Conference Report

Good evening everybody. Tonight, two IOWC leaders almost judged me. I’m surprised very much. Especially, we have a lot of stories, so tonight I’d like to use my translator. He is a UCLA leader. His father is a Korean congressman. He stopped his studies and wants to help me very much. So today I came with him. I’d like to ask Young-Il Choi to come up here. I cannot really hide that my heart is deeply moved by the fact that our Father, although he is nearing the age of 60, is standing in the front line, leading us in every way by showing us the example of hard work and sacrifice through all of his activities, including fishing. Today, I feel like I’m some sort of a sinner standing before our True Father. I’d like to use a little bit of your time to describe how we carried out our activities and our responsibilities during this past summer. Before we began the summer 50-day witnessing condition, about 240 CARP members met at I - Denver, Colorado, for an internal workshop. During that time the gro~p was divided into A and B members. When the members were gathered in· the state of California for the beginning of the 50-day witnessing condition, there were about 180 A members. 11 11

We determined to make 300 new members during the 50-day condition. That was our goal. But when I disclosed this goal, many people told me, “That’s an impossible goal to achieve.” So I tried to really emphasize strongly the meaning of witnessing. I have always maintained the following two opinions about witnessing: First, it is not l who is doing the witnessing. If I make the condition of being the sacrifice and the pure offering before God and Heaven, it is God’s Spirit that is working through me that brings the result. This is a fundamental element in witnessing. Second, in witnessing we have to find those people whom God has already prepared. So it has been my deep convicti.on that if we maintain our faith and continue to make the condition of becoming a pure

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offering before God, then the Spirit of God can move through us and lead us to those people whom God has prepared. Therefore, I emphasized to all the CARP members that it is not we who are doing the witnessing, rather we are makine the spiritual foundation through which God’s spirit can be mobilized to bring people to understand the value of Divine Principle and of our True Parents. The basic essence of our life O·f faith is that we have True Parents. We decided to research how we could really give the wonderful Divine Principle that our True Parents brought to us to the people , We developed a big board which we used on the sidewalks to show to the people the founder of the CARP movement with some basic out 1i ne of Di vine Pri ncip 1e. ‘We made an interesting observation: If ten people passed the board, about four of them would be very interested in what we were saying, perhaps two would be very negative about what we are doing, and the other four werenlt so interested-- they were neither positive nor negative. Perhaps many fundamental Chrisitians who witness on the street corners hold their Bibles high and cry out their rhetoric. But we took a different approach, a quiet approach. We met people on an individual basis and shared with them the content of the Divine Principle. Every time someone asked, “Who are you?”, we would clearly and proudly answer them, 11 We are Moonies; we are college representatives of Rev. Moon’s movement. 11

To my surprise when we were clear about our teachings and our affiliation, many people were interested and appreciated us being so explicit about our beliefs. CARP’s emphasis was, “We follow True Parents, and we believe in Divine Principle, so let us be open about that. This is the very treasure which we hold in our life of faith. 11 So we wanted to openly share with the people what we believe and our affiliation with Rev. Moon. As we went forth with this kind of attitude, the spirit of True Parents was mobilized, with the spirit of Father really working through CARP,

