Immediately following liberation, our country was in indescribable
chaos. Daily necessities were difficult to come by, even for
people with money. We ran out of rice in our home, so I set out for
Paekchon, Hwanghae Province, a community north of Seoul and just
south of the 38th parallel, to pick up some rice that had been purchased
previously. On my way, though, I received a revelation that said: “Go
across the 38th parallel! Find the people of God who are in the North.”
I immediately crossed the 38th parallel and headed for Pyongyang.
It had been only a month since our first son was born. I was concerned
for my wife. I knew she would be anxiously waiting for me, but there
was no time for me to return home before going north. God’s commands
are very serious, and they must be followed without reservation
or hesitation. I took nothing with me except for the Bible that I had read
dozens of times and had filled with underlined notes to myself in tiny
letters the size of grains of sesame seeds.
Refugees were already streaming south to escape communist rule. In
particular, the Communist Party’s rejection of religion meant that many
Christians were heading south in search of the freedom to worship. The
communists branded religion as the opiate of the people and insisted
that no one could have a religion. This was the place where I went, following
the call from Heaven. No minister would want to go into such a
place, but I went there with my own two feet.
As the number of refugees heading south increased, the North began
to tighten its border security. It was not easy for me to get across the
38th parallel. During the time it took me to walk thirty miles to the
border and until my arrival in Pyongyang, I never questioned why I had
to go such a difficult course.
I arrived in Pyongyang on June 6. Christianity had set down its
roots so deeply in this city that it was known as “the Jerusalem of the
East.” During their occupation, the Japanese had tried in several ways
to suppress Christianity. They forced its citizens to worship at Shinto
shrines and even had them bow in the direction of the imperial palace
in Tokyo, where the emperor lived. After arriving in Pyongyang, I began
my evangelical work in the home of Seob Choi Rah, who lived in the
Kyongchang Ri neighborhood near Pyongyang’s West Gate.
I began by taking care of the children in the neighborhood. I would
tell them children’s stories that illustrated Bible verses. They were children,
but I spoke to them in the polite form of speech normally reserved
for adults and did my best to take care of them. At the same time, I held
out hope that someone would come to hear the new message that I had
to convey. There were days when I would watch the front gate the whole
day, hoping that someone would come. Soon, people with sincere faith
began coming to see me.
I would speak to them through the night, teaching them the new
message. It didn’t matter who came. It could be a three-year-old child
or a blind old woman with a bent back. I treated them all with love and
respect. I bowed down in front of them and served them as though they
had come from heaven. Even if my guests were old men and women, I
would share with them late into the night.
I never said to myself, “Oh, I hate it when such old people come.”
Everyone is precious. Whether it is a man or woman, young or old,
everyone has the same precious value.
People listened to this 26-year-old young man talk to them about the
Letter to the Romans and the Book of Revelation. What they heard was
different from what they had heard elsewhere, so gradually people hungry
for the truth began to gather. One young man would come every day
and listen to me speak but would then leave without saying a word. This
was Won Pil Kim. He became the first member of my spiritual family.
He had graduated from Pyongyang Normal School and was working as
a teacher. We took turns preparing the rice for meals, and this was how
we formed the relationship of spiritual master and disciple.
Once I began lecturing on the Bible, I could not stop until members
of the congregation excused themselves, saying they had other places to
go. I preached with such passion that I would sweat all over my body.
Sometimes I would take a break and go into a separate room where I
was alone, take off my shirt, and wring the sweat out of it. It was like this
not just during the summer but even in the cold of winter. That was how
much energy I poured into my teaching.
For services, everyone dressed in clean white clothing. We sang the
same hymns dozens of times in repetition, making it a very passionate
service. Members of the congregation would be so moved and inspired that
we would all begin to weep. People called us “the weeping church.” When
services ended, members of the congregation testified about the grace they
had received during the service. During these testimonies we felt intoxicated
by grace. It was as though our bodies were floating up to heaven.
