In Part 1, Rev. David Kim explained about his childhood, school days, marriage and family, and how he, a young, rising public servant, came to join our church in 1954.

The overseas missions begin

Not long after the founding of HSA-UWC in Korea, I was selected by the Korean government to study in Britain for two years as a UN scholar, along with other under-developed nations' representatives at Swansea College, University of Wales. Externally I was a UN scholar, but internally I had a mission to spread True Father's message to Christians overseas and around the world.

While I was in Wales I never neglected my heavenly mission and duty. Whenever I had spare time, I visited many churches and small groups to look for people, and spoke many times at churches as a guest speaker. On those occasions I would introduce our Korean group and preach based on the contents of Divine Principle, which was available only as handwritten notes exchanged among the early members. Near the end of my stay in England, I succeeded in contacting a conservative Christian organization called the Apostolic Church International, which was holding a World Convention in South Wales at that time. I was allowed to speak for 30 minutes, appealing to 3,000 participants at the World Convention about the situation of Teacher Sun Myung Moon, our movement and the Korean government persecution.

In 1956, the Apostolic Church International's Australian mission headquarters sent one Pastor Joshua McCabe to our group in Seoul, Korea. He studied the Principle for eighty days and helped with Professor Young Oon Kim's English translation of Divine Principle. Seven hundred copies were completed and distributed throughout the world even before the Korean edition was published. Mrs. Won Pok Choi, Miss Kim and I, as a trinity, worked together to teach the depth of Divine Principle and take care of Pastor McCabe as a special guest of the church. Except for the Second Coming in human form, he accepted most of the contents of Divine Principle, had spiritual experiences and went back to Australia inspired. However, the Board of Mission Headquarters failed to carry out the original plan to set up a mission in Seoul to help our movement at that time. Thus, the dispensational plan for the British Empire as the Eve nation failed. Therefore, in 1959, Father had to send both Miss Kim and myself to the Western world, America, and spread our message here.

I was already experienced in special missions and I had also been among the so-called elite class of Korean society since the Japanese colonial days and an official in the Korean government since 1945. I was thus widely experienced and highly educated. There were not many highly educated and socially experienced members in our movement in the 1950s and early 1960s. In January 1959, Miss Kim was sent to America as a student. I myself arrived in Portland in the state of Oregon, on September 18, 1959.

1950s and early 1960s. In January 1959, Miss Kim was sent to America as a student. I myself arrived in Portland in thestate of Oregon, on September 18, 1959. 

At that time, Koreans were only allowed to come to America on a student visa. I processed Miss Kim's passport when I was working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul. Father chose Miss Kim because she was well qualified to be one of the pioneer missionaries to America. She had been a professor of Christian Theology and Social Welfare Services at Ewha Woman's University. She arrived on January 2, 1959, as a student at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She worked very hard there, but received a great deal of persecution. She then moved to Berkeley, California. A few years later, she

moved to the Washington, DC, area to join Colonel Pak, who had arrived there on February 25, 1961. Col. Pak worked at the Korean Embassy in Washington as the Military Attache. He had already done well witnessing and lecturing prior to Miss Kim's arrival. He has always been an eloquent speaker and an excellent lecturer of Divine Principle since his regional director's days in Korea. During the 1960s, he influenced the political and cultural realms in America with many projects.

In November 1966, Mr. Sang Ik Choi, the first missionary to Japan [sent in 1958] moved to America. His wife arrived in December and they settled in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Kenji "Daikan" Ohnuki and Yonsu Im, who were serving as staff members in the United States for the Little Angels world tour, joined them at that time. They were very active, contacting people directly on the streets, especially young tourists from Europe and other countries. Their work expanded and they gained many members with their unique methods of witnessing and teaching Divine Principle.

These witnessing techniques gained quite a few good members, while creating controversy as well. Many battles and numerous lawsuits from the antireligion movement resulted. However, through this struggle, this group centering on the San Francisco Bay produced many leaders for our American movement, many of whom are still spiritually vital and dedicated. The more active our witnessing campaigns were, the more serious was the opposition from those whose sons and daughters joined so-called cult movements. We had to face lawsuits and court trials for alleged "brainwashing" on the West Coast, yet not on the East Coast.

