves. We rented a folding machine and folded the pages then gathered them. We used the printing machine for a number of years, printing news letters and such. The last I heard of the printing machine, it was in some storage room at publications in New York, it has probably long since been put into a trash dumpster by someone cleaning out the room. It was impossible to envision on what scale printing would be done 30 years later in the Unification Church and its enterprises. This was brought home vividly to me when I was given a tour the Washington Times building, by my son Lloyd, who worked there as a cameraman. He was a toddler when we moved to the center at 410 Cole Street, and now with his wife Yuko, has blessed us with four grandchildren..

Our second printing of the Divine Principle came out much better than the first. I guess we had learned something by this time. There was later a third edition which while we were at 1309 Masonic. We had it printed by a book manufacturer in either Tennessee or Kentucky. This one we did nothing but supply the copy.

THE FIRST SONG BOOK

At some point in our printing process at 410 Cole Street we decided to make a song book and it was made up of Hymns from the Christian church. Miss Kim and I set in her bedroom and picked out songs from the Army Navy Hymnal. I cut the pages out so they could be used for making the song book. This may have been illegal, but the books were just for our own use at the center. Some years later the church got into copyright problems because some members did this with a large red song book. They ended up having to recall them and destroy them.

Our number one song in the book was the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Miss Kim translated some of the Korean holy songs and we printed them in the book. We also included in the book many popular old American hymns such as Bringing in the Sheaves and Amazing Grace. It also included the old standby fundamentalist hymn "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood." I asked her why do we put that in the book, I had never even heard it sung while I was a member of the Methodist Church. She said that Reverend Moon liked the hymn and we included it in the book.

It was sometime during this period that she translated several of the holy songs, which she had in a small book that had been printed in Korea. We even made an attempt, to sing some of them in Korean, which was a disaster. Much later Patty sang one of the Korean songs in Korean for Reverend Moon. He about fell off of his chair from laughter. It is hard to know how she sounded in Korean or even what she might have said. In later years the Holy Songs were published in a book in Washington D.C.

THE NEW AGE FRONTIERS

While still in Oregon, we started to publish a monthly newsletter, it was a simple affair, written by Miss Kim and then copied on a copier. After moving to San Francisco we curtailed the newsletter for awhile. We were all living together and their was little need for a news letter.

After printing the book, we now had an offset printing machine, by now with Colonel Pak in Washington D.C., and David Kim in Portland we were beginning to get members scattered around the country. In the later part of 1962 we began to produce a larger monthly newsletter, and decided on the name, The New Age Frontiers. Miss Kim would type it up on disposable paper offset plates and we would print it and mail it to members. At one point as people scattered through out the country, we produced the New Age Frontiers twice a month.

The New Age Frontiers became an important source of communication and inspiration to our members. It contained articles written by Miss Kim and members in addition to testimonies by new members. At one time Miss Kim did an extensive series of articles on comparative religions, which I am sure was the basis for her later books. It also would contain reports of how the members were doing in their new locations, this was always an encouragement to other members. We sometimes strained to find something to submit to the newsletter, but would make up for the lack of success by writing some bologna to fool the other members. This was later to be developed into a fine art by later members in the Unification Church when making reports of their activities.

When someone new joined, they had to immediately write their testimonial letters. This was a must for new members. This early newsletter was very personal and contained letters about personal experiences and thoughts. It also had a great vitality because you knew the people who were telling their stories. We also went through a period where people were putting in their spiritual experiences and messages they received from the spirit world, some good, some irrelevant.

I think the vitality was somewhat lost in later editions after it became less personal and more just reporting the news. The newsletter and later the New Age Frontiers was published for some years. In reviewing the news letter, I find many of the articles relevant 30 years later. There are other letters and testimonies that have historical significance. There are also many names that are only memories, people that have long ago left the scene. It must be remembered, there was no large body of printed information as a source of inspiration. There were no speeches by Father that gave clear direction. There were no books on tradition. There was no Unification News or Today’s World. By today’s standard it was quite primitive, however it served us well in those beginning years. I have one of two complete sets of over 500 pages legal size pages in existence and am working to get it all scanned, and made available.

CHAPTER 8

OUR SECOND CENTER IN SAN FRANCISCO

After about a year at 410 Cole Street, we decided it would be good to buy a center, and began to look around the area. We were able to save money from our combined pay checks for a down payment on real estate.

We finally found a suitable place for a center. It was big enough to house us at the present time. It was also big enough for future expansion of the center that would be needed for all the members that we just knew would be joining.

The building consisted of three large flats. Each with a separate entrance, and containing about 7 rooms. It was located on Masonic Street, near the east end of the Haight Ashbury district. The addresses of the flats were 1309, 1311 and 1313 Masonic. The purchasing price was $32,000. After the hippie era the area became a popular upbeat area, so I heard, but I have never been back.

Because we could not buy it in the name of the Unification Church. The church wasn't a legal entity and would not have had credit if it were. We bought the center in the names of George Norton and myself.

The owner lived on the first floor and rented out the other two floors. He moved soon after we purchased it, and we had to gave the other two tenants notice to move.

The next thing was to renovate the property and make it suitable for a center. The two bottom flats were in relative good shape and needed paint mostly. However, the top floor was unbelievable, the first time we entered it, one member had to go out and throw up. It had a terrible smell, and trash all over. I just pried open the windows and let it air for several days before going back in. I began work on the downstairs.

I had two weeks vacation coming from the post office and started on the house. This was a major job, 21 rooms, I rented spray equipment and we bought a huge amount of paint on sale, and I went to work. After spraying the whole place, we rented a sander and I sanded the floors, some were nice hardwood, others were just painted. About two weeks later the real estate man came by and offered us 45,000 dollars for it. That is known as double dipping, selling a piece of property cheap, then coming back a short time later and making another commission on the sale of the property a second time. We chose not to sell although that would have been a substantial profit on a couple weeks work.

We made the downstairs the center and used the top flat as the a bedroom area. Miss Kim had the back bedroom downstairs and George had the small front bedroom downstairs. The second floor became the girls bedrooms with a room reserved for father in the back. We eventually rented out the second floor flat, which was a little nicer than the third floor.

Along with us, we brought Henry and The Mad Frenchmen and soon acquired an assortment of others that came and went, as previously mentioned.

We were able to set up a print shop in the basement where we printed the New Age Frontiers. And we had plenty of room for storage in the basement.

OUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE BUILDING INSPECTORS

Soon after we moved to the new center, Miss Kim decided that we needed to let everyone know we had arrived. My conservative attitude was that we should keep a low profile. Because of my art back ground I was given the task of painting the sign to hang out front. I dutifully painted a sign, much against my better judgment, I still thought that a low profile might be best. We hung the sign over the front entrance. The sign read The Divine Principle Center of the Unification Church or something like that and gave meeting times.

I hardly had the paint dry and the sign up, when a San Francisco building inspector appeared at our door, telling us that this was zoned as a residential area and we were in violation. We immediately removed the sign.

He inspected the place, and as he walked through, he found I had a toilet removed to replace the linoleum. This was a building code violation because a building with three flats had to have everything done by a licensed plumber or electrician. Because of this violation we had to have the plumbing in the whole building brought up to code and the work had to be done by a licensed plumber.

Not only the plumbing but everything had to be brought up to code, the electrical. And to top it off, all the windows had to be operable. Getting all the double hung windows in 21 rooms operable, including operable sash weights was a major job in itself. Many of them were painted shut and hadn't been opened in years. The sash cords were rotten and broke and needed replacing in most of the windows. This required removing the wood trim to replace them.

Bringing the electrical up to code was maybe the simplest. It meant returning to the original ancient wiring. Most of the old houses were built with just one light in the center of the room with a pull chain. We had to remove all the wires that people had run from the ceiling light for switches and wall outlets. They would staple cords to the walls and ceiling and along the woodwork.

They then had to inspect everything after it had been brought up to code. I did a marvelous craftsman like job of covering up some illegal plumbing. In the basement, I installed a cabinet against the ceiling under the downstairs bathroom and locked the door, to cover up an illegal ancient lead pipe under the toilet.

We had done some illegal wiring with new conduits in the print room downstairs. I got a brush, took some Santiflush and mixed it up in a jar. I then painted the new conduit with it. With a little dirt thrown on it for effect, the conduit looked like it had been there for a hundred years. We made it past the inspections and from then on kept a low profile.

It was from this center that we did a lot of our work in San Francisco.

TRANSPORTATION

When we arrived at San Francisco, we had a 51 Chevrolet 4 door sedan. George had a late model car, but soon got rid of it. So the transportation was the 51 Chevy, which wasn’t all that suitable for our use.

We then bought a Ford truck and had a custom camper installed on it in Los Angeles. This was for the use of Reverend Moon if he came to the United States. It later proved very awkward for the center to use. Our main need was to transport people so we bought a Ford Econoline van. The van was really underpowered to save on gas. When full of people and stopped at a top of a San Francisco hill, it took two people operating the clutch and brake to get it over the hump. We were also were able to buy the A.B.Dick table top offset printing machine, along with a copier necessary to make the prints, and print the book and have it bound.

One time father sent a hundred and twenty Gingko seeds and said to grow trees and plant them. And said that everyone was to plant at least 120 trees during their lifetime. We grew them and after the center changed, members didn't take care of them. When George Norton came to Denver he had managed to salvage two. The last one died when my young son Jonathan, about two years old at the time, pulled it out of the pot. It was the last one and we eventually gave it a proper burial in the backyard.

It was at this center that I remember having the celebrations and having members arrive from all over.

For awhile we kept the second floor in reserve for Reverend Moon. A sunny room at the back. We also used this as the prayer room. Later when we went to the satellite centers , and had only a few members in the center. We rented out the second floor and moved fathers room to the first floor. On holidays we held the prayer ceremony in fathers room, and members tearful prayers in that room.

MISS KIM AT THE CENTER

At 1309 Masonic Miss Kim took the back corner room of the lower flat. During the day most of the members were working, or sleeping if they worked at night, as some did. She spent her time in her room writing. She was always writing, either working on a revision of the Divine Principle, or writing articles for the New Age Frontiers or writing letters and reports back to Korea. When she wasn't doing that she shopped or cooked or witnessed.

Her room was simply furnished with an old double bed and glass front secretary, from the Pumphrey collection. There was a late depression Salvation Army dresser with a large oval mirror, the oak wood painted black.

In the afternoons her room was sunny and warm, as warm sun light flooded through the windows past the apartment buildings in back. She would sit in a large chair with her back to the window. She was comfortable with her legs crossed on the seat of the chair. George Norton built her a plywood table affair which gave her room to cross her legs underneath it while sitting in the chair. In the afternoon the warm sun light would flood her room through the two large windows. She wore a straw hat to keep the sun from he head while soaking up the warmth of the sunshine.

Miss Kim, who's fragile health she maintained through a very conscious program, was always cold. For financial reasons she would never waste money on heat, except when it was extremely cold or we had guests. One time George Norton took it upon himself to purchase a heater for the center. She became angry at George Norton for buying the heater made him take it back.

She was also as conscious of wasting time as she was money. While I was working on the building I had bought linoleum for the downstairs bath. She said not to waste time doing that, the old worn linoleum would be fine, although it was in really bad shape. I dropped the subject for a week or so, and in the meantime I made a pattern and cut out the linoleum in the basement. I waited until she went to church to witness one Sunday and installed it while she was gone. She came back from church and saw it. I expected a lecture on wasting time, but she commented "It looks nice." and didn't say anything more about it.

One time I had to go up on the roof and make some repairs down near the edge of the 3rd floor roof. It was about a forty foot drop to a concrete walk below. After I was through, I found out that Miss Kim had been in her room praying while I was on the roof. She was praying for my safety while I was working on the roof.

CHAPTER 9

THE SATELLITE CENTERS

There came a time when things were going very slowly. Most of the new members were only marginal at best and certainly not the type of people you would choose to launch a world wide movement.

One evening Miss Kim called a family meeting, something we were always apprehensive about because it usually meant getting chewed out. She said we were bringing few results for all the work we were doing, and that nothing was ever going to happen if the progress continued at that slow rate. We discussed at length the problems we faced in finding new members. Miss Kim suggested that we split up the center and everyone go to various cities in the San Francisco area, where we would then be on are own. The members were all against the idea, we felt defeated. We felt that we had failed if we couldn't find people in San Francisco.

We talked of working harder, about renewing our dedication and doing special indemnity and prayer conditions. The members thought the idea of building a strong center was very important, and it wasn't happening. There were no core members coming from San Francisco, no members with any spark. But, we wanted to continue with the same game plan. Miss Kim was somewhat overpowered by us, she was outnumbered in the discussion for that evening. The meeting was closed with tearful prayers.

It would sound as if we overruled Miss Kim and that we ran the group democratically--the majority rules. That is a sure formula for failure in most groups. No this was not a democratically run group, not at all, but Miss Kim always brought her core members together when making any major decision. She would receive input from everyone before making the major decision. The old saying "two heads are better than one" is very true. A wise person can listen and learn from others, which is one of the secrets of successful management or leadership, and this she knew intuitively.

The following evening Miss Kim called us together again for another family meeting. She said that she had thought long and prayed hard about it, and she knew that the only way we were going to expand was for the people to go out on their own, to pioneer. We would have to witness and teach people by ourselves. Then we would have to be responsible to raise them. We would be in the position of having to look to God for strength and guidance, and not depend on her. It was time to wean us.

The power of God comes through people who are the central figures and are doing his will. If you are the only one, he will work with you. When people are so much dependent on the central figure, or the central figure is unreasonably dominating, the people can't grow. We teach people to follow unconditionally and that is necessary. And, at a point in spiritual growth, it is absolutely necessary to obey unconditionally. To become a leader a person has to learn responsibility. Everyone needs to learn responsibility, even if they are not able to become leaders. The time will come when they are married and have children, and have to support and run a household. Have we not seen members not even responsible enough to get themselves up in the mornings. How can they be responsible for a family or for doing Gods work.

It was easy to witness to people and just bring them to the center and turn them over to Miss Kim. She would then teach them and work with them. But, once a person is out on their own they have to look to God for strength and guidance. They have to teach the new members, deal with their problems. This is how to grow and mature spiritually. That is the main reason she sent us out on our own. People that grow spiritually have to go this path. There is nothing revolutionary about this idea, it is one of the oldest concepts in religion, it is called being a missionary. It is how all religion is spread, and it comes through the personal contact of the missionary with people on a one to one level.

It is on this missionary level that you hear of miracles happening throughout the history of Christianity. When people are out on their own depending on God for strength, that is where his power and spirit are, not back in the churches with the beautiful music and the beautiful services.

In the early 1970s, when Reverend Moon selected pioneers to go to all the states it was the same concept. He gave them $500.00 and picked a state for them and they were on their way. They needed to find a place to live and start teaching the Divine Principle. Some failed but many succeeded. Many of those early pioneers were chosen to go out to every country in the world.

The same pattern was used in Pioneer program at Barrytown, during the mid 1970s, and it worked. People went out with a bicycle, a tape recorder and the Divine Principle. They had to teach and raise spiritual children and be on their own. Many failed because they were not self-sufficient but there was also much success with that program.

This was to be the same concept used when father told everyone to do home church and later go back to their home towns.

It is well known by people who study religious movements, that mass approach does not work bringing very little results. The successful mass approach to converts finally filters down to workers having a personal relationship with converts. The one on one personal connection is what works.

It is easy to be a follower, there are too many born followers, God's restoration needs leaders. Among the qualifications of being a leader are the requirements of becoming self-sufficient, responsible and accountable. In the secular world, people are rewarded according to the amount of responsibility they can handle. This is not to discredit being a follower. Good leaders have at some time also been the best followers. At some point a person has to serve someone unconditionally. Then at some point they have to assume responsibility and become self-sufficient.

