Providential Establishments: Progress Made in Dire Times

Julia Hoon Sook Moon January 8, 2021 President of the Women’s Federation for World Peace International (WFWPI)

I would like to thank Heavenly Parent for protecting us during the COVID-19 pandemic and for allowing us to celebrate the New Year, 2021, together with True Mother. I am deeply grateful to True Mother, who has guided us with great leadership and vision for the past seven years since True Father’s holy ascension.

The International Association of First Ladies for Peace (IAFLP) was launched at World Summit 2020 with the support of the Women’s Federation for World Peace International (WFWPI) based on the sixty-year foundation of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humanity and True Mother’s seven-year course. At the inauguration of the Abel Women’s UN, the last official event hosted by True Father, just before his holy ascension, he said to build a network of women working together in the right direction. True Mother spoke about completing the victorious substantive foundation of the “Abel Women’s UN” with the woman leaders of the seven organizations under the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) through IAFLP and to further develop and expand it from that organization.

Harnessing wisdom born of experience

After the inauguration of IAFLP, the First Ladies attended the UPF Peace Talk on the theme “Women’s Leadership in Times of Crisis” and shared their realistic, empathetic and practical points of view. Not only did they share their opinions, but they also spoke freely about their true feelings, and clearly saw how the IAFLP can become a powerful and influential platform if they unite their minds with their experiences and expertise in various fields, and we truly connect them to the heavenly providence and True Mother. All the speakers felt a new sense of intercontinental solidarity across the language barriers and shared the need to work together and continue dialogue with each other in an urgent situation.

IAFLP regional coordinators and WFWPI leaders have been maintaining relationships with UPF leaders and the First Ladies of each continent, beginning with the second seven-year course, to participate in various webinars and organize regional summits and meetings on topics related to the UN and peace building, and to build a network of peace and development among the First Ladies. Together with WFWPI, IAFLP will co-sponsor a parallel event in the sixty-fifth session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UN CSW). It will be held in March this year in a virtual format and will be an opportunity to introduce IAFLP. IAFLP is committed to supporting the will of True Mother in realizing the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to True Mother for founding the International Association of Arts and Culture for Peace (IAACP). As we enter the final stage of the providence, for us to understand why True Mother wants to bring artists from around the world to work together in this association is important. Throughout history, art has healed suffering as opposed to war and has provided expression to pure-hearted people who seek a world of peace. Religiously speaking, one could say that art provides a kind of salvation.

My firm conviction is that True Mother inaugurated the IAACP in order that artists of this age will stand in solidarity as champions of peace and demonstrate prophetic imagination in our current desperate situation to heal and to establish a new reset, a new order of civilization for humanity now going through suffering that reaches around the globe in an unprecedented way as we face the COVID-19 pandemic and the destruction of our only home, planet earth. In the third Rally of Hope, True Mother said, “In the past, as the Christian cultural realm waited for the Messiah to come again, an ancient beautiful culture formed with the European continent at its center. It is still loved today by all peoples of the world. That culture is the culture of longing for the Messiah.” In the age of Cheon Il Guk, we need to create a beautiful culture of hyojeong like that, healing the heart of Heavenly Parent, True Parents and all humanity. I hope that we can bring a cultural revolution of the heart through IAACP and the arts. Thank you very much.