Owning Our Mission
On Wednesday, May 6, 2015, Dr. Ki Hoon Kim, FFWPU North America Continental Chair, gave the following message to the national ministry team:
True Parents came to the earth to restore and recover the parent-child relationship between Heavenly Parent and humankind, between True Parents and humankind, as true sons and daughters.
I was so impressed reading the Generation Peace Academy (GPA) testimonies. After this meeting please open yesterday’s FFWPU website, which contains testimonies and letters that GPA participants wrote to True Mother. I translated all their letters into Korean for True Mother to read, and I sent them to [True Mother’s personal assistant Mrs.] Wonju McDevitt. While I was translating these letters for True Mother, I was really starting to cry, reading from the first page to the last page how much heart they have, how much they love True Parents.
I have never found this kind of heartistic person before. These young men and young women who have been on GPA for one year, two years or even three years had this kind of experience. Yes, they went through a lot of internal struggles, but they never forgot True Mother and True Father! In one of the testimonies the young person was writing: “I am so excited, I can see True Mother for the first time in my life on May 23.” This is their heart. Whenever I hear their testimonies, I always am hearing through these young students True Father’s message and True Mother’s message. Please let us continue to support them, to pray for them. They are our future church leaders, like Miilhan [Stevens] and Mari [Curry]; as vice presidents they are doing a wonderful job. They are really representing our national ministry well.
Teresa, for the next seven-day workshop, prepare one lecture, okay? And also Mari, as a representative of the second generation Unificationists and of women, prepare one lecture. Second generation leaders have to lead this seven-day workshop.
Touching people’s hearts is very simple. I heard the Manhattan Center president, Markus Carr, is doing a wonderful job. Give him a big hand. I will tell you why we have to give him a big hand: He joined our church while he was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. I heard he came to the center because of his spiritual mother’s cooking. She’s a Japanese lady and cooks noodles very well. He was enjoying this international food, so he came over to the center over many days and many nights; is that correct? So it’s very simple. New Jersey activities and New York activities need to be very simple in order to touch people’s hearts. A Japanese culture night is a great idea, and think about having an international food night at the Manhattan witnessing center. I think that office workers would really like it. If we organize this kind of international food night, we can reach out to people. Please think about it.
Thank you to our presenters today, and let’s give them a big hand. Where is Mr. Inose? He sent a letter last weekend after visiting Bridgeport and he spoke about receiving some family members’ feedback during his visit. Mr. Inose is very humble, he shares everything: family feedback, good points, weak points, and suggestions.
These are our itinerary workers. They try to listen to people and not just give directions. Let’s give a big hand to the itinerary workers. Thank you, thank you, thank you; you’ve been doing a wonderful job. I always try to be a mediator between True Mother and family members, and always my priority is how we can bring unity. With the concepts of unity and ownership, we see examples of members like Naoko-san from Los Angeles who goes out witnessing every day. The national witnessing campaign is coming to our district for maybe only three weeks. Then after three weeks shall we stop? No, we really need continuity. We need to invest in our community the kind of heart that True Father had for the last 50 years.
True Mother is coming back to this country again and again because she wants to continuously implant True Parents’ heart here in this country. When we step into the New Yorker Hotel, we should think that this is ours; we need to take ownership. This is my house, this is my building. When I visit the New Yorker, I and all the staff go from floor to floor and pick up any garbage we find. We pick it up because we take ownership. If no one takes ownership, sooner or later we will lose it. In the same way, we must take ownership of this tribal messiahship, this witnessing campaign. Our learning center at 43rd Street is a very precious building. Take ownership and let us continue.
Why is True Mother coming back to the United States? Because True Parents promised to God, “I will take care of my mission here in America.” Think about the situation of this country today. Because of immorality, more than ever America is in trouble. When we think about True Parents’ teaching about family values and the Blessing, we need this kind of education more than ever. We need to tell people about what True Parents left, including the International Peace Education Center in Las Vegas, and use it to bring this nation once again back to God’s side.
Once again, let us take ownership of the 43rd street building and the New Yorker building, and let us win a great result for the sake of True Parents and Heavenly Parent. Thank you once again, and God bless you.