This is the pattern of life, we serve our parents. Then as we grow older, we become self-sufficient. We have to be responsible and accountable for wife and children. It is a part of life.

WE MOVED TO SURROUNDING CITIES IN THE BAY AREA

Based on missionary concept the members went to nearby cities, to start working on their own. They also had to find a place to live and a means of supporting themselves.

The members soon moved to nearby cities. Doris went to San Jose, Pauline to Berkeley, and I went to Burlingame, where I worked as a letter carrier. Patty and the boys moved across the bay to Hayward. All the new satellite centers were an easy drive from the center in San Francisco. This change in tactics - which made us rely on ourselves, and look to God for help - was to bring results.

We had always been dependent on Miss Kim to teach The Divine Principle to new people and to "raise" them. Faced with doing this ourselves, we ran into many problems. Miss Kim was always available to come to the rescue. She was only a short distance away, and often helped members out with teaching. Sometimes a member would go through some extreme spiritual difficulty, she would come like a doctor on call to help.

We were also able to give support to each other. Many times, we would take people to San Francisco for a study session or for someone to go through the Divine Principle. This was a time when we sat people down and went through the whole book in one day.

Working with new members, and becoming a spiritual parent is the only way to grow spiritually. A person can study The Divine Principle until they know it forward and backward, however if they do not become spiritually active nothing can happen: God can't work through that person and their growth will be stunted. People often expect that there might be some prescribed course for spiritual growth and perfection. Maybe like going to college and getting your degree or going through doing all the requirements in the Boy Scouts to become an Eagle scout. Spiritual growth isn't quite as easy or as obvious.

It is like a person who reads book after book, on children and how to be a parent. You can fill a library with books on parenthood, read all the magazines published on the subject, but when you become a parent, you can really begin to know about children or parenthood. This is also true with The Divine Principle.

MISS KIM TEACHING THE DIVINE PRINCIPLE

When Miss Kim taught the Divine Principle it was often to just a very few. It was at some of these small informal meetings that Miss Kim was at her best. When speaking before a group she often tended to become very formal, lecturing from notes or reading a sermon or lecture she had written, however when she was in a small informal setting and she had a good spiritual rapport with the people, that she was at her best.

The most memorable and powerful presentations of the Divine Principle were given by Miss Kim in a small intimate, receptive group of people. She would teach with just a few notes and a black board and she would become radiant and her words would flow easily. The room would become vibrant with spiritual energy.

If the people were unresponsive, she would be rather stiff and methodical. In later years when she spoke before a group, she would often read a prepared text, and lacked the spontaneity and warmth I so much remembered her for.

On the other hand, ask a dumb question and she would often reply in kind.

This was the time when good new members began appearing, from Berkeley, Dr. Ang, Ernie Stewart, Elke Klawitter, from San Jose, Carl Rapkins and Ora Schoon, I brought in a married couple from Burlingame who became strong early members.

As the new members in these cities took responsibility the older members could move further away. Doris soon moved from San Jose to Los Angeles and Pauline moved to Sacramento, it was from the work in Sacramento that Paul and Crystal Werner joined. Pauline moved right into their house with them, a real home church. In Los Angeles Doris found Teddy Verheyen and moved into his apartment and started bringing people to his apartment to hear her lecture. At the time he had hardly been through the Divine Principle and knew little about it.

SOME WHO WERE SPIRITUALLY LED

We would often go to the center in San Francisco on week ends, bringing new people to hear The Divine Principle. This was a time we sat people down and read through the whole book in one day.

There was a lady and her husband who was active in a Baptist church, and thought they had found everything in Christianity, but soon began to feel something was missing, but didn't know what. She began having visions of Jesus, and started conversing with Jesus. At one point Jesus introduced her to an Oriental man and told her this was the person she was to follow. She assumed this man to be some Eastern master, a spirit guide, and he was going to teach her.

Shortly after this experience, they learned about The Divine Principle and heard their first lecture from Miss Kim. The following week end, they went to a meeting in San Francisco, their first. After the meeting she was shown a picture of Reverend Moon by Miss Kim and the woman was startled. She exclaimed, this is the man that Jesus introduced me to. She had seen Reverend Moon in spirit before ever knowing that he existed or knowing about the Divine Principle. As powerful an experience as this was, she and her husband later dropped out of the church.

THE SECOND GENERATION OF SATELLITE CENTERS

From the success of the satellite centers, it became apparent that was the way to go. It was not long before some of the new members were able to take over the responsibility of the local activities. Soon Pauline had gone to Sacramento, and Doris to Los Angeles.

Some of the most memorable times were the special days, Parents day and Children's day especially. Other holidays were not in existence yet. Everyone would come to the Center in San Francisco, usually on a weekend. We made it a two or three day celebration. Everyone brought food, Miss Kim taught and told stories. Everyone was required to sing a song, a tradition that Reverend Moon had begun in Korea.

In later years I wondered why these celebrations were so special and the later ones were not. It was because, the later ones are held at a center, where everyone lives every day, it is planned in the center and the food is prepared there, another meal. Those early get-to-gathers were a potluck affair. The food was good and it was good to see people that you hadn't seen for a long time. There was a lot of conversation often late into the night. Miss Kim would walk into the kitchen where people were talking late at night and say, "why don't go home", or "why don't you go to bed". A statement that would sometimes take back new members that were not used to Miss Kim's ways.

As the members became more competent as teachers, we began go move across the country.

CHAPTER 10

PAYING YOUR DUES

When Miss Kim came to the United States with the mission to bring the Divine Principle to the Western world. She thought at the time, she would find three strong members who could carry on that mission. She would turn the work over to them and go back to Korea. She greatly underestimated the difficulty of her mission, or the difficulty in finding someone with the capability of leadership. It would be some 30 years before she would return home to Korea, for the last time. She always looked for a man who could be developed into a leader and take over the leadership role. Probably because of Korean tradition, she felt that a man would be a much better leader and more respected as a central figure. Also, because the past history of churches led by women, many people find a group led by a woman immediately suspect. Therefore she always looked for a man to step in as a leader. This was to prove a very difficult.

Finding someone to assume leadership, especially in the early days, would lead to great problems. Let's say, a person appears who has the ability and potential for leadership. That person must have grown spiritually and have a complete understanding of the Divine Principle. Unless they have been tested fully - known as paying your dues - they will run into major problems and often cause problems.

How many young members aspire to becoming central figures from the worldly standpoint of being at the top of the pyramid, with no understanding the concept of serving; often serving without anyone to confide in or anyone to share the problems with. Strip away the glamour of leadership and it is often the most lonely and difficult route. I am not sure that good leaders are made, but in some way need an inborn talent. But, on the other hand, how many have the ability but never have it developed. There is no easy answer.

Paying ones dues is not a unique requirement for leadership only. It is my observation that no matter what area of life you look into, the people who are a success, as a rule, have paid their dues. Take as example singers, writers or actors--some of the more obvious areas--when you look into their background you find almost without exception, they have paid their dues. Aside from the requirement for talent, that talent has to be developed, which comes from a lot of hard work and attention to detail.

A member joined in San Francisco. He was well educated with a masters degree, and very articulate person. He began almost immediately to lecture the Divine Principle, and was the first member to lecture at an acceptable level, except for Miss Kim. The early members didn't lecture because Miss Kim thought we couldn't--we were really not prepared for it at that time. We probably just needed someone to lead the way and set an example. Later some of those early members became excellent lecturers.

Miss Kim soon began to give him more responsibility. As he assumed more of a leadership position, and then began to exclude Miss Kim. She even washed and ironed his shirts, which he thought necessary to change sometimes 3 or 4 times a day.

Something was wrong. Although his lectures were polished and well presented, something was missing. The problem was, he had no "heart". One afternoon, we had a meeting of the core members at the Flemings home in Burlingame. At the meeting were Miss Kim, the Flemings, George Norton, Paul Werner, Barbara Koch and myself. Miss Kim presented the problem with the member, how he was gradually taking over leadership responsibility but that he was out of tune with the Divine Principle and spiritually immature.

In discussing the problem we decided he had never suffered or had to struggled in his entire life; in short, he had not paid his dues. He intellectualized the Divine Principle and was "all head and no heart", a term later popularized in the church. I was appointed to summarize all this in a letter to him, which I did with some difficulty. Being a hatchet man was never my thing, but I often was given that assignment, because Miss Kim thought I was too soft. Giving evictions became my thing.

After being confronted, he thought about it and discussed it with Miss Kim. He accepted our conclusions about his need to grow, and it was decided he would pack his clothes and take a the next bus to Texas. Miss Kim washed and ironed his shirts, helped him pack and he was on his way on a bus to Texas.

In Texas he soon found a job, witnessed, taught The Divine Principle and struggled. When we saw him the next time he was an entirely changed person. The experience had given him spiritual growth and a foundation of indemnity on which to work.

In another case, in more recent years, a young man with exceptional management capability joined the church. He went on a fund raising team and within a month was made a team captain. He later was moved into another mission, however in a minor position. Because of his ability he thought he should be on top. When he couldn't control everybody around him, he started working against the others, and the ones in charge of the mission. He was finally removed and sent to Washington D.C. for reassignment - hopefully to "pay his dues" and mature spiritually - his great potential was obvious. Because of his personality, ability, and persuasive speech, he talked his way into a very responsible position and fulfilled it well. Within six months he returned to his original mission as central figure. He then went on to several other missions, and was finally matched for a blessing. He didn't like the matching which he accepted, and later was removed from his position. He dumped the blessing and left the church. Nothing replaces "paying your dues", and learning to serve.

In the original position, had he co-operated with the people in that mission, instead of trying to dominate them, the mission which later failed, would have been successful. Because of his great ability, which was undeniable, he would make the difference between success and failure. It seems that his main purpose was to get to the top, and crush anyone who he though might hinder him -- not to serve and fulfill his mission.

There is often an indistinguishable fine line between a member serving a central figure and being dominated by a central figure with a personal agenda, often a subconscious personal agenda. Members have often been used by some leaders who have self serving motives. This is the result of people who have not paid their dues, or who have a shallow understanding of the Divine Principle. On the other hand, people who survive such bad central figures are often stronger and more conscious of what the movement is all about.

Those are only a couple examples of members who moved up too fast because of their talents. This type moves quickly to very high positions before walking away and often turning actively against the church. Before running their course they leave in their wake untold damage, often crushing those who stand in their way. The old adage, "time wounds all heels" is true, but the waiting in the meantime seems like an eternity.

The church has always been in need of capable people and when one comes, they are quickly utilized. There have been many problems in the church with people who moved up to fast, because of inherent leadership capability or education, who have not paid their dues. In order to be a successful leader, one has to learn to serve, which is what true leadership means. To many people have the idea that leadership means being served by others, a concept that is ingrained in the marrow of fallen man. A careful study of Father's words will teach that serving means serving the people under you and working the hardest as an example. People should be serving a leader because they want to, not just because of the position of central figure. Serving and sacrifice is the core of Father's teaching, serving God and others.

Even Father, early in his mission, served an old lady who was a spiritual leader of a small group. He served her unconditionally. At some point a person has to go through a period of serving unconditionally. Father has often personally assigned some highly capable and educated person to go on an MFT, some are on a short time others for several years. During that time they grow spiritual and learn to serve. They find themselves in the boot camp of the Unification Church, without position or status, where education gives them no special consideration. They come from this experience, after paying their dues, matured and capable of becoming truly responsible leaders. This is the reason behind the formula course.

Somewhere the dues has to be paid, which means, going through a period of serving unconditionally. Most people who haven't done this inevitably are the source of many problems and often leave the church, after appearing so promising in the beginning.

CHAPTER 11

OUR EXPANSION TO OTHER STATES

PUMPHREYS MOVE TO DENVER IN 1963

The members began to move to other areas of the country. Pauline went to Cleveland, Doris to Los Angeles, Doug to Louisiana, and Gordon went to Texas. Patty and I decided it was time to go also, the newer members were now capable of handling the centers locally - such as Edwin Ang in Berkeley.

For sometime I made extra money with a part time job cleaning up a restaurant early in the mornings. I began the job while working at the post office. Sometimes Patty would help me clean the restaurant. One morning we were cleaning it and found a road map of Colorado left by someone in one of the booths. We sat down and looked at it and decided then and there, Colorado would be where we would pioneer and we began to make our plans.

Our situation was unlike many members, who couldn't just get on a bus with a few bags and go, or in some cases drive a car. For the Pumphreys this was a major logistical problem, a family with three sons - the two older ones in grade school - and an assortment of belongings. We were moving half way across the country, with all our belongings in a 12 ft. U-Haul pulled by an aging 1951 Chevrolet sedan. This brings reminiscences of ancestors that went west in covered wagons, and later during the great depression, as families headed west to the promised land of California in old cars and trucks.

So I took a long thanksgiving week end at my Western Electric job and with a car full of kids, a parakeet and our belongings in a U- Haul we headed for Denver. We had little money, and knew no one in Denver. I had never been there except as a child, when our train laid over there for a few hours. We just went on faith. Today, I would be very hesitant to head out across country with my family in a 1951 Chevrolet sedan, and all my belongings in a 12 foot trailer. But we were young - it is hard to believe I was ever 33 - my younger kids think I was born old.

On the way, we stayed at motels in Nevada and Salt Lake City Utah.

Our trip to Colorado took place during an important time in history, as we were crossing the great salt flats in Utah, the boys were listening to a small transistor radio, the only radio in the car. It had very poor reception, along with the noise of the car. They said they heard that President Kennedy has been shot. I couldn't believe it, when we got to the edge of Salt Lake City, and stopped at a filling station. It was confirmed by the attendant with tears in his eyes . It is said that you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor beginning the Second World War.

We only had a couple of problems with the car on the trip. Early that first night the generator went out on the car. We pulled under a street light in some small town in Nevada and I changed it. Just happened to have a spare in the trunk. On the third day leaving Salt Lake City, the car heated up going up a pass in the mountains.

We made it to Denver the following day. During that time we watched the activities of the President Kennedy's funeral, on the television at the motel.

We started looking for a house, and finally found one in Lakewood, the third one we looked at and the people later gave the house to us. The owner was going into business, didn't have any equity in the house and wanted to unload it. Not bad for someone coming to a strange city, but we felt it was more than an accident, that God had really helped when we made the decision to go out on our own.

We unloaded the trailer set up the house and I flew back to California to work at Western Electric until the first of the year, January 1964. I was employed in the engineering department of Western Electric in Burlingame when we decided to go to Denver.

A few months later in January I loaded my stuff, which was a lot, into and on top of my 1956 Volkswagen convertible. I built a top carrier, which is a task when you have a convertible. I headed for Denver in the dead of winter. The Volkswagen was underpowered with a 36 horse power engine and would only hit a top speed of 45 mph - I think that was down hill with a tail wind. The Volkswagen broke down late one evening in Western Wyoming. I had ground out the key in a rear brake drum. They had a key way instead of the spline used in real cars. I had used a nail as a cotter key to secure the wheel, and also tightened the nut with a pipe wrench instead of with the proper wrench to 200 foot pounds torque. I was supposed to use the official German engineered, Volkswagen approved, hardened cotter key that must be purchased from a authorized Volkswagen dealer from a parts man named Wolfgang, who speaks with the Volkswagen authorized German accent - at least in those days.

A man and his wife stopped to help. I managed to fashion a key out of an allen wrench to make it to the next town. The man followed me to the next town and invited me to stay at his house that night, when it dropped to 10 degrees below zero. The man was an unemployed carpenter, and the next day drove me 50 miles to Ogden to buy a brake drum. Sometime that afternoon I was on my way again, only to have the same thing happen again in eastern Wyoming at night when it was ten below zero. I made a major error, I used a pipe wrench on the wheel nut again.