Many people in our church had spiritual experiences. Some
would go into trances, some would prophesy, some would speak in
tongues, some would interpret. Sometimes a person who did not
belong to our church yet would be in the congregation. Another
congregant would go up to him with eyes closed and tap him on the
shoulder. Then that person would suddenly begin praying a tearful
prayer of repentance. In such instances, the hot fire of the Holy
Spirit would pass through our gathering. When the Holy Spirit did
its work, people were cured of long-existing illnesses, as thoroughly
as though they had never existed. A rumor began to circulate that
someone had eaten some of my leftover rice and been cured of an
abdominal condition. People began to say, “The food at that church
has medicinal effects,” and many people began to wait for me to
finish eating, hoping to eat any rice I might leave.
As such spiritual phenomena became known, our congregation
grew, and soon we had so many people that we could not close the
doors. Grandmother Sung Do Ji and Grandmother Se Hyun Ok
came to the church because they each had a dream in which they
were told, “A young spiritual teacher has come from the South and
is now across from Mansudae, so go meet him.” No one evangelized
them. They simply came to the address that they were given in their
dreams. When they arrived they were happy to see that I was the
person they had heard about in their dreams. I only had to see their
faces to understand why they had come. When I answered their
questions, without first asking them what they wanted to know, they
were beside themselves with joy and surprise.
I taught the word of God through stories about my own experiences.
Perhaps for this reason, many people found they were able to receive
clear answers to questions that they had never been able to get answered
previously. Some believers from large churches in the city converted to
our church after hearing me preach. In one instance, fifteen core members
of the Jangsujae Church, the most prominent church in Pyongyang,
came to our church as a group, causing members of the elders board of
that church to lodge a strong protest against us.
Mrs. In Ju Kim’s father-in-law was a well-known elder in Pyongyang.
The family home was directly adjacent to the church that her
father-in-law attended. Yet, instead of attending that church she
secretly attended ours. To leave her home without her in-laws knowing
she would go to the back of the house, climb up onto one of the
large earthenware jars, and then climb over the fence. She did this
when she was pregnant, and the fence she climbed was two or three
times the height of a normal person. It took courage for her to do
that. Eventually, she received severe persecution from her father-inlaw.
I would know when this was happening. On days when I would
feel a strong pain in my heart, I would send someone to Mrs. Kim’s
home. As they stood outside her home they could hear her being
beaten severely by her father-in-law. He would beat her so severely
that she would shed tears of blood. She would say later, though, that
the knowledge that our members were standing outside the gate
praying for her would take away her pain.
“Teacher, how did you know I was being beaten?” she would later
ask me. “When our members are at the gate, my pain goes away, and
my father-in-law finds that it takes much more energy for him to
beat me. Why is that?”
Her in-laws beat her and even tied her to a post, but they still could
not stop her from coming to our church. Finally, her family members
came to our church and started beating me. They tore my clothing and
made my face swell up, but I never struck them back. I knew that doing
so would only make the situation even more difficult for Mrs. Kim.
As more people from large churches around Pyongyang began attending
our services, the ministers of these established churches became
jealous and complained about us to the police. The communist authorities
considered religion to be a thorn in their side and were looking for
excuses to suppress it. They jumped on the opportunity given to them
by these ministers and took me into custody. On August 11, 1946, I was
charged with coming from the South for the purpose of espionage and
imprisoned in the Daedong Security Station. I was falsely accused of
being sent to the North by South Korean President Syngman Rhee as
part of an attempt to take over the North.
They even brought in a Soviet interrogator, but they could not establish
that I had committed any crime. Finally, after three months, they
found me not guilty and released me, but by this time my body was in
terrible shape. I had lost so much blood while being tortured that my
life was in grave danger. The members of my church took me in and
cared for me. They risked their lives for me, without expecting anything
in return. Once I recovered I resumed my evangelical work. Within a
year our congregation had become quite large. The established churches
would not leave us alone. More and more members of their congregations
began attending our services. Finally, some eighty ministers took
action by writing letters to the police. On February 22, 1948, I was again
taken into custody by the communist authorities. I was charged with
being a spy for Syngman Rhee and with disturbing the social order. I
was taken away in handcuffs. Three days later, my head was shaved and
I was placed in a prison cell. I still remember how it felt to watch my
hair, which I had grown during the time I was leading the church, fall to the
floor. I also remember the face of the man, a Mr. Lee, who cut my hair.