The battle to stay in America

It was a given that, to fulfill my mission in America, from the outset I needed to be able to stay in the United States legally. I sought and acquired a student visa, enrolling in the Masters program at the Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon. There I learned about America and the Christian churches in the Western world. I used to visit Christian churches every Sunday, making seminary-sponsored tours and speaking to the congregation. Through my visitations, I found several contacts at the churches. As my work bore fruit I formed Divine Principle study groups in these contacts' private homes. The seminary began to watch my ministry to see whether I was teaching the Bible in a false way or in conservative Christian ways. Soon, persecution began coming from the seminary, which had been informed by one of my Divine Principle study group members.

The entire content of Divine Principle was revealed to the seminary professors and its chief administrator. In the end, the seminary and the Immigration authorities worked together to deport me back to Korea immediately following a school court hearing held two weeks before I would graduate and receive my Masters of Religious Education degree in 1962. My "sins" were: first, I was teaching the "heresy" of Divine Principle (for example, that there were two manifestations of the human fall-spiritual and physical); second, our group prayed in the name of True Parents [following their Holy Wedding], not in the name of Jesus Christ; and third, I sent a contribution of $100 to Master Moon on his birthday on January 6, 1961.

A big battle took place in school court hearings between the seminary, the informer and myself. Since everything I was doing was exposed to them through the informer, whom they called upon as their witness, I had no defense. Fortunately, one of the Biblical professors sympathized with me. He suggested a compromise to the school authorities. This was the result: first, my Master of Religious Education degree was with-drawn; second, all the work I had done in the last semester was negated and no credits would be issued; third, I would not be allowed to graduate and fourth, instead of the school deporting me to Korea, the seminary would recommend letting me transfer my one and a half year's credit to the Catholic University of Portland and continuing my studies on the graduate level on the subject of Sociology of Marriage and Family. The case was thus settled. I enrolled at the Catholic University to avoid being deported and abandoning my heavenly mission. My deportation was temporarily suspended while I remained in this country on a student visa.

However, I never abandoned my mission. During my ordeal, my eight followers prayed together about what to do at Mt. Tabor Park, near the seminary. The park later became the holy ground in 1965, when True Father established holy grounds in all fifty states. We rebuilt our group, started witnessing, held revival meetings, carried out group-studies of Divine Principle and conducted other activities. One of those activities was a weekly Divine Principle radio broadcast by Mrs. Eileen Welch, begun early in 1962 in Portland. At the time, we were covering seven states: Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, Illinois and Vancouver, BC, the western most province of Canada, where Seattle members were sent as missionaries.

After Miss Kim moved from Berkeley to Washington, DC, I moved down to Eugene, Oregon, and obtained a Master's Degree in education from the University of Oregon. Later, I moved down to Oakland, California and worked together with Mr. Choi's group in the San Francisco Bay area. Thus, in the early 1960s, the American missionary territory came to be divided into the West Coast under Mr. Choi and myself and the East Coast under Miss Kim and Col. Pak.

To gain members, we did not visit the Christian churches, but witnessed on the streets and college campuses. The most active region was the San Francisco and Berkeley area. Mr. Choi's group conducted daily lecture presentations, shared meals and entertained new contacts. The West Coast group and the East Coast group started newsletters of their own, competing with each other and stimulating each other to increase membership in the United States. On several occasions, the leaders of the West and East Coasts met to help each other promote our movement in America. However, the four missionaries and their respective groups did not unite, thinking instead of who should control America or who would dominate the other group. Prior to 1972, there was no unity between the West and East Coast groups. Only our True Father united the two groups. When he officially arrived on American soil in 1972, the pioneering work of the four missionaries ended, and Father took over the restoration work of America.

Father's early years in America

In the 1970s, under the providential guidance of True Parents, every state established a One World Crusade (OWC) mobile team. True Father directed this soon after his arrival in the United States. The teams fulfilled an evangelical role, conducting revival meetings to support True Father's Day of Hope speaking tours, delivering a new message for a new age. They participated in television interviews and other public relations efforts in order to explain their efforts to the larger public.

Beginning from the early American One World Crusade Tours (1971-1974 especially), and based on their success, the International One World Crusade and Day of Hope tours spread worldwide, soon reaching Asia and Europe.

During this period, our Father purchased the 43rd Street Headquarters and the New Yorker Hotel, and started a newspaper in New York City, later combining it with The Washington Times daily newspaper in Washington DC. Our True Parents initiated many worldwide projects at that time. Most members then were single, actively teaching Divine Principle and witnessing to gain members. Flower sales were a popular and profitable activity with which to finance the church. International One World Crusade campaigns and Day of Hope tours produced great excitement, plus lots of television interviews and news media publicity. In every city and town our True Parents visited they proclaimed the new message and received citations from governors and mayors.