My problem, as I learned later, was the rear wheel nut has to be torqued on at 200 ft pounds torque, or you grind out the key way in the rear wheel drum. I got towed to a truck stop. Parked the Volkswagen in the garage and hitched a ride to Denver with a trucker.

After getting settled in Denver, finding people was slow. It wasn't till sometime in 1964 that we found someone, or someone found me. That was the beginning of the Unification Church in Denver. As far as I know there has continued to be a group in Denver or Colorado since that time. The next director was Judy Harbour who joined in Denver. She was followed by Carl and Lenna Rapkins and later by Philip and Vivian Burley. Phillip said one time that people needed to keep a history of the church in cities. I would assume that most of the church history of Denver is forgotten now as are the names of the many directors that have come and gone since then. I believe there has been a center maintained in Colorado continually since 1963.

CHAPTER 12

REVEREND MOON'S ARRIVAL IN THE UNITED STATES

By 1965, with the mission in the United States now over five years old, the early members looked forward to the day when Reverend Moon would visit America. There were spiritual conditions that needed fulfilling before his arrival, mainly a foundation with members was necessary.

When the time arrived, the members assembled in San Francisco -- as many of our small membership that we could gather. For this historical moment, people came from many places. Members from the west coast arrived by automobile. Many from other parts of the country flew to San Francisco. Unfortunately some members who waited from the beginning for this occasion could not afford to fly. Pauline was in Cleveland, Ohio, at the time and couldn't go to San Francisco. When back in Denver after his arrival, I made a tape and sent to her -- a reel to reel tape in those days before the cassette. I told her of those first days of Reverend Moon's arrival. That tape was the basis for this account and in listening to it I realized many of the details of that day were long forgotten.

I arrived in San Francisco, from Denver, late on a Thursday evening. Just a short time before, Col. Pak's party arrived from Washington D.C. There were a number of members at the airport meeting the arrivals. At the airport, Jim and Mary Fleming met me, and I went to their place for the night, if you could call it a night. We talked until 2 A.M., then got up at 4 A.M. to return to the airport for Reverend Moon's arrival.

At the San Francisco airport we found group of 30 or 35 people. Most of the members were from the west coast, along with the ones who flew from the east. David Kim, David Bridges and John Schmedly drove down from Oregon. Col. Pak, Jhoon Rhee and Alexa Altomere flew from Washington D.C. Doris came up from Los Angeles with several members. Carl Rapkins was there from Fresno, and there were a number of local members from San Francisco and Oakland area.

Father arrived at the San Francisco airport at 5:50 A.M., on the 12th of February 1965. The members lined up in a reception line at the door where he was to arrive. We were arranged in a curve around one side of the area. In the room were some people equipped with movie cameras and flood lights while others had regular cameras--I wonder where many of those historical pictures are today? There is one film of his arrival and tour of the United States in 1965 that will be available on DVD sometime in 2006.

Father came through the door and was greeted by his Korean missionaries. He then went along the reception line, Miss Kim introduced each person, and he greeted and shook hands with everyone. He recognized many of the American members from the reports he received from the missionaries in the United States.

As he shook hands with each member, most of us were awe-struck and we probably uttered some unintelligible sound. After him came Mrs. Won Pak Choi, but we were was so overwhelmed by meeting him and staring as he went down the line, we almost missed her.

His arrival wasn't the typical passenger arrival. Father was the first person off of the Japan Airlines plane. The other passengers were held back until he passed through the reception line. Everyone from the plane watched and must have wondered who is this person?

We went into the airline terminal and picked up their baggage, then drove to the Oakland center where breakfast was prepared. After breakfast everyone went into the living room and sat staring at Father, with stupid looks on our faces. Miss Kim kept telling us to say something to him, ask him questions, anything. Then she proceeded to talk with him in Korean, saving us from coming up with something as we all sat there somewhat speechless.

He finally led us in singing, than he sang a couple of songs in Korean. Afterwards he prayed and went upstairs to rest. The time would be late at night Korean time and he was suffering jet lag. We were all tired, having only a couple of hours sleep the night before, however instead of resting we spent the time talking in a typical church tradition. After resting for awhile, he came down for lunch. By now it was after 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Someone planned a typically American activity for him, we went to a boat show at the San Francisco's Cow Palace. Everyone went along, 30 or more people, traipsing along behind him looking at sport boats, yachts and related displays. No one could have dreamed at the time what a part boats would play in his life and his love of the sea. Miss Kim bought Father and everyone ice cream bars at a concession, another typically American activity.

From the boat show we drove through San Francisco, up Dolores St., past Mission Dolores then down Market Street and back over the bay bridge to Oakland. It was getting late in the evening, we ate supper, and then had some free time afterwards. That evening there was a meeting with solid members, new members or the curious were not invited that night. Leon Levi and Louis Lusardi were there -- they were the spiritualist ministers who accepted and strongly supported us, they were grateful for the privilege of coming to the meeting.

Father spoke to us for a while than sang some Korean folk songs, his singing was wonderful, not that his voice is of operatic quality, but the vitality of his singing makes it great. Miss Kim told us that on special occasions he would sing a few songs, then all the rest of the members would have to sing individually, an event we were only somewhat prepared for. Everyone had to sing a song, so most of the evening was spent singing. Standing in front of everyone and singing a solo, is a humbling experience and a great leveler. It tends to put everyone on an equal footing, and in the presence of Reverend Moon even more so. Even those with good voices seem to fall short of their best performance. We left the center fairly late that night. Reverend Moon's use of English was limited at the time. He had been studying for some time with Mrs. Choi, who was an English professor. He read English really well, and one time during a 40 day condition in Korea, he read the Old Testament in English. How many Americans have read the Old Testament, let alone in 40 days and in a foreign language? This visit was his first experience speaking much with Americans and hearing the language in use. He was able to carry on a limited conversation with people, but spoke through an interpreter most of the time.

The next day was Saturday, we left for San Francisco at about 10 A.M. Our destination, Golden Gate Park, where we visited the art museum, aquarium, museum of natural history and the arboretum. These places were toured very quickly, Father took a quick look at everything, spending little time on any one thing. Here again there was and entourage of thirty or so people trying to keep up with him. His pace was incredible, if you stopped to tie a shoe lace you were lost from the group or a building behind.

From Golden Gate park, we went to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch. Reverend Moon and his party went into an Italian restaurant for lunch. He picked several American members to have lunch with his party in the restaurant. The rest of us went to various places on Fisherman's Wharf for lunch.

One place on the tour was the San Francisco Zoo. There he set the same fast pace with the group trying to keep up. Father stopped to watch the seals. Someone bought seal food for him to feed them. The seals enjoyed catching food thrown to them and putting on a show for people.

From the zoo, we went to 1309 Masonic Ave., the former main center for the area and the first property we purchased in the United States. Peter Robinson, his wife Shirley, their three children and Orah Schoon, were living there. The Robinsons were the first black family in the United States to accept the Divine Principle and Reverend Moon. It is significant that the second day he visited the home of the first black members. During those first few days he addressed the racial issue in the United States.

We had a pot-luck dinner, while dinner was being prepared we sat in the meeting room. Father answered members questions and explained details of the Divine Principle. It was an informal and memorable experience before dinner. When dinner was ready we went into the kitchen and brought our dinners to the meeting room. Father prayed, the prayer went something as follows; He prayed about this house was the first center and that we had lived and done much work there. Peter and Shirley Robinson were the first black American members. This was very important and they had a great mission to carry the Divine Principle to their race. If the United States didn't work to overcome the racial injustice in the next few years, that it would loose its blessing and that racial problems were a real mark on the United States.

At the time it would be hard to conceive of the racial turmoil that would later infect the United States. It is also obvious that the old time worn approaches to the problem are failing and that it is apparent the only true solution lies within Reverend Moon's plans. It is significant that the first marriages he held outside of Korea, in February 1969, were to have several racially mixed couples. Since then it has become the standard within the church.

After eating, we returned to the Oakland center. That evening we held a general meeting open to new people and the curious. Father gave a sermon that lasted over an hour with Col. Pak interpreting. This was his first sermon in the United States and we later printed his early speeches.

In his first speech he talked about President Kennedy, with his New Frontier and Johnson with his great society, being a step in the right direction. He also spoke of the importance of the Peace Corps and that the United States had to fulfill through things like this. Although the motives for the New Frontier and the Great Society were correct, as we have seen in recent years, many of the programs failed because, not because the motives were wrong but because of typical bureaucratic bungling, and creeping liberalism.

He also said that if we wanted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven that we must push others in ahead of us -- a concept now understood in the Unification Church. After the sermon he prayed a very powerful prayer in Korean.

After the meeting, he went around and greeted all the new- comers and visitors. Jhoon Rhee gave a Karate exhibition, where he demonstrated his Karate form. He broke a number of boards being held in various positions, one at a height of nearly 7 foot, near the ceiling.

That night, Father stayed up till 3 A.M. watching television. There were a few members in the room with him watching also. Watching television helped him in understanding the language and at that time I don't know how much opportunity there has to watch Television in Korea. This time of night was still day, Korean time.

At 4 A.M., he called a meeting of the Korean members. Later in the morning he called a business meeting with local leaders and announced at this meeting that he wanted to make the national headquarters in Washington D.C. That capital being one of the hubs of world activity. Until this time, each group had been operating independently and were incorporated in their areas. He told them to take the best things from each charter and then combine the groups legally under the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. They were then to select one person from each group as a board member. The board members had to be college graduates.

Sunday afternoon, he held a meeting for members. He presented the bay area group with his flag, a white silk flag with his symbol in the center in red. Jim Fleming received it on behalf of the bay area, it was presented in a black lacquer box. The flag was then hung behind Father's chair.

Later Father gave gifts to everyone present. These gifts were personally selected by him in Korea, ties for the men and silk Korean purses for the ladies. He would look over each person and select the tie or purse he thought suited them. He also had white men's handkerchiefs with his symbol printed in the center in red, with the words "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity" in Korean and English. He gave one of these to everyone. He also presented these gifts at other places as he traveled throughout the country.

After the presentation of gifts, we gave reports on the areas represented. Then we all gave our testimonies, which went on for most of the afternoon.

Sunday evening we had dinner and talked with each other until after dark. Father wanted to go to the Twin Peaks, in San Francisco, and see the lights of the city and the area at night from this highest place in the city. We parked in the parking area, a favorite spot for people viewing the city from their cars. There were others in the parking area, with interests other than the nighttime view of the city.

We went to the top of the peak, about 15 people in all. Mrs. Choi said of Father, "If there is a higher place around, he will climb up to it". He wouldn't be satisfied with anything but the highest. As we assembled on the peak overlooking the lights of the city, there was a cold wind blowing. Father stood on a large rock formation and prayed. One of the members who was clairvoyant received, to open her eyes during his prayer. She said that his aura grew larger and larger until it engulfed the whole group. Then a shaft of light came down to him. She closed her eyes several times and opened them and she could still see all this during his prayer. He told us that night, he would make this Holy Ground, the first of many in the United States. This was a memorable experience for those present.

Leaving Twin Peaks, some of us went to the airport to see Col. Pak off for his return to Washington. As I remember, we all sat at a counter and ate ice cream and sundaes, and Father was eating a huge goopie sundae. Father and the others went back to the Oakland center. Several of us, who were sleeping in nearby Burlingame, stayed at the airport for a long time talking with Col. Pak until his plane departed.

The next day was Monday. Sometime that day Father went to Burlingame to visit Jim and Mary's home. Someone thought we had to much scheduled and asked Father, "wasn't he tired"? His reply was "I was born to be tired".

That afternoon, the remaining members went with Father to twin peaks. We went up the south peak, he thought it might be higher than the north peak but then decided to use the North peak because of God's position being symbolically in the North. He sanctified the South peak and renamed the peaks Parents Peaks, the South being Mother's Peak and the North being Father's Peak. We then went to Father's Peak, where he told us, there was no Holy Ground before his wedding. For his wedding he prepared a large amount of Holy Salt to use for sanctification. They went out near Seoul and made Holy Ground. He told us, making Holy Ground was his main purpose for coming to the United States at this time and that meeting the people was secondary. He was making a physical tie to the Holy Ground in Korea and he was going to make one in each state. These holy grounds act a leavening like yeast in bread, and this is the way the Kingdom of Heaven will be expanded.

He positioned one of us in the four directions, seven paces from the center, representing the four directions of Heaven. The rest of the people were placed at the south. He stood in the center and prayed, then with Holy Salt, he sanctified the area, going to the position each person had been placed in. Then he took some earth, which was brought from the Holy Ground in Korea, and added it to the site, this actually mingled the soil of the two nations. He told us about this occasion "Had you known the importance of this occasion, you would have come here and prayed all night".

Mrs. Choi said that spiritually receptive people would go to the Holy Ground in Korea and bury jewelry and rings because they had received "Lay up your treasures in Heaven". Sometime later, when the hippie movement was in full bloom, they took over our old neighborhood in San Francisco, the Haight Ashbury area. It became the hippie, and drug capital of the world. One time, the hippies had a great "spiritual happening" and they all gathered for a night Father's Peak, which was undoubtedly engulfed in a haze of marijuana smoke.

From the new Holy Ground, we went to the San Francisco city hall. He had me pick up some earth and a few small rocks near the steps of city hall, and hand it to Miss Kim. She then handed it to Father and he put it into a plastic bag to take back to Korea.

For lunch we went to Ott's drive-in, one of first and most famous drive-ins in the country. Now operated by Foster's, Doris and I had both worked at this restaurant on the night shift. We were all sitting in a station wagon, and we ordered hamburgers and cokes while sitting in the car, an old American custom. Father just couldn't understand why Americans would sit in their car and eat.

My flight back to Denver departed later that evening, and it was then about 5 P.M., which gave me about two hours until departure. My suitcase was in Oakland and my airline ticket was in my coat in Burlingame. I said farewell to Father in Ott's drive-in. As their car left, Father kept looking back and waving until the his car disappeared over the hill to the west. This was a scene to be experienced by many in the future that saw him leave in a car, he always looked back and waved till the car was out of sight.

I went nearby and caught a cable car to downtown San Francisco. Some how, with the help of others, I got everything together and made it to my flight back to Denver.

WE WERE FORTUNATE

I remember Miss Kim telling the members that we were very fortunate in being able to meet with Father on a personal level. We sat in a room and talked with him, and asked him questions. On occasion members sat at a dinner table with him. She said that later in his mission, as the membership grew, he would become more and more inaccessible to the members. This would be a necessity because of the number of members. In his later years he would be surrounded by an inner circle of disciples and members.

She said that this would become a necessity because of the sheer number of members in the church. It would later become logistically impossible for everyone to meet him personally. The early members who met him personally for a brief time were truly blessed.

We hardly knew what she was talking about, but the day was to come when I understood her perfectly. In the early days of the seminary and Barrytown and the IOWC, it was still possible to sit in a room, and talk with him. Sometimes he would sit on the bank of the Hudson River and talk to a group of members.

I had heard that he was known to sit and trim his toenails while talking to some dignitary. I experienced this in later years when I was taken in to meet with him one time in Kansas City.

In the early days of the movement, members could often sit at a table with him and eat, or ride in a car with him. Today the newer members are lucky to see him at a distance. I have seen them line up for hours to hear him speak. Many newer members go for years, without even a glimpse of him. For many when they see him it is only from the rear of an auditorium or from the far corner of a stadium.

The early members are very fortunate to have these experiences to remember.

CHAPTER 13

FIFTY STATES IN FORTY DAYS

Soon after his arrival in the United States, Reverend Moon began his trip around the country. The primary purpose of his world trip was to bless holy grounds, and in so doing, make a condition for the restoration of the world to God. The grounds were the physical mixing with the soil of Korea. From each holy ground he collected some soil to take back to Korea. He also tried to find a rock and some soil at the capital of the state or at a city hall.