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We were sending about 20 new guests to workshop every day. After three days, there were 60 new guests and with 10 staff members, a total of 70 people in a house where only five people were supposed to live. Eventually, the neighbors caught on and called the Health Inspector. The Health Inspector came to check the house. The inspector came and at first was very surprised to find all the sleeping bags ~cattered throughout the house. Then he asked, 11 What are you doing here? 11 We explained, 11 We are a college branch of Rev. Moon’s movement. During the summer we are conducting a special campaign to teach the young people a new morality and new vision about the future. This became a temporary seminar ground to teach the young people the Principles of Reverend Moon. Every day about 20 people came, so after three days, we had about 70 people who are staying here. But please understand. 11 The inspector went throughout the house. He went upstairs and began to point out, 11 0.K., in this room you can sleep 10 people, in this room you can sleep 5 people .. , 11 and so on. When we added up all the numbers, it cam out to be 70. This was ’ truly a miracle. We were using a board for witnessing. In the city of San Francisco, there is an intersection of Market Street and Fifth Avenue. Thi.s is a very crowded area. When our members were there witnessing, the police came and gave them a warning. We received three warnings. One day as I was going around downtown with Michael Smith, I found our members weren’t witnessing at Fifth and Market; rather, they were witnessing at Ninth and Market. So I asked, “What are you doing here? You should be down at the corner of Fifth Street. 11 The member replied, 11 If I go down to Fifth Street, the police will arrest me immediately. So I was staying here. 11 I said, 11 No! Go down quickly to Fifth Avenue and witness there. 11 Well naturally when the member went down there, he opened up the boards and as soon as he opened up the boards and began to speak, the police came and put handcuffs on him. Even with his hands bound behind his back, the member never gave up but continued to lecture. He kept trying to raise his

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hands to emphasize lecture points. Our brother Michael Smith did not waste that opportunity to make a point. He took a stand and began to say, “This is a clear example of religious discrimination. What kind of society are we living in? Isn’t this a democratic society?” He spoke strongly, and many people gathered to listen to him. I couldn’t stop myself. I went right to the policeman and said, 11 You have to free my member right now. You are not just a public policeman, you are anti-Unification movement policeman. And right now we have about 1000 CARP members working in the state of California during our campaign. If you don’t release my member, I’m going to immediately mobilize my 1000 members and demonstrate in front of the police station. So, free him right now~” The policeman became very frightened. Using his walky-talky, he called headquarters for help saying, “Two strange men came here and they’re bothering me … Immediately, two more police cars came with more policemen. They took the member, so I told the police chief, “You must free my member within five hours. Otherwise, we’re going to have a demonstration like you’ve never seen before.” We contacted our lawyers. Our member was freed within five hours. Not only that, the district attorney moved to give us a special permit, saying it was a mistake for the police to make an arrest in the first place. So they gave us full permission to preach and witness at Fifth and Market. We felt very proud when some policemen were patrolling and tri.ed to stop us; we showed them the permission and to 1d them that we had every right to be there.. That was an exciting and very proud moment for many CARP members. We all identify ourselves as loyal followers of Father.. But then I have one question for all of us. Do we have the conviction and the courage to really expose our belief and speak out Father’s name to the people, clearly and proudly. When I visited a 7-day workshop, 993 of the time, new members asked me, “Do you think Reverend Moon is the messiah?” · And I gave the answer without any

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hesitation: 11 Yes, I believe he’s the messiah.” I said, “He is my personal messiah. He may not be yours, but he is my messiah. If I hadn’t heard the Divine Principle and had not met Reverend Moon, perhaps I would have taken my own life. But through the teaching of Reverend Moon and also his example, I have found new vision, new hope, and new enthusiasm for living. So he is the savior who gave me new life. He is my messiah.” And I explained further: 11 For one to be the messiah, he cannot just proclaim ‘I’m the messiah’ and annoint himself. First, he has to be the “Appointed One of God”, bringing us a truth of restoration. Also the messiah is the one who can establish God’s Kingdom here in this world. After knowing Reverend Moon, I really feel he is the one who has these qualifications. In other words, he has every qualification to be the messiah. For the past 23 years, I’ve been following Reverend Moon with the one conviction that he is a man who can emerge as the messiah for all the people because he has every qualification that is necessary for one to be so. So I 1 ve been following Reverend Moon and can really envision the great day when he emerges as the messiah. I will be one of his disciples. What a wonderful position that is!” Then I asked the young members, “Why don’t you help me make Reverend Moon the Messiah for the world?” So the key is conviction. Depending on what kind of conviction you have, you can either succeed or fail in your mission. As President Salonen indicated, members were going out witnessing at two or three o’clock in the morning. I didn’t have to say to them, “Go out witnessing.” They themselves felt inspired to go out. When they didn~t have guests, they would just walk out of the center and go out witnessing until very late at night or early into the morning. And I felt this was necessary to create a new atmosphere for our CARP movement. As Mr. Fefferman mentioned, our CARP motto was~ 11 Let us be bright, light, and exciting’’. There is nothing I hate to see more than some

