Message for the young people - Find Your Purpose, Change Your Life

When we meet someone new, we are always curious about
who he or she is. God has the same curiosity about each
human being. He is especially curious about young people,
and it brings Him great joy when He gets to know them intimately. Why
is this? It is because our youth is the most important and most beautiful
period of our lives. This period should be a time of tranquility as one
prepares for the future. The process of growing to maturity is a building
block that opens the way to a new era.
It is difficult to find young people today who are passionate about
their lives. We find so many young people who, with no goal or purpose
for their life, are just wandering around. All great leaders in history had
a definite sense of purpose in life from the time they were children.
From childhood they nurtured that purpose held within their hearts
and exerted great energy to achieve it. Whether they were sleeping or
playing with their friends, every youthful action of these great leaders
was geared toward preparing for the stage that they would stand on in
the future. Is that how you are living your life?
We were all created to be great men and women. God did not send
us into this world without purpose. When God created us He invested
His complete love into each person. So we were all created for greatness.
Because God exists, we can accomplish anything.
I became a completely different person when I began to love God.
I loved humanity more than myself and was more concerned with the
problems of others than the problems of my family. I loved everything
that God created. I deeply loved the trees on the hills and the fish in the
waters. My spiritual senses developed so I could discern God’s handiwork
in all things of creation.
As I was changing my heart to conform to God’s love, I also strengthened
my body so that I could fulfill my mission. I wanted to be ready to
go anywhere, anytime that God called on me. I played soccer and did
boxing, some traditional Korean martial arts, and wonhwado, a form of
martial arts that I developed. In wonhwado the athlete moves his body
in a smooth circular motion, almost as in a dance. It is based on the
principle that greater power comes from circular motion than moving
in a straight line.
Even now I begin each day with stretching exercises for my muscles
and joints and a breathing exercise that I developed. Sometimes when I
am traveling around the world on speaking tours, I may not have time
for these exercises in the morning. Still I will find the time, sometimes
while sitting on the toilet. I never miss a day of exercise. When I was
young, thirty minutes a day was plenty, but now that I am older I have
increased it to an hour a day.
In 2008 I was involved in a helicopter crash. The helicopter was suddenly
surrounded by black rain clouds and in an instant crashed onto a
mountainside. The helicopter rolled over, and I was left hanging upside
down by my seatbelt. Instinctively I tightly grabbed the arm rests on
both sides of my seat. If I had not been so diligent in my exercises, I
think I would have broken my hip the instant that I was suspended
upside down. The body is the container to hold a healthy spirit. It is
important for us to be diligent about training our bodies.
Few students go to school because they like to study. They usually
go because their parents tell them to, not because they look forward to
studying. As students continue to study, however, they gradually learn
to enjoy it. From that point they will start to study on their own and
find their own path. This self-developed interest in learning is a sign of
maturity.
Parents cannot wait until their children mature enough to study on
their own. They tell them, “You have to study. Please make up your
mind to study,” and put pressure on them. Parents do this because they
know that children need to study in order to prepare for the future.
They worry that if their children don’t study at the proper age level, they
will face the future unprepared.
There is, however, something more important than studying to prepare
for the future. Before unconditionally focusing entirely on studies,
young people must realize what they want to do in life. They must make
a determination to use their talents to help the world rather than just
serve themselves. Many young people today seem to be studying just
for its own sake. Unless you have a purpose in life, your studies will lack
the passion needed for happiness.
Once I came across a Korean student working hard on his English schoolwork.
I asked him, “Why are you working so hard to learn English?”
He answered, “To get into a university.”
What could be more foolish? Getting into a university is not a purpose.
A university is a place to go to study particular subjects in the
course of pursuing a larger objective. It cannot be the objective itself.
Also, do not define your life goal in terms of how much money you
want to make. I have never received a salary, but I managed to eat and
stay alive. Money is a means to do something, not the goal. Before you
make money, have a plan for spending it. Money gained without a prior
objective will soon be wasted.