For the trip, members had purchased a new automobile, a blue Plymouth Fury station wagon. The car was loaded with people, Reverend Moon, Mrs. Won Pak Choi, Young Oon Kim, two drivers, George Norton and Gordon Ross. Mrs. Won Pak Choi was not only Fathers interpreter but Mothers personal emissary representing her on this most important trip. There were other people who rode in the car on various legs of the trip. Many of the details of this trip were well recorded through letters and articles in our monthly news letter, "The New Age Frontiers". The route of the trip was written down and the approximate locations of the holy grounds.

The plan was to travel all 48 contiguous states in 40 days, and make a holy ground in each state. To do this, meant often traveling around the clock. The trip wasn't a leisurely sight seeing tour. Meals often meant buying groceries in a store and eating in the car while traveling. Often sleep meant, catching what sleep they could in the car while traveling. The car was often driven at speeds of 100 mph or more, on isolated stretches in the west in particular.

In 1965, although our numbers weren't great, there were members in many places throughout the country. Working in Europe, there were Peter Koch, Paul Werner, and Ercila Schuman. A number of the early members are still in the church today, while others have long since left. When ever possible, he visited the members and often stayed over night with them. Some of the members had only small apartments. He stayed in these apartments rather than in a motel, sometimes sleeping on the floor. The spiritual atmosphere of a motel is very low, therefore he preferred to stay with members whenever possible.

His arrival came usually on short notice, sometimes on very short notice. I am sure everyone made a last minute scramble to prepare for him. The following excerpt was by David Flores about his arrival in Dallas, Texas. "I quickly ran and told David, who had by this time gotten some clothes on. I tried to get dressed, but was so excited I couldn't even button my shirt. I can feel the excitement and great joy now that I experienced the night -- a sort of effervescent feeling. While the Leader was in his bedroom, I came out of mine... I met Miss Kim, Mrs. Choi, and George. The Master then came back into the room and I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do or say. The words I had prepared left me. I didn't know whether to bow, bend or curtsy. He reached out his hand as we were introduced and clasped mine with such a firm shake that I seemed almost to float from that moment on." At the Dallas center they had about ten or so people come to meet him, the meeting started at 9:30 P.M. and lasted till 1:15 A.M. with people getting to sleep around 3:30 A.M. then up the next morning, eating breakfast, making holy ground and then on their way.

Father usually tried to make holy ground on public property such as a city park, often selecting a tree as the center. The idea was that the park would be a permanent sight and always accessible to members. Even a public park is not necessarily a permanent place. The holy ground in Kansas City, Kansas, was destroyed when they put a freeway through the edge of the park. A few holy grounds were made at night, in remote areas, with no local members present, and are lost. Photographs and motion pictures were taken at many of the sites.

The following account of the trip was from the April 15th, 1965 "New Age Frontiers". It was written by Gordon Ross one of the drivers on the trip, and is probably as good a record as there is of the experience on the trip.

"Driving for our Leader was the most pleasure-filled and joyful experience I've ever had, because of the opportunity to be with him and come to know him better. When we started out, George Norton and I had no idea we would be traveling across and up and down the continent and back -- a 15,000 mile journey -- in forty days! However, by the time we reached Albuquerque, N.M., our Leader had given us a very good idea of the speed and timing at which to proceed! Let me now highlight the trip for you, brothers and sisters, from San Francisco to Washington DC and back again.

"In Friday morning, Feb. 19, 1965, the Master's party, consisting at that time of our Master, Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, George, Eva Sepp, and me, left Oakland, Calif., bound for the Los Angeles Center. Our shiny blue 1965 Plymouth Fury III station wagon purred contentedly as we sped along the Nimitz Freeway, bypassing San Jose. Turning off Route 101 above Salinas, we went toward the Coast where we began following Highway 1 to San Luis Obispo. The area around Monterey (former capital of California) and Carmel, with their historic buildings, quaint woodsy houses, and breathtaking 17-mile drive in a forested cove along the beach, filled our souls with delight at the beauty of our Father's creation! During the drive along the beaches and cliffs of Highway 1, as we passed in and out of redwood groves, by artists' huts and mansions, up and down hills, and through meadow-like fields, we spotted many birds and stopped to look at the seals on the rocks below. Our Leader even caught sight of a deer on top of a mountain near us. The day was sunny and warm, and evening found us at our destination -- Los Angeles.

"Our Leader, Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, Teddy Verheyen, John Pinkerton, George and I left Los Angeles on Feb. 25th (Thursday morning), and headed for Las Vegas, Nev. Our Leader was amazed at the vastness of the desert and the height of the mountains which jutted so sharply up alongside the highway as we drove toward the town of Lone Pine, gateway to Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental U.S. (elev. 14,495). After climbing to approximately 8,000' above sea level, we stopped in a small grove of pine trees where our Leader blessed the ground, then covered with a foot of snow. From the heavenly heights of Mt. Whitney to the infernal depths of Death Valley, we descended until we reached the lowest point of land in the Western Hemisphere -- Bad Water, Death Valley, 280' below sea level. There our Leader blessed the ground, again covered with white, but this time it was salt, not snow. Then as the hour of dusk came and went, we sped on toward Las Vegas, the largest city in Nevada, and gambling capital of the U.S.

"In Las Vegas, our Leader, Mrs. Choi and Miss Kim stayed at the Stardust, a very lavish motor hotel "On the Strip" (a mile-or-so-long portion of the highway where luxury abounds in the form of exclusive motor hotels and restaurants). The neon lights of the gambling casinos downtown were so bright that they literally made a whole section of the city appear bright as day! The next day (Feb. 26), our Leader blessed ground and we left for the Phoenix Center in Arizona.

"Our journey to Phoenix took us over the Hoover Dam, one of the largest dams in the world, which incidentally bridges the States of Nevada and Arizona. Our Leader wanted to take the half-hour tour down into the center of the dam to see how it was made and how it functioned. After our tour, we hurried on through the desert land of Arizona, arriving at Phoenix early that evening. At Phoenix, Teddy and John left to return to L.A., and Sue Hubbard and Jim Percy joined our party. The seven of us departed early the next morning (Feb. 27) destined for Dallas, Texas, via the Grand Canyon.

"The view as we journeyed along the Canyon's southern walls was inspiring, with great red rocky cliffs falling to the Colorado River far below. After stopping briefly to examine the Canyon through the enlarged eyes of high-powered binoculars, we traveled on through the desert plains of twisted cactus, yucca, rocky bluffs, and the southern foothills of the Rocky Mountains until we reached Albuquerque, N.M. where we spent the night.

"Early the next morning (Feb. 28) we blessed ground in Albuquerque after having some difficulty in finding a pebble and some dirt at City Hall since it was surrounded by a cement sidewalk. However, we chipped a piece of stone off the corner of the City Hall, dug some dirt out from between the cracks of the side walk, and continued on our way.

"In Albuquerque, we left Sue and Jim at the bus station, and sped on to Dallas through the dry Texas Panhandle. Undaunted by a raging dust storm near Amarillo which filled the car with grit, we arrived in Dallas that evening. During our trip across the southwestern states, our Leader was continually impressed by the vastness of the area, and many times commented on how large the United States was. Much of the time was spent traveling through the plains and deserts of the southwest, our Leader utilized his time in learning English with his "English teacher", Mrs. Choi.

"From Dallas the next day (Mar. 1), we drove to Oklahoma City, encountering in Oklahoma what were undoubtedly some of the worst roads of the trip. The scenery of rolling hills and flat land, dusted lightly with new-fallen snow, captured our attention. After a two-day visit, during which our Leader saw his first buffalo near Anadarko, we traveled through flat prairie land north and east along the 80-mph freeway to Kansas City, Kansas., where we met Leonard Edwards in the City Park where our Leader was to bless ground.

"The following day (Mar. 4), our car left Kansas City and eased its way through tumbling snowflakes across the plains and rolling countryside of snow-covered Missouri to Creve Coeur, a suburb of St. Louis and the home of the Oswalds and the Weirs (correspondence course students). In St Louis the roads were icy-slick and the snow half-way up the side of the car, but we all (including the Oswalds) were in high spirits as we drove to the Holy Ground. After a comfortable night's rest, we turned our craft southward toward New Orleans, La. (Mar. 5).

On our journey to the deep south, we first stopped at Paducah, Ky., to bless ground. To reach the State of Kentucky from the State of Missouri, we had to go through Cairo, Ill., and across the Mississippi River, The weather of Cairo, by the way, is exactly like that of Cairo, Egypt, for which it is named. At this point on the trip, our ears must have been dazzled by the words of our Leader and our eyes dazzled by the snow-covered ground and the greatness of the mighty Mississippi, because after we crossed the bridge a sign greeted us saying, "Welcome to Ohio!" We had taken the wrong bridge! Around we turned, and hurried back over the bridge to Cairo. Again we crossed over the river, this time by another bridge. "This time we'll get it right," we all thought. The welcome sign of the State loomed large ahead: "Welcome to Missouri!" Missouri?? Sheepishly and somewhat perplexed, the driver of the car turned his steed around and set off determinedly across the river. We made it!

"From Paducah, we went south to Memphis, arriving at night. We were proceeding directly to the ground to be blessed when our Leader casually commented that we had passed a certain restaurant once before. Gales of laughter filled the car! We had been driving around in a circle! To find a suitable piece of land in the melting snow and slush of a pitch-black wooded park was quite normal for us by then. But the local police doubted the normality of our intentions, and "interrogated" George about our plans. George showed him his Association card and explained our intent. The policeman accepted his explanation and left, slightly bewildered. Our Leader performed the ceremony without delay.

"From Memphis we drove on to Little Rock, Ark., where we stayed overnight and blessed ground in the morning (Mar. 6). Several early-morning golfers witnessed the ceremony, but appeared less disturbed than George and me who were worrying about the flight path of possible stray golf balls.

"From Little Rock, we drove along the typically narrow roads of the south through Vicksburg, famed fortification of the Civil War, up and down the hills of Alabama, through the swamplands of Louisiana to New Orleans, infamous for 19th-century slave trade and 20th-century Madi Gras. Our hearts were saddened at the sight of the squalid huts and poverty of so many people in Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana. We were all the more grateful in knowing that our Leader had established the condition needed to eliminate this misery, and that he would take steps as quickly as possible to renovate the land and the people. To reach New Orleans, we crossed the longest causeway in the U.S., 29 miles across Lake Pontchartrain. For a while, we thought ourselves to be steaming on the high seas. Only the tiny winking lights of bobbing ships greeted our eyes as we sped swiftly through the silent darkness of the great lake. Our Leader was eager to proceed on the journey, so, with the New Orleans Family and several other Family members who had arrived earlier, we blessed land in New Orleans the night of arrival and left early the next morning (Mar. 7), taking Douglas Burns and Ernest Stewart with us.

"The sky was blue, and the Gulf of Mexico waters dancing in the sunny warmth of the day reflected our mood as we drove along the Louisiana-Alabama coast to Mobile. There our Leader blessed land, and we hurried on to Tampa. Fla., through the swamplands of stunted trees, black water, thick undergrowth and Spanish moss.

"We arrived at Tampa in the early morning hours (Mar. 8) to be greeted by the Tampa Family, Mr. Bo Hi Pak from Washington, and others who had preceded us. After blessing land in Tampa later in the morning, we traveled down the west coast of Florida through the numerous resort cities to Miami Beach, where our Leader blessed a beautiful site of soft green turf and swaying palm trees. There he dipped his finger into the smooth, gentle and warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean and, in Korean, wrote in the sand next to Mr. Pak's "Ahbogee" (father), the word "Ohmonee" (mother).

"Quickly then, we drove south along the 150-mile string of Key Islands and connecting bridges to Key West, the southernmost area of land in the U.S. The next morning (Mar. 9) we toured the town of Key West, inhaling the fresh salt air and basking in the warm Florida sun -- such a contrast to the cold of Kansas and Missouri. Our Leader again dipped his finger in the waters of the southernmost beach in the United States where the Atlantic embraces and is warmed by the waters of the Gulf Stream. There he took some of the sand and seashells as souvenirs, and briefly stopped at the former home of the late Ernest Hemingway, noted American author.

"The view during our morning drive back to Miami was breathtaking! The blues and greens of the water, land and sky formed an ever-changing mosaic of soft beauty. Herons, ducks, pelicans, kingfishers, birds of all kinds flew along the roadway sunning, sporting, and diving for fish. In Miami we had lunch at the window top of a downtown hotel and watched the bay shipping traffic as we ate the delicious food which America can provide so well. After lunch, we drove past row after row of massive resort beach hotels, glistening white in the afternoon sun.

"From Miami we went north to near Ft. Pierce, where our Leader, Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, Mr. Pak, Doris Walder, George and I bade Rebecca Boyd, Tom Robinson, Ernie Stewart, Douglas Burns, and Maggie Compton goodbye. Then we traveled to the overnight town of Daytona Beach, famous for its beautiful beach whose sands will support even the weight of a car. From Daytona (Mar. 10) we proceeded north away from the sunny sand and palms of tropic Florida to the charm of the ante-bellum south. Our first stop -- Savannah, Georgia.

"When our Leader blessed the ground there, Doris said to me that she sensed the presence of many spirit-men from the historic days of Savannah. How true that statement is for all the blessed spots over which the Master has prayed.

"We departed then for Charleston, So. Carolina. No sooner had we arrived than we honked the horn for Gary Elliott, who hopped aboard and we were off for Columbia, the capital of So. Carolina. Only George had met Gary before, but Gary and I established a close bond of brotherhood in the tight quarters of the car's rear-window seat. He was so excited at our Leader's visit that he could hardly listen as I explained the significance of the Holy Ground ceremony, but kept turning around to look at his True Father.

"In Columbia we spent a very comfortable night at a motel owned and operated by Blacks. The next morning (Mar. 11), after blessing ground and bidding farewell to Gary, we headed for Raleigh, we journeyed to Richmond, Va., where we visited a memorial building dedicated to those from Virginia who had lost their lives in World War II and the Korean War. Enclosed in small glass cases, at the foot of the glass wall etched with the names of the honored dead, were relics from the sites of the campaigns in which the war heroes had fought... "Leaving Richmond after blessing ground there, we traveled to Fredericksburg and stayed over night.

The next day (Mar. 12) we penetrated the hills of the Alleghenies and arrived in Martinsburg, W. Va. At the Windewald Motel south of the city limits, part of the Washington Family joyfully greeted our Leader and accompanied us to the blessing site. From Martinsburg, our Leader went in a car supplied by Joe Badra of the Washington Family, gaily bedecked with colored flags. We journeyed through Hagerstown, Md., to Washington DC, and to the home of Mr. Pak in Arlington, Va., arriving Friday afternoon, March 12th. The Washington Family greeted us enthusiastically and with much ceremony.

"After several days packed full with official and unofficial meetings, tours, times for getting acquainted, and -- most important -- the blessings of the White House and Capitol lawns, our Leader said we must hurry back to California. Imagine our surprise! We had expected to stay a while longer. Nevertheless, the morning of March 18th found our Leader, Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, Mr. Pak, Mr. Nishikawa of Japan, Moonhye Yoon, George, me, and the luggage snugly packed into our faithful vehicle, now a mature young adult with 8,000 miles under its hood. Mr. Nishikawa and Daikan Onuke had flown into Washington while we were there, and Mr. Nishikawa was now accompanying us back to the West Coast. His bubbling humor and enthusiastic air and expressive "Wonderfuru!" kept all of us laughing most of the 7,000 mile journey. (Note: Nishikawa was the Japanese name used by Mr. Choi who founded the movement in Japan and later came to San Francisco and worked there successfully.)

"Our first stop was Baltimore, famous for its white marble steps, in the tiny State of Maryland. Our second was Wilmington in the even tinier State of Delaware, where city blocks are called "squares", and the favorite sport is boating.