In prison, the authorities beat me endlessly and demanded that I
confess my crimes. I endured, though. Even as I was vomiting blood
and seemed on the verge of death, I never let myself lose consciousness.
Sometimes the pain would be so great I would bend over at the waist.
Without thinking, I found myself praying, “God, save me.” In the next
moment, though, I caught myself and prayed with confidence, “God,
don’t worry about me. Sun Myung Moon is not dead yet. I won’t let
myself die in such a miserable way as this.” I was right. It was not yet
time for me to die. There was a mountain of tasks before me that I had
to accomplish. I had a mission. I was not someone so weak as to be
beaten into submission by something as trivial as torture.
Each time I collapsed from the torture I would endure by telling myself,
“I am being beaten for the sake of the Korean people. I am shedding
tears as a way of shouldering the pain of our people.” When the torture
was so severe that it took me to the verge of losing consciousness, I
would invariably hear the voice of God. In the moments when my life
seemed about to end, God would appear to me. My body still carries
several scars that I received then. The flesh that was gouged from my
body and the blood that was lost have been replaced, but the pain of
that experience remains with me in these scars. I have often looked at these
scars and told myself, “Because you carry these scars, you must succeed.”
I was scheduled to go to trial on April 3, the fortieth day of my imprisonment.
This was delayed by four days, however, and my trial was
held on April 7. Many of the most famous ministers in North Korea
came to the courtroom and accused me of all manner of crimes. The
Communist Party also scorned me, saying religion was the opiate of
the people. Members of our congregation stood to one side and wept
sorrowfully. They wept as though their child or husband had passed
away. I did not shed tears, however. I had members who would weep
for me with such sorrow that they were writhing in pain, so I did not
feel lonely as I traveled Heaven’s path. I was not facing misfortune, so
I felt I should not weep. As I left the courthouse after my sentencing I
raised my shackled hands and shook them as a sign to our members.
The shackles made a clanging sound that sounded to me like bells. That
day I was taken to the Pyongyang Prison.
I did not fear life in prison. It was not as if this were the first time for
me. Also, there was a hierarchy among the prisoners in each cell, and I
was quite good at becoming friends with the head prisoner at the top of
this hierarchy. All I had to do was exchange a few words and any head
prisoner would quickly become my friend. When we have a heart of
love we can open anyone’s heart.
After I had been in the cell, sitting in the farthest corner, for a few
days, the head prisoner moved me to a higher position. I wanted to sit
in a tiny corner next to the toilet, but he kept insisting that I move to a
higher position in the cell. No matter how much I refused, he insisted.
After making friends with the head prisoner, I looked carefully at
each person in the cell. A person’s face tells everything about him.
“Oh, your face is this way, so you must be this way.” “Your face is
such a way, so you must have such a trait.”
The prisoners were surprised to find how much I could tell them
about themselves by reading their facial features. In their minds they
didn’t like the fact that a person they were seeing for the first time was
able to tell so much about them, but they had to acknowledge that I was
describing them correctly.
I was able to open my heart and share with everyone, so in prison,
too, I had friends. I became friends with a murderer. It was an unjust
imprisonment for me, but it was a meaningful period of training. Any
period of trial in this world has important meaning.
In prison even the lice are friends. It was extremely cold in the
prison. Lice would crawl in single file along the seams of our prison
clothes. When we took the lice and put them together, they would attach
themselves to each other and become like a tiny round ball. We would
roll these, similar to the way horse dung beetles roll balls of dung, and
the lice would do everything they could to stay together. Lice have a
character of digging in, and they would put their heads together so that
only their back ends were sticking out. We had a lot of fun in the cell
watching this.
No one likes lice or fleas. In prison, though, even lice and fleas become
important partners for conversation. The moment you set your
eyes on a bedbug or flea, some realization flashes in your mind, and it
is important that you not let this pass without notice. We never know
when, or through what means, God will speak to us. So we need to be
mindful to examine carefully even things like bedbugs and fleas.