Your choice of occupation should not be based on just your talents
and interests. Whether you become a fire fighter, a farmer, or a soccer
player is up to you. But what I am referring to transcends your occupation.
What kind of life will you lead as a soccer player? How will you live
as a farmer? What is your objective in life?
To set your objective is to give meaning to the life you will lead.
If you are going to be a farmer, then you should set your objective to
test new agricultural methods, develop better species of crops, and help
eradicate world hunger. If you are going to be a soccer player, then set
a meaningful objective such as to heighten your country’s image in
the world or to establish soccer camps that will nurture the dreams of
economically deprived children.
To become a world-class soccer player takes incredible work. If you
do not have a definite purpose in your heart, you will not be able to
endure the difficult training required to reach the top. Only if you have
an objective will you have the power to maintain your course and live a
life that is a cut above those around you.

More Than Giving Bread, Teaching How to Make Bread

To solve the problem of hunger we must have a heart that is willing
to plant seeds. Seeds are planted and wait unseen under the
soil until they are able to germinate and break through their
outer cover. Similarly, it is better to teach a person how to plant and
harvest wheat and then turn it into bread than it is to give a piece of
bread to a person who is about to die. The former may be more difficult
and not result in as much public recognition, but it is the only way to
arrive at a fundamental and sustainable solution to world hunger. We
need to begin now to study the climate, the soil, and the character of the
people in areas that suffer from hunger.
In Africa, there is a species of tree called manchuka. The people in
Congo feed the leaves of this tree, which are high in nutrition, to their
cattle to fatten them up before taking them to market. They also pound
the leaves of this tree on a stone mill, add some oil, and fry them in batter.
It may be a good idea to plant many manchuka trees and make powder
out of the entire tree after throwing out the root, which is poisonous.
The powder can be used to make bread. Also, Jerusalem artichokes,
which resemble sweet potatoes, grow very quickly once they are planted
in the soil. The amount that can be harvested is three times greater than
that of other famine relief crops. Planting a lot of Jerusalem artichokes
is another way to contribute to resolving the hunger problem.
In Jardim, a large earthworm is used in farming, and this makes the
soil quite fertile. This earthworm exists only in Campana, but perhaps
we can study its ecology and use it to help agriculture in other areas.
Koreans are working in the Mato Grosso region to study silkworms.
If the cultivation of silkworms is successful there, it will be possible to
make silk cheaply and sell it to buy food.
There is no quick fix to the problem of world hunger. People in each
country have different tastes for food and different customs, and the
plants and animals are different. The important point is concern for
our neighbors. We first need to develop the heart that, when we are eating
enough to fill our own stomachs, we think of others who are going
hungry and consider how we can help them. True peace will not come
as long as humanity does not solve the problem of hunger. If the person
next to me is about to die of hunger, peace is a mere luxury.
It is as important to teach the skills needed to become self-sufficient
in producing food as it is to distribute food directly to those in need.
To teach such skills, we need to build schools in remote areas to combat
illiteracy. Technical schools will need to be established in order to give
people the ability to support themselves. The Westerners who conquered
Africa and South America did not provide technology to the
people who were already there. They only used the people as laborers
as they sought to dig up and take away the resources that were buried
in the ground. They did not teach the people how to farm or how to
operate a factory. This was not right. Our church has, from the early
stage of our foreign mission work, established schools in places such as
Zaire for teaching agriculture and industrial technology.
Another problem faced by people suffering from hunger is that
they cannot afford proper medical treatment when they become ill. On
the other side of the world, developed countries are seeing an overuse
of drugs, but people who are hungry often die because they cannot
afford simple medicine for diarrhea or a cold. Therefore, as we work
to eradicate hunger we must also provide medical support. We must
establish clinics and care for those who suffer from chronic illness.
I created New Hope Farms in Brazil’s Jardim region as a model to
show how humanity can live together in peace. We tilled a wide expanse
of land to make farmland, and there is a cattle ranch in the higher elevations.