"The next city to receive our Leader's blessing was Philadelphia, Pa. There we stayed several hours to visit Arthur Ford, a well known trance medium, whose spirit guide, Fletcher, had given witness to our Leader as the Messiah and Leader of the New Age. Fletcher again gave witness: "The light around you [all of us in the room] is so bright that it would blind most of you... In other circumstances, my instrument [Arthur Ford] and you should take off your shoes. You are sitting in the presence of Truth incarnate!" Two Episcopalian priests, friends of Arthur Ford for 10 years, were enthralled by our Leader's presence and words, and by the testimony which Fletcher bore. They want, by all means, to study the Divine Principle. Mr. Volker of Philadelphia, who has been studying the Divine Principle, but has not accepted fully, was also somewhat taken aback and no doubt uplifted by the moment of the occasion. After the sitting, our Leader gave some words of advice to Mr. Ford, saying that he should study the Divine Principle and seek the highest spiritual level rather than remain in the one he now occupies.

"After blessing land in Philadelphia, we turned along the New Jersey Turnpike to Trenton, capital of New Jersey. We arrived at the site of blessing in the evening. From Trenton, we went north to the impressive skyscrapers and jangling traffic and bustle of New York City. We were greeted in that megalopolis by the New York Family, who treated us to an appetizing dinner of Korean food. Then we all bedded down in Moonhye's small apartment. The following morning (Mar. 19th) we went to Central Park for the blessing. We then fought the New York City traffic upstream to the New York City Hall and bade our New York Family farewell, and we left for the New England States on what was to be the most "blessed" day of the trip!

"The farmland of Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey began to change to typical wooded land of provincial New England. We followed the twisting course of a small river through shady glens and forest groves of pine and birch, until reaching the university of New Haven, Conn. Our Leader blessed an area and we hurried north to Providence, R.I., site of his next blessing. From Providence, we traveled on to Boston, Mass., arriving about 7 P.M. The citizens of that respectable city were nonplused to see us downtown in the Boston Public Garden praying and dedicating the land to God. The traffic on the Eastern Seaboard is very heavy -- people are really "on the go!" -- and we didn't reach northern New Hampshire until 10 that evening. A full yellow-orange moon shone down on our Father as he blessed the frozen ground in the city park of the seacoast town of Portsmouth. We then crossed the bridge and entered the state of Maine. Our Master, with a heavenly schedule to meet, wasted no time in choosing the site of his next blessing. The small village of Kettery, Maine, population 5,000 and 1/2 hours drive from Portsmouth, received the greatest honor in its history as our Leader blessed its City Park. Pressing onward through the chill and frosty night scene of New Hampshire and Vermont, we reached our destination -- Brattleboro, Vermont. Time: 3 A.M., Mar. 20.

"After giving his blessing to Brattleboro later in the morning, the party continued its journey westward through Vermont and New York State to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The falls rushed over their precipice, a roar of spray and icy white chunks, as we walked on the frozen snow-covered ground...

"Leaving Niagara Falls and Buffalo behind, we plunged into a raging Lake Erie blizzard which lasted the 200 miles to Cleveland, Ohio... Were we ever glad to see the smiling faces of the Cleveland Family and sit ourselves down to steaming dishes of rice and meat! (note: Pauline Verheyen pioneered Cleveland and had established a group there)

"After a comfortable night's rest and a hearty breakfast, we left (Mar. 21) for Detroit, Mich., the next city to receive our Masters blessing. From there, we journeyed on across the snow-covered ground of Michigan and entered Indiana where our Master blessed a park in the city of Hammond near Chicago. Our destination, Lombard, Ill., the home of Eileen Welch and the Chicago Center, wasn't reached until late that evening, but the hearty welcome warmed both spirit and body. (Eileen Welch, now Lemmers was the first member in the United States, worked with David Kim and pioneered Chicago.)

"Since our Leader's purpose in coming to the United States was primarily to bless ground, we were unable to stay in Chicago, or many other Centers, longer than overnight, and after the ceremony the following morning (Mar. 22) we sadly bade goodbye and set off for Madison, Wis. In Madison, we sat and talked with Mrs. Marjorie Hill who had just completed the Divine Principle Correspondence Course lessons, and who had learned of our early arrival two days earlier. Having blessed a small park near her home, our Leader and his party left Mrs. Hill, full of joy and somewhat dazzled by the swiftness of all that had transpired, and set off for the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., separated only in part by the newly-springing Mississippi River. In the city which bears the name of the one who accomplished so much to lay a foundation for Christianity, we settled down for the night.

"When we walked to the site of the blessing the following day (Mar. 23), the snow reached halfway up our legs, and we were only too glad to follow in our Master's footsteps. At every point of the journey, his energy abounded, his zeal was unflagging, and his pace was untiring. The snowy hill on which he performed the ceremony in St. Paul was no match for his swift strides, and we soon left the city for Fargo, N.D. The temperature in St. Paul the night we arrived was -4 degrees F. What was the temperature when we arrived at the coldest city in the continental U.S. at noon the next day? -4 degrees F.

"Having blessed Fargo, we turned south to Sioux Falls, S.D. Surprisingly enough, South Dakota offered little hindrance in the form of snow or ice, and we made good time through the flat expanse of the southernmost Dakota, reaching Sioux Falls by early evening. As we crawled on our hands and knees up the steep, icy, and snow-covered hill which our Leader had so easily walked up, I had to admire the endurance of Mrs. Choi and Miss Kim who did not hesitate to follow him to the top. Like most of the blessings in cold weather, the ceremony at the summit was brief. Not hurried, but brief. I'm sure our Leader was concerned about our welfare. He himself never wore gloves while performing the ceremony, and our hearts ached when we saw his red and frost-nipped hands.

"On to Sioux City, Iowa, and another blessing, brief but not unimportant. Then to the overnight stop of Lincoln, Neb., at which another snowstorm enshrouded us with falling flakes. The hotel manager was very considerate, and let us have three rooms for only $12.50. When George and I reached our room, imagine our surprise to discover that what we thought was a closet turned out to be entry to another room with two double beds! A total of four rooms, and seven double beds. That night we made our four hours sleep count! The next morning (Mar. 24), after brushing a foot-deep pile of snow off the car, we went to the site of the Holy Ground. Nearby was a small zoo and, from their pen only a few feet away from us, a flock of sheep silently watched...

"All that day, we crept through the snow-packed and icy prairie roads of Nebraska toward Cheyenne, Wyo., where Mrs. Hall had been busily establishing a Center. We arrived at dinner time and decided to take the dinner Mrs. Hall had so graciously prepared with us to Galen and Patty Pumphrey's home in Denver, Colo., about 100 miles to the south. The Pumphreys and other members of the Family greeted us with open arms.

I will interrupt Gordon's story to relate our experience of Father's arrival in Denver. We had been under the impression that the party would arrive in Denver several weeks later. We received a call that they were in Nebraska and would be in Denver that evening. A wild scramble followed, we were only partially prepared. The house at 1020 Jay St. was a small three bedroom, with eating in the kitchen.

We had prepared a room, bought a new mattress and bedding, a small setting of new dishes. His party arrived in the evening, and we ate food that we had prepared and some that was brought with them from Cheyenne.

After dinner, we went to the living room. We had a parakeet, and Father noted that it didn't have a mate. We went out soon after and got the bird a mate. Father made himself comfortable in a very worn overstuffed chair. A little later in the evening, we had a meeting in our small living room, he talked through his interpreter, Mrs. Choi and sometimes Miss Kim helped out. After talking for a couple of hours he had us ask questions. The meeting went on until 4:30 A.M., we asked him many questions.

There was probably eight or ten people from Denver. I say Denver, however several had come from Oklahoma, relatives of a local member. There was his party, which included Mrs. Choi, Miss Kim, Mr. Nishakawa (Choi) and the drivers plus Terry Hall from Cheyenne. We had a full house. There wasn't enough room for everyone to sleep there, so we had Father in one room, Mrs. Choi and Miss Kim in our bedroom, and several sleeping on the floor. Mr. Nishakawa and the drivers slept in the boys bunk beds. We had to go to another house, where the children went earlier to sleep.

We came back early in the morning, had breakfast. Then Father wanted to bless Holy Ground. The car they had been using on the trip had a burned valve, and had to be taken to a garage for repair. What car should we take to bless Holy Ground? One of the members had a new car and I had an ancient, 1951 Chevrolet 4 door sedan, the one we had moved to Denver in. Miss Kim explained that the Chevrolet was the first car, and for a time the only car, we had in our center in San Francisco, a somewhat historical car. He chose to ride in it, making it a historical car. That car is still in our possession at our daughter Melisa in Virginia. He mentioned the car some years later, while speaking to blessed couples in New York.

The party went, in several cars, to the Denver city park, where he chose a very large Elm tree as the center of the Holy Ground. There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground, Father lead the way with everyone following the path that he had made. After blessing the ground, we went to the capitol, where he took some earth and a stone. We returned to the house and late that afternoon, there car was repaired and they were on their way west.

To continue with Gordon's account of the trip;

"At 3:30 P.M. we left Denver and headed toward Laramie, Wyoming. Rather than go over the storm-battered Rockies at night, our Leader thought it wiser to go through the less mountainous country of Wyoming. Again we ran into blizzards and icy roads, but most of the way we made good time going 80 and 90 mph. The most difficult times during our trips on snowy roads was when approaching a truck to pass it. The truck's rear wheels would throw up a voluminous spray of fine snow which enveloped us in a fog-like cloud, so that neither road, countryside, nor truck was visible until our front windshield had drawn parallel to the truck's rear wheels, or until a gale-like wind had blown the snow cloud to one side. Passing under such conditions was certainly harrowing!

"In Salt Lake City, Mr. David Kim of Oregon and Mr. & Mrs. Gaisford greeted us and treated us to hot food and the physical and spiritual warmth of the Gaisford home. The next day (Mar. 26), after blessing a park overlooking the city, we briefly toured the Mormon Tabernacle and surrounding grounds. Then we headed for Boise, Idaho. We arrived at eventide, took Vernon Pearson on board, and went to a nearby park to bless the ground.

"We left Boise after dinner fully intending to reach Grangeville, Idaho about halfway to Missoula, Mont., but Idaho State 15 and Jack frost had other plans in mind for us. Idaho State 15 is known as the "scenic route". Scenic routes are not generally the fastest way to one's destination, and State 15 was no exception. The road curved around, under and over hill and dale, mountain and valley... Passing several cars adrift in a sea of snow, we decided to put ashore at a small rustic hotel in Cascade, far from our destination. The next morning (Mar. 17) we left early and continued our tense journey to Missoula. Approaching the town of Grangeville, we encountered the winding road of White Bird Hill. As we turned and twisted, large drops to the valley below, loomed on every side. Often the car would slide a little way along the ice-slick roads before responding to the promptings of its driver. The view was breathtaking! So was the ride!

"From Grangeville to Missoula we first had a delightful drive along a river canyon whose pine-covered slopes rose above us several thousand feet, and whose river waters rushed merrily by filled with life -- fish, otter and beaver. Although road signs assured us of the presence of big game, we never saw any as we sped along the winding but good highway. In Missoula, our Leader blessed land surrounded by pine, fir, and lofty smooth mountains. The rushing waters of a brook nearby accompanied his words...

"The road conditions from Missoula to Spokane, Washington, forced us to put tire chains on the car, and we inched over the mountain passes with cat-like precision. From Spokane to Seattle, we soared through the crisp night air, slowing only for the Cascade Range, and reached the home of Suzanne and Dianne Pitts around 4 A.M. (Mar. 28). After a few hours sleep we ate breakfast, then went to bless the Holy Ground. Spring greeted us on the West Coast... After a brief tour of the city, we headed for St Helen's Oregon, where John Schmidli maintains his Divine Principle Center. There we had dinner, and proceeded on to Portland where Mrs. Terre Hall is in charge of the Center. After a night's rest, our Leader gave his final official blessing to the United States (Mar. 29) -- "It is fulfilled!" -- at Mr. Tabor Park in Portland, overlooking the city.

"The warm days of the coastal clime were a welcome change to the cold of the north. We journeyed to Eugene, Oregon, birthplace of our American Family. It was here that Miss Young Oon Kim started her mission to America, and she escorted us to the houses in which she had first lived, written and held meetings. At present, Mr. Kim and David Bridges maintain the Eugene Center. As a special favor to America, and in memory of Miss Kim's first missionary activity, our Leader blessed an area of ground in Eugene. Before leaving the city, we visited Oak Hill where Galen & Patty Pumphrey, Doris Walder, Pauline Phillips, George Norton and Miss Kim lived during the early days of our movement in this country. After a delicious Chinese dinner in Eugene, we said goodbye to the Oregon Family...

"We left Eugene about 7 P.M. and drove down through the mountains of southern Oregon and Northern California, down through the Sacramento Valley, down through the Vallejo Hill, to the city of Oakland where we had left forty days before.

"The San Francisco Family greeted us at 5 A.M., March 30th, and after a breakfast so carefully prepared by Kathy Martin, we talked for a while and then rested for a few hours before spending the remainder of the day touring San Francisco. That evening, the Bay Area Family all gathered at the Martins in Oakland and had a sparkling question and answer session with our Leader until 2 A.M.

"The next morning (Mar. 31), we accompanied our Leader, Mrs. Choi and Mr. Nishiakawa to the airport to bid them farewell with strongly mixed emotions. We were sad because we knew we would not see him for another year, yet happy because we knew he was going on to continue his trip to Washington DC then around the world...

CHAPTER 14

WHO WERE THE EARLY MEMBERS

It is easy to assume the early members weren't working hard enough and their approach inadequate. There is also the concept perpetuated by some that they were a collection of uneducated misfits or failures. The credentials for being prepared for God’s work are not framed and hanging on the wall. To a great extent, they are the credentials in the spiritual legacy left you by ancestors.

Let us look at these early members not in light of their academic credentials, for those are of little value in understanding the Divine Principle and Reverend Moon.

There are reasons the work progressed so slowly, and not just because of the inadequacy of the early members. In 1960, the spiritual climate was much different. Spiritual phenomena, which is openly discussed today on television, was discussed only in very private groups. It is common to see a television program openly discussed ghosts and the spirit world. In those days, if you spoke openly about the spirit world or unorthodox ideas on religion, you quickly frightened some people away, and then branded a member of some cult.

Picture, will you, a small group of people, both men and women, living together communally in a flat. The group is led by an oriental woman, a missionary from some small obscure church in a third world country. This woman, a missionary to the world, carrying a message from a man who wasn't even an ordained minister and whose authority came from God through a revelation. Many people impressed with status in it's many forms, would find little interest in this small unimpressive group.

Miss Kim had literally a hand full of people who understood and believed the message she brought. They found in the Divine Principle and Reverend Moon something worth giving up everything, including children, to work in a spiritual mission in the United States. What other than their connection to God were the credentials of three housewives, and two plywood plant workers, made up this early group in San Francisco. To say the least, this was an under whelming array of members with which to launch a world mission.

From the above description, it would be easy to arrive at the popular portrayal of the early members as an uneducated group of underachievers. A portrayal embraced not only by our detractors, but also by later members within the Unification Church.

In some of the writing about the early members, great pains are taken to portray the early members as a group of losers. Even to the extent of exaggerating negative descriptions of the early members. It would also lead one to believe that the only reason a person would be interested in religion and our movement in particular, was because they were uneducated or failures.

Academic education is no proof of either wisdom or intelligence. Memorizing the Bible does not assure that a person is Christian, and we see many bible quoters who haven't the foggiest understanding of the essence of God and Christianity. There is something more then knowledge.

What the detractors fail to see in these early members is their will. They fail to understand the influence of God in the early members lives--these early members were God's lot to work with. There is a failure to recognize the spiritual as anything significant and the effect of a person's spiritual ancestry on their destiny. They only look to the obvious.

