Life on the Unification Church's South Farm in the UK from 1977 to 1981

Nigel Barrett has just posted a photo of our small church/farm community at South Farm in UK. I was sitting next to Tom Corley. I was at the farm from 1977 to 1981. Mrs. [Doris] Orme had asked me to go there/sent me there as I was a Type 1 Diabetic on insulin. It was the best thing that anyone could have done for me as I had many wonderful experiences with our brothers and sisters there including James Masters, the son of Henry and Avril Masters who had donated the farm to our church. I was taught to milk cows, look after pigs and sell fresh chickens as a fundraising product around shops and pubs and clubs (especially in Wales with Luigi Bacca). We held Sunday services in a little shed type place in a field and the cows often came up to the windows and steamed them all up in the middle of the service as they drew close (to listen to the sermon?).

True Father came to UK in 1978 and as we were farm members, we didn’t get to go to our HQ in London very much. The farm also served as a workshop venue for various workshops. Some of us were kind of ‘problem members’ and the guests were advised not to spend too much time with us but actually they loved talking to us in our stinking farm clothes. However, one summer’s day I was hobbling around the front entrance to the farm with one leg in plaster as a few days earlier I had broken my ankle. I was upset with myself for being so ‘spaced out’. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a car drew up at speed and parked very close to me. Doors opened and Mrs. Choi got out and then I noticed True Father next to her as well

as Mr. and Mrs. Orme. I felt True Father wanted to shake my hand but instead Mrs. Choi came up to me and asked if I was ok. I was seeing the messiah for the first time. Being a young member, I had no official role to play and so went inside the main farmhouse.

There were about 5 of us in the kitchen and we observed the goings on at the front through little pane windows. None of us had ever seen Father before. A New Zealand sister stood next to me and we both stared through a very small windowpane. That scene has always stayed with me. Mrs. Orme came in and said ‘stop staring’ and so of course we did. That was a small magical moment and two years later I was matched to a Keitha Forbes from New Zealand. I saw True Father in a few dreams and he always appeared to me as someone who was really concerned about me and my health. This farm, however, helped me become strong and healthy despite ongoing diabetes. I have always felt it built me up so I could help pioneer different towns in Germany from 1981 to 1992. My wife came from New Zealand in 1984 and our three sons were born in three separate towns which we helped pioneer, including Magdeburg, in former Eastern Germany.

True Father had been to South Farm before to plant a Holy Tree but someone else should talk about this as I don’t know the whole story. How Henry and Avril Masters donated the farm to our church is another special story. I could talk all day about my experiences at the farm with the animals, with the brothers and sisters and with some of the neighbours in the village.

What potential farms have, like South Farm near Swindon, for hearing lectures, being in the creation, working in the fields after lectures, experiencing our Heavenly Parents in so many ways and for internal and external healing like I did in that precious time of my life. I had joined our church in 1975/76 in Germany and had many wonderful experiences there, but it was this farm where I got reborn physically and spiritually so that I could return to Germany when the providence in Europe was especially concentrated there in the 1980s.