New Hope Farms is in Brazil, but it does not belong only to the
people of Brazil. Anyone who is hungry can go to New Hope Farms,
work, and be fed. Some two thousand people from all races and from all
over the world can always eat and sleep there. We will establish schools
all the way from elementary school to university. People will be taught
how to farm and how to raise cattle. We will also teach how to plant and
raise trees and how to catch, process, and sell fish. We do not have only
a farm. We use the numerous lakes in the vicinity of the river to create
fish farms and fishing grounds.
Paraguay’s Chaco region occupies 60 percent of that country’s territory,
but it has been a neglected land. The Chaco region was formed
when the sea rose to cover the land, and even now you get salty water
gushing up when you dig into the ground. I was in my seventies when
I first went to Paraguay. The lives of the people living in this longneglected
land were impoverished beyond words. It caused me great
pain in my heart to see them. I sincerely wanted to help them, but they
were not prepared to accept me, a person of a different skin color who
spoke a different language. I did not give up, however.
I traveled the Paraguay River for three months, eating and sleeping
with people from the area. At more than seventy years of age, I was taking
on a task that people said was impossible. I taught the people I met
what I know about fishing, and they taught me their language. We were
on the boat like this together for three months and became friends.
Once they began to open their hearts, I talked to them again and
again about why the world must become one. At first their reaction was
indifferent. Year by year, though, the people of Chaco began to change.
After ten years, they changed so much that they held a global peace
festival with great enthusiasm.
Resolving the food situation does not mean that peace will follow
immediately. After the hunger issue has been resolved, it is important
to carry out educational programs on peace and love. I have built many
schools in places such as Jardim and Chaco. At first people didn’t send
their children to school but instead had them help raise their cattle.
We worked hard to convince them that the children and young people
needed an education. As a result, we now have many students. We built
a light industrial factory where they could produce items using simple
technologies, and the students became more interested in attending
school so they could work in the factory.
We are all responsible for the people around the world who die of
hunger. We need to take action to help them. We need to feel a clear
sense of responsibility and find a way that they can be fed and saved.
People who live well should come down to a slightly lower position and
raise up those who live poorly, to bring about a world where all people
live well.

Solution to Poverty and Hunger

If you are never hungry, you cannot know God. The times when you
are hungry are opportunities to be nearest to God. When you are
hungry and are able to look humbly at each approaching person as
if he were a close family member who wants to help him, then you are
more likely to be fed. In such situations, it is important to maintain a
sympathetic heart of goodness.
Hunger is not an issue relegated to less-developed areas of the world.
Even in the United States, which enjoys one of the highest standards
of living in the world, there are people who are undernourished and
hungry. When I went to the United States, one of my first projects was
to purchase trucks to be used for the distribution of food to the poor.
The situation in impoverished countries is unspeakably worse. When
I look at the world situation, I feel that securing sufficient food supplies
is the most pressing problem. Solving the food crisis cannot be put off for
even a moment. Even now, some twenty thousand people around the world
die of hunger-related causes every day. We cannot afford to be apathetic just
because we and our immediate families are not facing hunger.
Simply distributing food supplies by itself will not resolve hunger,
though. A more fundamental approach to the problem is needed. I
am considering two fundamental and concrete methods. The first is to
provide ample supplies of food at low cost, and the second is to share
technology that people can use to overcome hunger on their own.
The issue of food will present humankind with a very serious crisis
in the future. We cannot build a world of peace without first resolving
the food issue. Sufficient food supplies for all the world’s population
cannot be produced on the limited amount of land area that is currently
available. We must look to the oceans for a solution. The oceans hold
the key to solving the food crisis of the future. This is the reason I have
been pioneering the oceans for the past several decades.
In Alaska, pollack smaller than fifteen inches long are used for fertilizer.
They would make wonderful food, but people don’t know how to
prepare them so they use them just for fertilizer. As recently as twenty
or thirty years ago, we could ask Westerners to give us the tail of an ox
and they would let us have it for free. Koreans are very fond of food
prepared with the bones or the intestines of cows, but some Westerners
do not know that these are edible.