WHY THE EARLY MEMBERS WERE THERE

In the orient, the people are very concerned with their ancestors and their family. This is a tradition they have learned from their religions. They have a strong sense of who their ancestors are and have elaborate rituals to honor and remember their ancestor. Could it be that these orientals know something that we westerners don't or have forgotten.

In the orient, if a son or daughter is to be married, they want to know about the ancestors of the prospective son or daughter-in-law. Even business deals are sometimes made after checking out a persons ancestry. A businessman might consult a medium to check out ancestry before closing a business deal with someone.

To dishonor the family name or reflect badly on ones ancestors is considered unpardonable. To dishonor the family is sometimes considered severe enough that a person must kill themselves to atone for the crime.

The Western Christians like to call this "ancestor worship" and pass it off as some superstition or pagan belief. Yet in the west we set aside special days to honor, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. In the south they have days off to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. We have days to honor the war dead. To honor or remember someone is not worshiping them. It might not be a bad idea, to do something to remember our departed parents on their birthday.

Whether the westerners want to accept it or not, the Orientals know a great deal about the effects of ancestry on our lives. The Bible tells us that the sins of the father shall be visited even onto the 7th generation.

Even today the psychiatrists are doing what they call a gene tree, which traces problems back several generations in a family. The problems are usually linked to some aberrant behavior in an ancestor. The Christians would refer to this, as Jesus did, as sin of our ancestors. We can know much about ourselves by knowing our ancestors, they affect us in both positive and negative ways, whether we like it or not.

ANCESTORS AS PART OF OUR DESTINY

The question always arose among the early members, why were we chosen to be a part of this important period of history? It is a question that is asked by many Unification Church members throughout the world.

In recent years, Reverend Moon made a statement, that many of the Unification Church members in the United States are descendants of early Christians in the United States and Europe. This statement gained meaning for me in recent years.

Miss Kim explained that early members were able to easily accept the Divine Principle and Reverend Moon, because of their lineage. We accepted what she said, but knew little about our ancestors. The concept of our ancestry affecting our lives is very well understood in the Orient, but not in the West.

There are many people who hear the Divine Principle, recognize it's importance and accept it. They come along well then are suddenly overcome with negativity. The negativity was not directed against The Divine Principle or Reverend Moon, but themselves. They hated themselves, felt guilt ridden, and accused. Sometimes they were driven by sexual desires and could not accept the mores of the Unification Church, although they recognized the importance of them. These people are torn within themselves between good and evil.

This is often due to their ancestral lineage affecting their lives. The sins of their ancestors directly affect them. Not only are these people a result of their upbringing -- the recipients of an environmental heritage -- which affects their destiny, but they are also recipients of a spiritual heritage, which also deeply affects their lives.

LEARNING ABOUT OUR ANCESTORS

In recent years, I acquired a common affliction that often accompanies old age, becoming interested in genealogy. This interest was aroused in me when I visited cousins on the West Coast who were interested in genealogy. We started to work on our common ancestry. Our success was gratifying, and our ancestry is traced back many generations. This was a result mostly of luck rather than any real great skill in genealogy. The luck was in contacting people who had already compiled important parts of the family genealogy.

Reverend Moon spoke of the importance of working with our families. He even held a big reunion of the Moon family in Korea. Many of them were very distant relatives with little more than the name in common.

The Mormons stress the tracing of ancestors. It is important practice of their religion to trace their family back seven generations and hold a ceremony called the Baptism of the Dead. Their quest of genealogical records has led them to build the largest genealogy library in the world at Salt Lake City, Utah. It is now available to everyone and is a great source of genealogical information. The Mormons have gone to the corners of the earth, to copy any existing genealogical records.

An important practice in the Catholic Church is praying for the souls of relatives that die. This practice has gone on for centuries, and may have been much better understood in earlier Christianity.

We are a result of the genes and spiritual heritage of hundreds of ancestors. These are things that make us each a unique individual. In looking at our ancestors, we find their finger prints on our lives. It is important to know about your ancestors, because of spiritual problems that may arise from them but also we can learn something about ourselves. We also inherit the spiritual legacy of our ancestors. Sometimes we are a mixture of good and evil, torn all our lives. But we also inherit the good they accumulated in a spiritual bank for us, and we are able to be here because of our lineage. What happens when two people with these strong ancestries are blessed in marriage. How powerful the lineage of these second generation children. Could this be part of the reason that religions and families have been so adamant that their children marry within their church.

The following is not given to brag on my ancestors. No matter what our ancestors accomplished, we still have to carry our own weight in this life. The following is used to illustrate just one family's ancestry. Many members of the Unification Church, in tracing their ancestors would find an interesting array of devoted and righteous people. Many of our ancestors did not make it into the history books, because living a righteous life and being a devoted Christians does not necessarily make one known. However, these ancestor's spiritual merit is inherited by us and is often the reason we find ourselves in the Unification Church. We were not necessarily seeking the Unification Church, but find ourselves involved and wondering, "why me Lord?"

In unraveling my ancestral mystery, I learned that many were strong Christians. I am descended from a Pumphrey who arrived in America one of the first boatloads of Quakers that came from England in 1678. He was a part of first major Quaker community in America at Burlington, New Jersey. His grandson was converted to Methodism by one of the first two Methodist missionaries sent to America from England, and he later became the first to take Methodism west of the Allegheny Mountains to Western Pennsylvania in the 1770s. His home was used as a preaching stop on the first Methodist circuit in the area. The well known bishop Francis Asbury visited his home. We only know about him because of research done on early Methodism in Western Pennsylvania. Generations of these early Methodists married within their church community. Many were ministers and married into families of other ministers, thus carrying on a strong Christian tradition, in cultural and spiritual heritage. That is one line on my father's side.

On my mothers side of the family, the ancestors were active in the Church of England, back as early as the 1500s. One ancestor was a well known controversial minister of his day. All this I learned in recent few years. For many years I knew nothing of my ancestors beyond the names of my great grandparents.

My wife Patty's maiden name was Carey. Her father's name was William Calvin Carey, and they are from a long line of ministers. Patty’s brother Bill Carey is a retired Methodist Minister. They are related to William Carey (1761-1834), who formed the English Baptist Missionary Society, and became the first Christian missionary to Calcutta in 1793. He remained and worked in India until his death -- he began as a shoemaker.

These are just a few examples within our family. There are thousands of similar examples within the Unification Church. There would be many more examples among members if their ancestry were traced.

Generally we don't like others talking about who they are descended from, unless of course, you are among a group of genealogists or relatives. But, whether we like it or not we are the product of hundreds of ancestors and carry their genes, receiving their spiritual legacy.

Let us assume two people are in the Unification Church, because of their righteous ancestors. The couple is then blessed, what a strong spiritual heritage their children, the second generation, have. Then go to the next step, the children of second generation blessings, with four strong spiritual lines of ancestors. What a powerful spiritual heritage these young ones will have, and what powerful persons they can grow to be.

OUR ANCESTORS TODAY

In recent years, the barriers between the physical and the spirit worlds were reduced. Our ancestors are under increased pressure to aid in the restoration. They would like very much to just be recognized by their descendants. They want to help us anyway they can, for we are the first fruits of their struggles. Our advancement is also their advancement.

Just think if you were in the spirit world for two or three hundred years, with more than a thousand descendants, and not one descendant knew your name. How important would it be that some descendants just knew your name, and maybe a little bit about your life.

So as we arrive in the Unification Church and wonder, "why me Lord?" You may know that it is not by your work alone that you are a part of this movement but that you are a humble result of many people from the past. People whose lives have been much more difficult than ours. Those whose will and faith was stronger, but who lived in the wrong time in history to enjoy the fruits of their labors. They helped to plant the seed but could not reap the harvest. It is for us today, because of the time, to be a part of that harvest, God`s Restoration of the world. It is because this age that we are able to go into the land of Canaan. Many will only view the land from the distance, like Moses overlooking Canaan. We will perish in the desert that is today’s fallen world, knowing our children and their children will enter into the promised land. Our hope is that our children, God's children, may enter, and we can look back from the spirit world and hope that some of our descendants remember our names.

CHAPTER 15

TESTIMONIES

In learning about the early church it is good to know something of those early members and their backgrounds. It is my plan to get other testimonies from early members, and that will happen as I continue work on this history. At this point I can’t even get one from my wife.

GALEN PUMPHREY’S TESTIMONY

I grew up in Bonner Springs, Kansas, then a small town of 2,000 population 15 miles west of Kansas City, Kansas. We were Methodists, and my parents were involved in the church and church activities, and we never missed a Sunday at church. I still have a Sunday school pin awarded for 13 years of perfect attendance. During that 13 years, I must have absorbed something, probably a loose knowledge of Christianity and the Bible.

It is unusual anymore for anyone to remain in one community through their entire school years. I began kindergarten in 1936 in Bonner Springs, and graduated from high school there in 1948 with many of the same kids I had started in kindergarten with.

In 1950 after my first year of college, the Korean War began and the 5th 105 MM Howitzer Battalion, which I had joined with some friends, was called to active duty. Active duty in the Marines in California was my first experience of being away from home and my home town of Bonner Springs, first by serving in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, at the age of 20. My Marine Corps career ended in 1952 when I was discharged after serving my enlistment.

The experience of being in the Marine Corps and away from home was important in forming my future. Leaving home, whether it is to college or service is important for anyone to become mobile. After a persons mid twenties, they will probably become a life long member of a community. This in one sense is good, but I might never have found the Unification Church if I had stayed in my home town.

In the fall of 1952, I went to Kansas State College to study architecture. At college I began to question Christianity, and those things I learned from my earliest memory. When I attended church, the messages seemed shallow, and there were many questions and few answers. What answers there were either without substance or based on church doctrine. You needed to accept the authority of the minister, because he was educated in such things and knew much more than you did..

In all those years of church attendance, they had somehow failed to convey, or I was too dense to catch it, the essence of Christianity. They were bathed in theology and church doctrine with only a meager understanding of the heart of Christianity. There was little true connection to Jesus or God, at least they didn't get that concept across to me. Salvation was something they talked about in those wacky fundamentalist churches. I gradually withdrew from the Methodist Church. When home from college, I began attending a Unitarian Church in Kansas City, much to the distress of my parents.

After a year at Kansas State, I left for the University of Oregon, believing it had one of the best schools for architecture in the country. While attending the University of Oregon, I became a full fledged Unitarian, with a vague and almost non existent belief in God and Jesus; this soon turned to agnosticism and finally into atheism. Finally I dumped the Unitarian Church, realizing that church attendance at the Unitarian Church was just a ritual. Many Unitarians were raised in families where they attend church every Sunday. By attending meetings on Sundays--usually totally devoid of religious content--they soothed the conscience.

During this period of transition from Methodist to Unitarian to atheist, religion and Christianity were often on my mind. Not uncommon for those who deny God, many spend the rest of their lives justifying their stand.

I came to several conclusions: One, if Jesus actually returned in the flesh--the hope of many Christians--where could he give his message. No Christian church in the world would open their pulpit to him. What he would have to say to the people would be something most would not want to hear. He would be a revolutionary, bathed in controversy and a threat to orthodox Christianity as he was to the orthodox religion of his day. He would be much different than the glowing blond Jesus radiating peace, and surrounded by children, as pictured by modern Christianity.

If he appeared dressed in a white robe and sandals, and with long hair and a beard, he would be quickly labeled another kook, and maybe sent to the funny farm. If he were to appear in a blue suit with a shave and a haircut he would come off as just another Jew.

Another of my conclusions was, if Jesus were to in fact came back in the flesh, how would it happen. Based on the first realization that there would be no place in organized Christianity for him, I knew he would come back just as he did before. I could picture him in someone’s living room, probably somewhere in California. He would be speaking to and teaching a small group of followers, just as he did during his ministry. It was the only logical way. There was those strange concepts about Jesus arriving on the clouds with a blare of trumpets, and the dead rising up from their graves to meet him in the air. How many Christian souls are land locked, trapped by their disbelief in the spirit world, waiting to rise out of their graves and meet Jesus in the air?

Years earlier, I remember seeing such dynamic moving Christian oriented movies as Quo Vadis, Fabiola and others. The early Christians endured suffering and even death for their faith and beliefs. I wondered if I had met Jesus or the early Christians, during their lifetimes, would I have been able to recognize and become a part of it? Would I have been able to be a Christian even if it meant death? I don't know what the answer is, it is easy to make vows, but no one knows until called to face a particular situation what they would do or undergo.

Another thing I decided, if there is a God, I could not believe he would damn people to eternal hell for the most insignificant reasons, and spend all his spare time finding and punishing people for their sins. That could not be a just God, and I was sure not interested in following such a poorly conceived unjust God. I was willing to take my chances on going to hell if I were wrong.

While an architectural student at the University of Oregon, I bought a house and 55 acres of land, for $10,000, $200 down and $60 month payment. The house was atop Oak Hill, west of Eugene, Oregon. It was an old farm house, with wood heat and a well. That was my home while attending the University of Oregon on the GI bill. I wore sandals, and rode a bicycle, one of about four bicycles on the University of Oregon campus at the time. Then there was my beard, one of about a half dozen on campus at the time. Later this would be given as proof that the early followers of the Unification Church were social misfits. Maybe I was just precocious, this was just before the beatniks arrived on the scene.

Some of the writings about the early church enjoy portray me as having a Chevrolet junk yard on Oak Hill. This is a further attempt to portray a negative image of the early members.

In defense of my "Chevrolet junk yard", I liked old cars and still do, and always wanted to restore some. I did have four Chevrolets, a 1941 Chevrolet which I bought soon after being discharged from the Marine Corps in 1952, which brought me to Oregon. The other Chevrolets were a 1939 coupe which I bought for ten dollars while going to college, and a 1950 convertible. The car I used daily was a 1951 Chevrolet which wasn't an old car at the time. That one was later used by our first center in San Francisco, and was stored in a garage in Kansas for over 25 years is presently at my daughter’s in Virginia, hopefully to be restored someday.

I had a few other interesting cars, a 1942 Cadillac limousine. There was a 1929 La Salle sedan, and my favorite car, a 1937 Chrysler four door convertible with a white top and leather upholstery. I have never seen or heard of another 1937 Chrysler four door convertible. All the cars were in very restorable condition.

That was my Junk yard. I found these cars interesting and hoped that someday I could afford to restore them. I later sold them all for $140 when we moved to San Francisco. Today I, and many others, would be happy to own any one of those "junk" cars from Oak Hill. We took the 1951 Chevrolet and left for California.

While attending the University of Oregon, my veterans education benefits ran out and I went to work at a nearby newly opened plywood plant, at nearby Vaughn, Oregon. It was there that I met George Norton who introduced me to a logical explanation spirit world that I could accept. This gradually helped prepare me to dump my agnosticism and accept the Divine Principal.

I worked full time at nights and attended the university during the day, by now majoring in art instead of architecture. I became involved in politics in the school of architecture that ultimately resulted in the dean resigning. I finally finished my degree from the University of the State of New York in 1987. I had the hours for a degree, but just needed to find a place to transfer my credits to.

At the plywood plant. I was approached by fundamentalist fellow workers, who were convinced everyone was going to hell but them. They were trying to save everyone, but had such a smug attitude about their own salvation, that most people were turned off. My response was, Jesus has been dead for nearly 2000 years and it is about time for someone new. While living on Oak Hill I met my wife Patty, who was divorced with two sons. We finally decided to get married. I moved Patty and her two boys to Oak Hill, and we were married, married in the Unitarian Church, the last time I was ever in their church.

Patty and I were married June 15, 1958, by the Unitarian minister in his church one Sunday afternoon. This minister was not only a liberal but an atheist. My mother never got over the wedding, she complained that he didn't even offer a prayer or mentioned God, however that satisfied me at the time. I had given them a fair chance, and the fundamentalist minister that Patty contacted, wouldn't marry us because Patty was divorced. They had their chance, I would have been just as happy to be married by a justice of the peace.