Many of the new followers attracted to Father's teachings at this time were young people in their twenties and thirties who were enthusiastic and energetic in sharing their faith with others. The years that I served in OWC and IOWC proved to be the best years in my church life since having joined in 1954. During a four year period, IOWC mobile units visited all fifty states and then traveled worldwide. In my capacity as an IOWC commander, I often felt like the supreme commander of a military maneuver. However, we were equipped not with guns or swords, but with God's truth and love.

A seminary to educate leaders

Sometime after coming to the United States, I realized that Americans would not easily accept the new and revolutionary teachings of Divine Principle. My two years of pioneering experience in Britain taught me that acceptance of our message would be hindered by the deep-rooted mainline Christian doctrine. The fact that our message comes from the Orient and the racial prejudices Westerners had towards under-developed nations like Korea only further exacerbated the difficulties. However, since Japan was gaining on America and the Western world industrially, I saw that the time was coming for Americans to pay attention to Oriental cultures and traditions, including its new religious movements.

Therefore, I thought that education and tradition based on the Unification Principle must be developed. Our primary goal in America should be to train and educate American leaders for the future. In 1973, therefore, I suggested to True Father to start a seminary. Since the pioneer missionary days were over, our new direction was to train and educate the next generation of leaders.

I served as president of the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS) for the twenty years of 1974-1994, when I retired. We began preparations for UTS in 1974, but the institution actually had its official launch the following year. The seminary offered a strong and diverse curriculum. In addition to more traditional classes such as New Testament, Old Testament, World Religions and Counseling, UTS established a Korean language program that continues today. UTS succeeded in developing gradu-ate level Unification Studies, courses in topics such as Unification Thought, the Life of Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Worldview and Divine Principle. I set up many traditions at the seminary that I had learned from Father in Korea and in America, and those traditions carry on. These accomplishments were not made by myself alone but with the guidance of True Parents and the assistance of others such as Dr. Edwin Ang and Dr. Therese Stewart.

Numerous seminars and conferences, sponsored by the Unification Theological Seminary or organized by its graduates, have been held internationally. Our True Father has poured millions of dollars into these programs, sowing seeds of true love from our Heavenly Father and True Parents. Now, we are harvesting the fruits of that labor.

I am very glad and take great pride that I served at the Unification Theological Seminary for twenty years (1974-1994) to train future leaders of our movement. Among these leaders are more than thirty-six UTS graduates who have received their Ph.Ds from distinguished universities throughout the world, and are now serving our True Parents, the nation of America and the world in academic and religious areas.

It excited me to be involved in the war between God's side and Satan's side. As a heavenly general, I led our heavenly troops, marching through all fifty states of the United States during the 1970s. I felt like David smiting Goliath, the enemy of the Israelites, when we proclaimed Divine Principle in each state and city.

I am still inspired by our True Father's concept of IOWC and its goal to influence and save the entire world. I continue to carry out small projects in the name of IOWC: publication of the Day of Hope in Review series and other books, and radio broadcasts of "The Unification Hour" and "True Love Journey." "The Unification Hour" has been airing for the past twenty-two years in the Hudson Valley area. In 1993, we started airing another program called "True Love Journey" proclaiming the identity of True Parents, teaching the meaning and significance of the worldwide blessings, and reaching out to the Christian community as well as communities of other faiths. As vice president of the Unification Thought Institute (UTI) of America I helped publish UTI books and set up a club for the intensive study of Unification Thought. Sadly, Dr. Sang Hun Lee, president of the Unification Thought Institute, passed away suddenly on March 24, 1997. It was my privilege to work with the late Dr. Lee who had such a deep knowledge of Father's message. I admired tremendously his power to systemize Unification Thought into a framework for easy comprehension.

Without any church support, I continue to keep the spirit of IOWC that True Father established in the 1970s, waiting for my successor to appear before I depart to Heaven. It has been most exciting to be a spiritual commander in God's providence centering on True Parents while battling for Satan's territory.

As UTS president, I did my best to set up a tradition for our movement worldwide and for the next generation. The thirty-six blessed couples are already physically old and must pass the torch to the next generation. Some are already gone. This is a part of the natural law of the universe. The next generation, like that of Joshua and Caleb in Moses' time, are the hope of God and True Parents.

[Edited for Today's World]