The same is true with fish. About 20 percent of the world’s fish catch
is thrown out. Whenever I see this, I think of the people who are dying
of hunger, and I feel pain. Fish is a much more reliable source of protein
than beef. How wonderful it would be if we made fish cakes or fish
sausages to give to people in impoverished lands!
Once this thought came to me, I started projects to process and store
large volumes of fish. It does not do any good to catch large amounts of
fish if you cannot handle them properly after the catch. Even the best
fish cannot be kept well for more than eight months. Even if they are
frozen and placed in refrigeration, air gets in through cracks in the ice,
and water escapes. You could pour water on the fish and freeze them
again, but by then the best flavor is already gone and the fish might as
well be thrown out.
We gathered fish that were being thrown out and researched how to
turn it into fish powder. We sought to do something that even advanced
countries like France and Germany have not done. Fish turned into
powder could be transported and stored easily, even in hot and humid
climates. Fish powder is 98-percent protein, among the very highest
protein content of all food products. For this reason it can be used to
save people from dying of hunger. Fish powder could also be used to
make bread. We are still searching for ways to make it available to impoverished
countries around the world.
The oceans contain limitless food supplies, but the best method for
saving humanity from the food crisis is fish farming. I foresee that there
will be buildings, similar to the skyscrapers we see in our cities today,
devoted to fish farming. By using water pipe systems, we can farm fish
in tall buildings or even on the tops of mountains. With fish farming we
can produce more than enough food to feed all the world’s people.
The ocean is a blessing bequeathed to us by God. When I go out on
the ocean, I am completely absorbed in fishing. I have caught all kinds
of fish in different countries. One reason I fish is so I can teach people
who don’t know how to fish. In South America I spent several months
showing local people my fishing methods. I took in tangled fishnets myself
and spent three or four hours showing them how to untangle them.
To secure adequate supplies of food at a low cost, humankind will
need to develop the ocean. This and the great grasslands that are still
in their prehistoric state are our final storehouses of wealth. This task,
though, will not be easy. It will require us to go to places that are so
hot and humid that moving around and working hard with a strong
sense of dedication become very difficult. Developing the grasslands in
tropical regions cannot be done without a love for humankind that is
passionate and dedicated.
Jardim, in Brazil, is just such a place. It is a quite difficult place to
live. The weather is hot, and bugs that have not even been named yet
are continuously biting. I lived in that place and made friends with all
its various creatures. I walked around barefooted, feeling the red soil
of Jardim beneath my feet, looking just like a peasant farmer. When I
was at the river catching fish, I looked like the local fishermen. It is only
when the local people look at you and say, “You really are a farmer,”
or “You really are a fisherman,” that you are qualified to receive their
knowledge and share your own knowledge with them. It is not something
that can be done by someone who needs to sleep eight hours a
night in a clean and comfortable bed, eat three square meals a day, and
take naps under a shady tree.
When we were developing a project in Paraguay, a group of our
members and I were living in a small hut in Olimpo. There was only one
toilet, and each morning we had to take turns using it. I would get up
each morning at three o’clock, do some exercises, and then go fishing.
Because of this, the members who were with me went through some
very difficult times. It was usual for them to be cutting bait early in the
morning before they were completely awake.
When we took the boat out, we had to cross through a number of
other properties in order to reach the mooring site. Unlocking the gates
to these properties in pitch darkness was difficult. One morning when
the members were fumbling with a lock, unable to open it, I yelled at
them, “What are you doing?!” I shouted so loudly and fiercely that I
surprised even myself, so I am sure it must have been difficult for them.
But I feel that I cannot afford to waste so much as a single second. I
don’t have any time to be idly standing around. I can clearly see a list of
all the things I must accomplish before there can be a world of peace, so
my heart is always in a hurry.
When I fished there on the river before dawn, the mosquitoes would
swarm like a dark cloud. Their stingers were so sharp they would pierce
right through a pair of jeans. In the predawn darkness we could not see the
floats on our fishing lines, so we had to attach white plastic bags to them. I
could not wait for the sun to come up. I was in too much of a hurry.