We settled down on Oak Hill, with Patty's two sons, Richard and Stephen Parks, were just beginning grade school, then in 1959 our first son Lloyd was born. Faced with the necessity of supporting a family, I temporarily put school on hold, just two quarters short of a degree, and worked at the plywood plant. I hoped to go back and complete the degree, but after meeting Miss Kim it would be many years before I finally received my degree. It would be too late to be of much value, especially where a degree is important for further opportunities. But it looks nice hanging on the wall.

Everything went fine except when Patty and I discussed religion, which really was never a discussion but an argument. Patty's religious background was fundamentalist, the Four Square Church. When the subject of religion came up, I would usually end up going into a rage, storming out of the house, and going into the woods to cool down.

One time at supper, Patty had the boys offer thanks to God for their food. I blew up, and yelled "What do you mean thanking God for your food, God doesn't put that food on the table, I put the food on the table, I work out at that damned plywood plant to put the food on the table", and I probably stormed out to the woods again, marking my children for life.

So, when Patty was invited by Doris to meet Miss Kim, it was done very secretly, Patty brought home the first six chapters of the Divine Principle and hid it from me. She read it that first evening while I was at work and immediately realized what she had been given.

She started attending meetings with Miss Kim always referring to Miss Kim as a Korean Lady with an important message. Patty finally decided to lay it on me, she was afraid of my reaction, however she told me of Reverend Moon and his mission. My reaction was, that sounds reasonable. She then gave me The Divine Principle to read, and what an experience. The questions that Christianity couldn't answer were answered. From that time on, my life was never to be the same.

Looking back at my life, what I went through was a real rebirth experience. From the time I began to question Christianity until the time I dumped it was seven years. All the old beliefs I held about Christianity had been washed away. With few preconceived notions, I was open for something new. The Divine Principle not only answered my questions on religion, it also fulfilled several other rules that I knew were essential for something to be true.

From that point on nothing would ever return to normal, the rest of my life would be tied to Reverend Moon and the Unification Church.

Note: There will be more Testimonies added as I can collect them.

Miss Young Oon Kim's Testimony Given at Sacramento 8-24-63

It may not be fair for me to tell of me without hearing your backgrounds, but I have been asked to do so. People often ask me again and again about my background, so before I start lecturing on the great message, I think I will have to introduce myself\. Would that be agreeable with you?

I was born in Korea and brought up in a family which had nothing to do with Christianity. There was no Christian influence in my family or in my school. I went to public school for my grade school, primary education. Then also it was government school, the high school. When I was 16 years old, without any influence from outside, I suddenly felt a question within myself. That was, what is the purpose of my life? What should I do in this world? For what should I live? Then I thought again, where am I from at all? Where am I going? What will happen after I die? Then I thought it was foolish to think those things suddenly. Then I went back to study. In a few weeks the same question arose, and I pondered upon all these again. For what should I live at all, for what?

That time I was living in my sister's home with my sister, and it was a very wealthy family. I looked at my wealthy brother in law every day who was really enjoying accumulating wealth. But deep in his heart there was only greed and only pride. I didn't see in him deep, true happiness and joy and love to other people. I didn't see those things. So in spite of his kindness to me, I felt in my heart a despising or repulsed. I felt repulsed against him. Often when I saw him being contemptuous towards our relatives and tenants and servants, I felt rather antagonistic and thought, I will never live in order to accumulate wealth. That cannot be the purpose of my life.

Then I looked at young people who used to go to college and came back in the summertime for vacation. I lived in a small local town, so those young people studied in Japan and came back in the summertime. Oh, their arrogant attitude and lazy attitude disgusted me, and I thought the plain uneducated or less educated people were more honest and sincere and warm hearted, whereas those people who have some education are so arrogant and lazy. What does education do to man. Money doesn't raise one's person- ality, and education doesn't necessarily make one good. Well this of course is the experience in a small environment. You must understand this. Anyway, to my eyes, those things appeared that way. So I thought it is foolish ,to waste all my life to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

I had about a 70 year old grandmother. I often watched her life. She looked back upon her long past and she couldn't recall the happy part, but only the sad part. And the future, uncertain, fear, and uncertainty waiting, which I could detect in her. There was no joy. She had no good teeth to enjoy food. She had a weak body. Living was a burden for her. Well if long life is such a thing, well then why should I live long? Why should I want a long life, which is one of five blessings in our country? Long life is not a blessing. I should die young. I had to die young.

Well, if I don't want wealth, if I don't want lots of education, if I do not want long life, then for what should I live? Well, in our country marriage life is not quite exactly as it is here. I don't know even here. There couples live with a sense of obligation, rather than exciting love, which I could see every day. So marriage, it was only my 16 years old, wasn't very attractive to me. Why should one bind himself to a family and suffer that way. Oh, I couldn't understand it. So that is not a question that I should consider.

Then I was lost. Then for what should I live? Without purpose I did not know what to do. Then I shook my head and said, why should I think about those things which I could not solve? So I went back to study.

Then in a few weeks the same question just drove me out. There was a beautiful hill behind our house. I didn't want to see people. I ran out to the hill and sat down in a quiet place and pondered upon -then I shouted saying, "If there is a God in the universe, please appear to me." If there is no God and there is no better answer, well, nothing appeared so I came back. In a few weeks the same question drove me to the same hillside, and I cried and shouted saying the same thing. If there is no God, no answer, then I might commit suicide. There is no meaning in this life. In this way, crying and shouting, about six or seven months passed.

One early evening I was sitting in a quiet place in the front yard. There was no one around met thinking the same question when suddenly I heard a voice which came from above, but was not a human voice but very distinctive audible voice. It said "He loves you he loves you the Bible tells you so". So distinctive. I tried to recall where I heard it. I had heard it somewhere. I recalled it was a chorus of children singing it "Jesus Loves Met Jesus Loves Me". Where I heard this at all? I heard this somewhere. I found out 1t was a hymn wh1ch was sung 1n the Sunday School which I attended about two or three months when I was 10 or 11 years old. That was all I attended. I didn't like the church Sunday School very much t so I quit and never thought of Sunday School again. Suddenly this voice came. Strange I felt somewhat good but I didn't feel like going back to that church. So I went back to study. It was strange. Within a few weeks the same voice woke me up from my other work. Then I felt something very good and I missed the atmosphere in which this hymn was sung and yet I didn't want to go back. In a few weeks the same voice woke me up again from other thought. Then I thought why am I so stubborn? I must go to a church and see what they offer.

So to avoid any friends, to see any friends, I choose a small Japanese church. I didn't want to meet Korean friends. So I sneaked into a Japanese church. It was Wednesday prayer meeting, and it was a very small group, probably about six of them or less. The minister started singing hymn which was a very new hymn. I followed in a quiet voice two or three lines. Then I heard another voice which said, "It was not you who have been seeking me, but I who have been seeking you". It was a short sentence It was not you, but I who have been seeking you, those valleys, those hillsides, those lonely places which you have been wandering. Then tears just gushed. I couldn't sing any more. I felt so closeness to someone who had been seeking me. The next early morning, early morning, I went to the same hillside which I used to go, and sat down in a quiet place. In early morning, of course it was quiet. I prayed, well, I talked as I liked. Then at the end of my talk I added saying, "I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ", which I picked up the previous night in the church from the minister. This I continued every morning month after month, year after year.

Then that 30 minutes, 40 minutes of prayer was not enough for me, so I found out that Korean church opened the doors for private prayers, because our people do not have rooms in house, so church opens doors at night for private prayer. So I found that. Then I sneaked into the other church. I belonged to Japanese church, and sneaked into Korean church for prayer at night, because Japanese church does not pray too much and does not open doors at night. So 1 went to this Korean church about ten o'clock at night with a blanket. There is no carpet, no rug, bare floor. Our country is very cold in winter. Wintertime, summertime I went there and prayed kneeling down on the bare floor. I did not know what I prayed. I prayed anyway. I was just driven to do this. So month after month I did this.

It was one night at one o'clock, it was wintertime, and I saw in my prayer a huge cross in front of me, and Jesus was hanging on that c:oss. I saw myself kneeling at the foot of the cross. I begged for forg1veness. I asked for forgiveness of my sins. Well, I was very pure morally. I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt so helpless, so miserable in front of this cross. I cried and cried and cried asking for forgiveness, saying, "I did not know that you suffered for me. I did not know that you suffered for me.'t After several hours of prayer, I got up and went home about five o'clock on the morning. Then I slept for a few hours before the day's work. When I went back the next day, even the same trees looked different. The houses, and the birds, and the flowers, plants, even the sun, the same sun seemed to talk to me, and the entire creation was made for me. I had never thought it. God had created the entire creation for me. Now the entire creation is talking to me and I am talking to them, and without any special effort. My life was completely changed, and yet I did not tell anybody about this~ inner change. I just didn't want to tell. I didn't want to tell. But I overheard my family talk that she is an entirely different girl they said. She became a different girl. So I believe when Pentecostal Christians say that I am born again. I believe that experience because of my experience.

Then, I am making my story very short, it was Easter Eve, several months later. I felt that I must see the resurrected Lord. I have seen the crucified Lord, and now I want to see the resurrected Lord, and I want to be resurrected with him. This strong idea, this idea drove me out to the church. I prayed asking for resurrection. .At one o'clock, often God reveals things at one o'clock, He reveals things to me at one o'clock, the resurrected Christ appeared to me and Magdalene Mary appeared, and she was going to touch the robe of the Lord. The Lord said to her, "Don't touch me, and go to my brethren and tell them that I am risen." You remember that Easter scene. That whole scene appeared to me and just poured into me. I just couldn't pray any longer. I stood up and sang the hymn of resurrection, "He is Risen, He is Risen." I just couldn't, the whole body, I sang this hymn I don't know maybe dozens of times, just repeated and repeated. From then I thought it is my mission to proclaim the resurrected Lord to the whole world, no matter what kind of work I do, whether farming, or clerical, or housework or whatever I do. It is my mission to tell people that our Lord has risen.

After I graduated from high school, I worked in a bank, a small bank. In daytime, in this office, I heard a voice. The voice said, "Do not work with dead numerals, but work with human lives." Then I realized how dead work it is adding, reducing, all those things when you treat somebody else's money every day. Bookkeeping, it is very dead work. I thought I must quit this job.

Then I thought I might become a school teacher, in which I can deal with human lives. So I went to Seoul, our capital, to take some teacher's training courses. I took a training course and took the government examination and became a school teacher. I was assigned to a countryside school, where I taught second grade, 80 pupils. Our classes are very big. So you don't teach from the first grade to the sixth grade there, no. You teach only second grade. So it may be better education. Do you .understand what I mean? One teacher has to teach several grades here. There, only one year, only one grade. Now 70 boys and 10 girls. This was really fun. I really enjoyed this. I loved teaching, and I put my- self into it. Everybody said, other teachers said that I was a very good teacher, because I was in them and they were in me. So I really enjoyed teaching.

Then after a year God said to me again, "Do something for eternity.'!' Then I realized that anybody can teach alphabet and mathematics. Why should I devote my life to such commonplace work. So by this time I had very unusual spiritual experience with a group, not just individually. This group was a very spiritual group. This group was composed of Pres- byterians and Methodists, and whenever this group meets, somebody would go into trance and bring message directly. Somebody would hear voices. Somebody would see visions and there was healing power. We knew what was going on in San Francisco being in Sacramento. Through spirit we were all told. It was a fantastic group. Through those gifts we were told that there will be great thing coming on this earth, great thing, great changes coming on this earth. For this I am preparing you folks, out- pouring my spirit. That was the essence of the message through all those gifts. So I had very unusual experiences with this group, and I was quite familiar with various types of spiritual gifts.

I was familiar with Swedenborg's "The Heaven and its Wonders", and "The Divine Wisdom and the Divine Love", and "The Divine Providence". Through those books I knew very much about spirit world plus my spiritual experiences, so I felt that I was a most rich person. This was enough for me to live on. Now when I heard from God that you must do something for eternity, I immediately understood that this means that I must teach the word of God to people. Because through those books I found that in the Paradise they are still teaching, talking, discussing the words of God. That was the only eternal literature on earth. Wonderful, then I must quit this job.

So I went to Japan to study theology from high standing University seminary This seminary was in a big university, it was a Methodist seminary. I took a few years of art course, and then seminary started. In studying in the seminary, I found that it was fascinating to pursue academically how the great church leaders interpreted and explained the word of God in the past and the present, and the history of the church, and history of doctrine systematic theology, New Testament and Old Testament. It was fascinating academically. But I found spiritually the atmosphere of the seminary was completely dead. I continued my private prayer. My private prayer or my inner spiritual life and my academic study couldn't be reconciled. I couldn't find any harmony or any connection there. I thought, what am I going to do with this study? This does not help my spiritual life. How can I save or help others' spiritual life with this study? This seminary was quite liberal. Do you know liberal theology? Just studies the grammatical and historical, and there is no spiritual life. r noticed my fellow students suffering from the same thing. They came with high great visions. Now the visions were all gone. r asked God, "Why should r study? Why do I need to study?"

God spoke to me this way, "You must know the weapon of your enemy." What? The weapon of my enemy? Then am I going to stand against Christian leaders someday? It seemed ridiculous. Anyway it is good the source of sermons of the ministers. It is good to know. I know where sermons come from. I know how to make sermons, because that is the training of the seminary. I studied very hard and very well.

Then after I graduated from this seminary, I was invited by a woman's bible college where they train Deaconesses in North Korea. I went there and taught for two years. I preached from my own experiences. I taught what I studied in the seminary. The two things did not go together, so they-liked my sermons, but I couldn't reconcile. I couldn't reconcile. No one knew about spirit world. No one knew about spiritual experiences as I did, but I couldn't connect with my teachings.

Well, then American Japanese war had already started, and during the wartime our country -at that time our country was under Japanese domination. Particularly during the wartime we had very very hard time. There wasn't enough food, and the pressure of the Japanese government was so great, that any leader of any field had a hard time, particularly church leaders were watched, or how do I say, they suspected the church leaders very much, because it is the Christian leaders who fought against the Japanese government for the independence of our country. So the church appeared to them as a refuge for patriots. So we Christian leaders had a most difficult time during the wartime. In other words, it was a com- pletely dark age for us. There was no hope, and life was extremely difficult. We desperately prayed and prayed about what we should do at this time.

God said to us, "In this war Japan will be defeated, and Korea will be liberated from Japan." But judging from the situation, judging from the news from the Japanese government, we could not see these things. At that time even all our radios were confiscated by the Japanese government, so we couldn't hear any news from our side. But God said, "Do not worry. Your country will be liberated." We couldn't see when the day will come. Finally the promised day came in 1945 and we were told that our country was liberated from Japan, and the Japanese all went back to Japan.

In one week the Russians came into the North and the American GIs just flooded into the South and the land was divided. I was in North Korea. What is this? This is worse than before. We prayed and prayed, and God said, "Your true liberation will come later." This is not your true liberation." And I was urged by God to go to South quickly. Don't stay in this Communist territory.

So I fled to South as a refugee. Then I was teaching in a university, in a woman's university, which is one of the oldest and largest woman's universities in the Orient, Christian university. In this university I taught New Testament, Church History and Comparative Religions. I enjoyed teaching here again. Preaching to three thousand young women is a very exciting experience. Then I met a Canadian missionary at the university. This mission university, Christian university and American and Canadian missionaries worked together. The Canadian Missionary Society offered me a scholarship to study in Canada.