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member coming back from witnessing depressed because of persecution. I told our members, “God is not dead. He is a living God--therefore, we have to be light, bright, and exciting.” The next important task for the CARP movement was to develop leaders. Depending on the quality of leadership, we can either bring really great result or we can bring very poor result. It is my deep belief that if a leader stands on the front line with the members and does the work that front line members are doing, going forth with a stronger conviction than the members, the members will naturally follow. However, if the leader just stands in the background and tries to manipulate the members, then he may be able to maintain that leadership for a period of time, but, sooner or later, very terrible problems will emerge. It is very clear to the CARP members and leaders that we must stand on the front line with the members, waking up earlier and going to sleep later than the members, showing the example of working harder with a deeper conviction. Even when I had 200 members working under me, I didn’t feel like I was some big leader or anything like that. I felt that I had to stand on the front line with the members, working together with them--working as hard, if not harder than they did. If one is leading only 10 people, how can he try to make himself into some awesome leader, sitting in an ivory tower, just giving commands? We have to work together on the front line getting down to the real nitty-gritty with the members .. I would like to share with you a few points that we have found during the .last witnessing condition. First, I felt that we prepare the physical environment, then we can bring tremendous results in witnessing. We have developed deep confidence in witnessing. But sometimes our physical conditions were very poor . For example, at San Jose, our two day workshop place was a small house with three rooms. The lecture took place in the garage. In a western nation like america, to give guests lecture in a garage is really

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unheard of. Therefore, one thing I felt was the need for a better physical foundation. Then many of those people who left could have stayed. Secondly, when the members who had heard workshop decided to join, the quality of leadership to really embrace and educate the members was sometimes lacking. we need the kind of leadership that can embrace, inspire, and raise-up young people. Finally, I’d like to share with you some of my own personal feelings. Not long ago, Father called me and said, “You are really a junk Park.” And I know when I look into myself, I am really junk. When I look into myself I do not have any special ability--not any better than you. Nor do I have any character that I think is better than your own character. However, whenever I was reminded of the reality of God’s situation, that He has to use people as incapable as me for this kind of responsibility, I couldn’t stop for even one second. I felt a burning desire to completely respond to God’s calling. One day, I finally got to rest at 4:00 in the morning; I had to wake up at 6:00 AM to go somewhere. That night, Father visited me and said, “Wake up right now! It’s time to wake up! 11 When I woke up, I realized it was exactly 6:00 AM. I was deeply moved by that experience. That morning, I felt a heaviness in my heart. I thought, “How sad and desperate the situation of Heaven must be to employ someone like me for His mission.” But then also, how much worry, how much trouble I may be giving to Father himself, that he has to lead and guide a person like me. He was so troubled that he came to visit me in spirit to inspire and push me. And shen I felt this way, I became really determined--even if I have to work 25 hours, 30 hours a day, I want to really give my all for the sake of God. I cannot rest. I have to respond to God with all of my best. We have entered a faithful destiny from which we can never retreat; we can only go forward in realizing God’s ideal world. We are young, you and I, but we should never waste even one ounce of our youthful strength and energy.

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We must channel all our effort toward one goal--God’s Will. Finally, we do not want to let down our standard.· We want to continue to go forth with the same kind of spirit that we projected during the summer 50-day condition. And, with all of our effort, we want to really bring results that we can be proud of, that God can be proud of and that will satisfy Heaven. So I really pray that you can support us and keep the members of CARP in your prayers. We’re going to give all of our best, and we will never lose our courage, never lose our spirit. We want to bring results that wi 11 make God and True Parents happy. So pl ease pray for CARP members and give a really warm hand for the hard working CARP members.