I accepted it and went to Toronto in 1948. I attended another art school, the last year of art school, and then I took post graduate course in the seminary in the university at Toronto. It was also very liberal theology. I am repeating the same studies here. So, and the spiritual atmosphere was completely dead one. So I went to Swedenborgian church, sometimes I went to Pentecostal church. It was United Church of Canada which offered the scholarship. The leaders in that group didn't like me, because I was not very faithful to the United Church of Canada. Because there was nothing in it, I just hunted and hunted different groups looking for something spiritual, but I couldn't find it. It was a two year scholarship. I was already to go.

Then suddenly I heard the news of the Korean War. When I heard that news about ten o'clock in the morning in my bedroom on the radio, I was so shocked by this news. I have never seen war in my life. Here that small country, many huge tanks smashed down from North Korea. Nothing would be left. When I thought of all the destruction and shooting people, bombing in Seoul, I was so shocked in my bedroom. I couldn't talk, couldn't move. My whole body seemed numb. In that moment suddenly I heard another voice. It said, "I will preserve my remnants. I will protect and preserve my remnants." Remnants, you can find the word in Isaiah. When all the jews were captured into Babylon in exile, only a handful of low people were left in Jerusalem. God promised with them, "I will raise a mighty nation of these remnants." Remnants means the left over insignificant people.

When I heard the voice, "I will preserve my remnants", it was clear to me that no matter how many people were sacrificed or killed, God will still hide, protect and preserve the seeds of the good, the seeds of the righteous. So I summed up my courage and started praying, "Father, please protect the seeds of the righteous, the seeds of the good, by whom reestablish the church and the country." I didn't pray for my family because it was hopeless for them to survive, so I only prayed for the remnants of God. So my scholarship was extended for another year because of war.

After three years I was all packed, and I was already to go home. Then the missionary society changed my plans and said you must go to Germany, another war torn country to see how the Germans reconstruct. If you go home now, you will be so disheartened. You will have no idea how to start, where to start, because the country is completely devastated. Well, I was most grateful for this offer. It was a special offer.

I went to Germany all by myself. I had several reasons for going to Germany. Not only to see their reconstruction work, but to attend several international Christian conferences which were called ecumenical movement

in Stuttgart and Berlin. Then I had two other big meetings in Switzerland. So I spent nearly six months, yes, about six months in Germany, Switzerland attending those international conferences. Then I went to England and peeked in some seminaries in Cambridge University. After six months I was so tired so I went back to Korea.

During this trip in Europe, I had a chance to talk to the topmost Christian leaders in Europe and also from other countries at those international conferences. We talked freely. We discussed freely the problems of the church today. That is why the church or Christians have no power to reach the people on the street. Why cannot the church ever attract the young people? Why church attendance is going down in Europe in big Cathedrals big old church? On Sunday there was only a handful of people. The churches were completely empty. It is heartbreaking. A German minister said to me" in this conference, said to us "We German Christians are three wheeled Christians., That means when a baby is born he will be carried by baby carriage to the pries for baptism and receiving the name. That is one wheel. When he marries he comes by a taxi to be blessed second wheel. When he dies he comes in a hearse third wheel." They come only three times in their life. Maybe some come on Easter and Christmas. American Christians do also. So German Christians are three wheeled Christians. So priests are paid by the government both Lutheran and Catholic priests so they don't need to work hard and people have to pay religious tax anyway. So it is a most lonely atmosphere. Where are the people? Where are the Christians? So my entire impression of European trip was this lonely feeling. Where are the people of God? Where are God's people? I felt like crying. This is supposed to be the older church and the church in Asia is supposed to be the younger church. What do I learn from the older church?

Anyway I went back to Korea in 1952 in February. At that time the shooting was completely over, but millions of refugees flooded down to southern Pusan, where our university also came down. We called it our university in exile, because our campus was taken by the army. They stuck many many tents on the ground and teach, so nobody take off overcoat in winter- time. It was just ground, no floor. Students all have overcoats. In that way we attended the studies. The very next thing after I arrived, acute diarrhea start. I do not Know what was the cause, sudden change of food, sudden change of climate. I don't know what. This really bothered me. No medicine helped me at all. I used all kinds of medicines, which helped only a few days, and finally it turned to chronic diarrhea. Then my bronchitis started. I coughed and coughed and coughed, very miserable but this problem was over in a few months. This diarrhea continued and continued. This diarrhea continued.

Meanwhile our university went back to Seoul to our old campus. Our president gave me a small room on the campus because I was so weak. Lectured on hour or two hours and lie most of the day all of the day In this way I barely carried on my work but finally I couldn't carry on any more. I lived on injections sugar. water but I couldn't stand any more. SoI couldn't stand any more. The university put me into a hosl1ital. Missionary group put me into a hospital. When I came back from the hospital it all came back. Diarrhea started again. Then finally kidney trouble nephritis set in. My face swelled. I couldn't go to the toilet any longer. I had to lie down back is aching. I couldn't lie down anymore. I couldn't sit up, no energy. I was so miserable. This time I couldn't pray more than 15 minutes. If I prayed 10 minutes that was maximum. I used to pray for hours but I completely lost the power of prayer. Physically I couldn't sit up to pray. I couldn't concentrate anymore any longer. Finally I had to resign but the university wouldn't accept my resignation.

Now this time, it was also one o'clock midnight, I heard a voice. The voice said, "This is spiritual crisis." This is the voice, "This is spiritual crisis." I woke up and asked what do mean by spiritual crisis? No answer. Yet I couldn't do anything. I was in bed. It was about November when the doctor said he couldn't find any functional organic trouble at all, I do not know what was the cause, but I was suffering. Physically there was no hope for me to revive, recover., Physically I was just skin and bones. I didn't eat normal food for a long time. Spiritually I wasn't ready to die. Something I had to accomplish. I did not know what it was. .My mission is not fulfilled. I did not know what was my mission.

When I came back to Korea I found that Korean churches were full of people. Sunday ,morning they had two 'services, because the churches were so full. All the churches were full with refugees, but when I heard the sermon I found exactly the same thing. In other words, this is not enough. People are desperate. Therefore, they go to church. In European church they don't go to church. In Korea the churches are furl. So externally there is a great difference, but spiritually I didn't s~e any difference. I found in myself that my spiritual life was progressing so fast in my early stages of spiritual life or Christian life. Now I never progress. I never advance any farther no matter how hard I try or work for the church in serving others and in service, and praying, and preaching the words of God, teaching. Well, I was completely devoted to God, committed myself completely to God. Yet I found my spiritual life was not progressing. This is most sad and unbearable thing. Spiritually I don't grow. I don't grow any farther. From this light I saw the churches which were full of people but I didn't see any enlightening, spiritual help at all. Then all of a sudden it was a spiritual crisis. I couldn't understand all this. I couldn't understand. Yet I didn't have even enough energy to struggle along

Now at this time a friend of mine who was not very close co me, a lady came to me one day and said, "I found a small group in town, in city, in which a young man, who has received a special revelation in the past twenty years from God, he is now revealing, unfolding his revelation; a new truth. According to this new truth, God has already started a new dispensation on earth, and the New Testament Age is now over. Because of this new dispen- sation, God is outpouring His spirit to people on earth. You must come and listen to this man's revelation, and see if this is truth from God or not." I thought I knew everything. Why should I learn anymore. I have experience! all kinds of things. This I felt outwardly, but deep inside, somebody has received revelation from God. I was rather jealous. Who knows more about God than I do? Who received more than I do? I was jealous in heart. Externally I knew everything. Then the word revelation struck me. I knew revelation was something from God.

So the lady invited me very strongly. I accepted. But I said how can I go? I cannot move from one room to the other room. She said we will carry you, never mind. Once I promised, the same night stomach cramp came. I sat up all night. Have you experienced stomach cramp? Oh, you just have no imagine. Acute pain comes back again and again. The next morning the ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I stayed in the hospital for another three weeks.

After three weeks I came back. Diarrhea started again. Kidney trouble started all again. The same lady came back and said you must come. You must come. Well, I had no hope. Therefore, I better go. Whether I die on the street or not I will go. So I went taking my medicine with me, I went. Now I started hearing from two o'clock in the afternoon I heard the message. The first part was very much like what Swedenborg said in his book, particularly in his "Divine Love and Divine Wisdom." It was very much like. So I asked him, the Leader, "Have you read Swedenberg's book?" He said, "No, I have never read it, but I saw him several times in the spirit world."

Who is this, to meet Swedenborg so easily? Then he said after he detected in me how much I admired Swedenborg, he said, "Swedenborg is not in high position as you think, and what Swedenborg said is mistaken, 80 % is mistaken." What? I thought Swedenborg was absolutely correct and right. If Swedenborg was mistaken, then the foundation of my faith is shaking. I was rather displeased with this statement, but I was curious to know more about this. Then he continued and continued the lecture. It was very different from what I had been studying and teaching, so I told him, "I just can't take any more. Therefore, please tell me the source of this revelation, how you have received this revelation Unless you tell me this, I cannot continue. I cannot take it. It is so different."

Then he told his members to give me their testimonies, how they had received what kind of experience they had. One by one, very educated college girls, college boys, uneducated woman and uneducated man, young man, old man all came and told me their experiences. Their experiences were authentic wonderful experiences in the light of my knowledge of Swedenborg and my own spiritual experiences. I just couldn't deny. Then the leader also explained very briefly how he received this. By the end of the second day, I became very humble and I was more open minded. I told him to continue the lecture. I am ready to hear more. The third morning when I got up, my diarrhea stopped, my kidney was cleared up, my swelling all gone and I felt so light inside. You know when you have diarrhea day after day, you feel so dull. Now I felt so light inside and had a real appetite. I ate fish, pork and spicy pickle of our country, very spicy, rice. Digestion was 100 % good. I couldn't understand. So I asked the leader, "I didn't even ask for healing. How did this happen to me?"

He smiled and said, "It is not strange at all. In this new dispensation, God's power is more, 100 % more mightier than in the New Testament Age. Now, although you are reluctant, you are open to this new dispensation, and God's might power started working in your spirit, which affected your body. It is nothing. You stay here and see what kind of things happen in this group."

Anyhow I was more than happy, more than grateful. My mother was still alive. She was so happy after two years and ten months of suffering I was healed. Since then I was healed, since then. It was 1954, the last part of December. At that time it was a small group. It was '54. Now it is '63, nine years ago. For nine years this group has grown so much. Now more than five thousand mission fields like this Sacramento group are open under our church sine 1960. Until 1960 our group met so much persecution and opposition from the existing church, big church, Methodist, Presbyterian, Holyness church. Now since 1960, our group is expanding and no one can oppose or beat down us any longer. Over five thousand mission fields have been opened since 1960 in three years, and over a thousand churches have been built in South Korea alone. Now in our group, in Seoul or in local group, people would go into trance, not many people but some people would go into trance and bring message for the whole congregation. Many, many people hear voices, clairvoyant and clairaudient and so many healings are going on. In other words, all kinds of diseases, heart trouble, digestion, nervous trouble, tumor, cancer, bone trouble, arthritis, hemorrhoids, T. B., what else do you have? All are healed in this group, with prayer or without prayer. The vibration of our group at our meetings is so high, healing work is nothing. So often people will come and tell I don't know when my arthritis is healed. I am now completely free. I don't know when my bone straightened up. It is now gone. Of course if somebody wants to be prayed for, we pray, but our leader would say, leave them ,alone. They will be healed. Now mental cases or high blood pressure, these are nothing. Speaking in tongues. Yes, at the beginning almost everybody spoke in tongues. But later, quietly, they just communicated with Jesus walking on the street, conversing with somebody else. You don't need to burn candle and meditate for hours to communicate, no, no. Not in our group. Now I finished my testimony.

As a service to my family, myself and my friends. I always wanted to make a web page with old family photos. I figured, since I have the web sites, I may as well put them to use. If any of you reading this have any old photos you want on the web, email me at webmaster@uc-history.us. Also, if you wish to make a donation to help support this web page you can do it at PayPal, just click on the logo.

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1974 4.jpg
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1974 5.jpg
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1974 7.jpg
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1974 X.jpg
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A Masonic Ave. meeting.jpg
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A meeting at Masonic Ave..jpg
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a meeting at Masonic Center.jpg
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a meeting at Masonic.jpg
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a meeting, Paul Werner lower left.jpg
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Making the Holy Ground in Denver
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Another Masonic Ave. meeting.jpg
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Another zoo tour photo.jpg
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climbing twin peaks to scout holy ground.jpg
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Col. Pak and Pauline.jpg
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Dr Ang.jpg
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Denver center 111 Clarkson.jpg
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Doris and Pauline.jpg
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Doris on Oak Hill.jpg
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Doris Orme, Patty Pumphrey, Miss Kim,adn Pauline Verheyen.jpg
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Early Church.jpg
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Early group of women on Oak Hill.jpg
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Early group on Oak Hill.jpg
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Early Meeting 2.jpg
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Early Meeting.jpg
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410 Cole St. San Francisco our first center on top floor of copy.jpg
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Early photo of Oak Hill, with cars.jpg
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Early visitors at Masonic Ave including the mad frenchman se.jpg
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Eileen, Patty, Doris and Pauline, the first members in Ameri.jpg
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Enid, Barbara and Doris.jpg
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Europe blessing.jpg
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Father March 1965 going to North Peak of Twin Peaks S.F. .jpg
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First day tour of S.F. zoo.jpg
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Fishing in Kodiak 2.jpg
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Fishing in Kodiak.jpg
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Galen and Patty in 1969 blessing in D.C..jpg
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Group Photo.jpg
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Haight Ashbury photo.jpg
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Holy ground on twin peaks san francisco.jpg
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Holy Ground.jpg
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James Fleming presenting Reverend Moon with a gift 1965.jpg
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John Stark.jpg
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Making Denver holy ground 1965.jpg
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Meeting at Masonic.jpg
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meeting.jpg
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Miss Kim 1.jpg
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Miss Kim 2.jpg
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Miss Kim 3.jpg
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Miss Kim and first solid members in front of Masonic Center,.jpg
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Miss Kim and Gordon Ross to right.jpg
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Miss Kim and John Stark.jpg
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Miss Kim at a meeting..jpg
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miss Kim at belveder bedroom.jpg
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Miss Kim in front of center.jpg
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Miss Kim in Korean dress at center.jpg
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Miss Kim laughting at the pressure cooker story.jpg
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Miss Kim lecturing.jpg
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Miss Kim Teaching.jpg
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Miss Kim, Peter Koch and Ercilia and another member.jpg
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Miss Kim.jpg
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More Denver holy ground photos.jpg
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More zoo tour.jpg
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Much later photo of Oak Hill house.jpg
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Our Denver group.jpg
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Parents Day 1962 1.jpg
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Parents Day 1962 2.jpg
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Parents Day 1962 3.jpg
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Parents Day 1962 4.jpg
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Party at consession stand at Cow Palace boat show 1st day 19.jpg
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Patty's group in Ukraine.jpg
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Pauline and Miss Kim.jpg
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Pauline and Rowena.jpg
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Pauline on Oak Hill.jpg
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Pauline, Doris and Eileen at New Yorker in later years.jpg
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Pauline.jpg
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Peter Koch and Ercila Schuman.jpg
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Peter Koch, Miss Kim, Ursla Shuman.jpg
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Presenting his flag to Americans on arrival in 1965.jpg
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Reverend Moon coming out of door at San Francisco city hall.jpg
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Reverend Moon praying very early in his minestry.jpg
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Reverend Moon's party visiting the S.F. zoo.jpg
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Scroll done by Reverend Moon for Miss Kim on his arrival, la.jpg
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Shooting pool.jpg
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some of 43 blessed couples at gathering in New York.jpg
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Tiger Park.jpg
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Very early meeting at Masonic ave includes John Loflin 3rd .jpg
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View up Masonic St. in S.F..jpg
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Zoo tour photo.jpg
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Zoo tour.jpg
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Zoo tour2.jpg
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Zoo.jpg
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