I still miss Jardim. I miss everything about it. When I close my
eyes, I can still feel the heat of the Jardim air pressing against my face.
The minor inconveniences to my body were nothing. Bodily suffering
passes quickly. What is important is that this place can one day play
a significant role in serving the world. Being in Jardim brought great
happiness to my heart.

A Single Dandelion Is More Precious Than Gold

The three greatest challenges of modern society are solving pollution
problems, creating a consciousness for protecting the
environment, and increasing food production. If any one of
these is neglected, humanity will become extinct. The earth has already
been damaged extensively. Endless greed for material possessions has
brought about serious air and water pollution that is destroying nature,
including the ozone layer that protects us. If present trends continue,
humanity will find itself destroyed by the traps of material civilization.
For the past twenty years, I have been working to sustain and preserve
Brazil’s Pantanal region. The Pantanal—a region that lies in Brazil,
Bolivia, and Paraguay—is the world’s largest wetlands area. It is listed
with UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. I am carrying on a global environmental
movement to preserve the living creatures of the Pantanal in
the pristine state in which God created them.
The Pantanal—where the sea, land, animals, and plants live in
harmony—is a magnificent place. Simple words such as beautiful and
fantastic cannot begin to describe its value. Photos of the area taken
from the sky are so beautiful that a collection of these photos is one of
the best-selling photo collections in the world. It is humanity’s treasure
trove, where rare species such as the white-throated capuchin, the red
howler monkey, macaw, jaguar, anaconda, ostrich, and caiman live.
The flora and fauna of the Pantanal and the Amazon basin exist as
they did at the time of Creation. The Pantanal is Edenic. Human beings
have destroyed a great many beings that God created. Too many species
of plants and animals have become extinct because of human greed. In
the Pantanal, though, the original forms that God created still remain.
I am working to establish a bird atrium and an insect preserve in the
Pantanal to save these unique species from extinction.
In addition to being a habitat for many plants and animals, the Pantanal
is also an important source of oxygen for the earth. It is the “lungs
of the world” and “nature’s sponge,” producing more oxygen than any
other area. It is also a storehouse of greenhouse gases. The Pantanal is
changing rapidly, however, due to industrial development. If the Amazon
region, which provides such a large amount of oxygen for the earth,
is destroyed, the future of humanity will be dismal.
Some thirty-six hundred species of fish live in the Pantanal. One is
a gold-colored fish called the dorado, which usually weighs more than
forty pounds. When a dorado first took my hook, it felt like my body
was being sucked into the river. As I was reeling in the line with all my
strength, it jumped out of the water several times. After several jumps it
still had plenty of strength left to fight. It was so strong it seemed more
like a bear or a tiger than a fish.
The lakes in the Pantanal are always clean. No matter what is put
into the water, it quickly becomes clean again. The water is cleansed
quickly because there are so many different species of fish living there.
Each species feeds on something different. Living together in a complex
system, they devour anything that dirties the water. Their act of feeding
has the function of keeping the water pure. Fish are very different from
human beings. The fish don’t live for their own sake. They live to clean
their environment and make it better.
The back of a water hyacinth’s leaf in the Pantanal wetlands is black
with bugs. If the bugs were to remain there, the hyacinth would not
be able to live, but there are fish that eat those bugs off the leaves. So
the bugs live, the hyacinth lives, and the fish live. This is what nature is
like. No creature lives for itself. Instead, they live for each other. Nature
teaches us this tremendous lesson.
No matter how many fish there are in the Pantanal, if people are
given the freedom to fish there, the population is bound to decrease. To
protect the fish we need to develop fish farms. Because the fish in the
Pantanal are so precious, we need to develop many fish farms. Similar
facilities to protect insects, birds, and mammals are also needed. Raising
insects will help increase the bird population. The Pantanal provides a
perfect environment for all these creatures, and by focusing on how to
increase their population humankind can continue to enjoy them for
centuries to come.
It is not just fish that are plentiful in the Pantanal. The riverbanks have
pineapples, banana trees, and mango trees. Rice grows so well there that it
is possible to have three harvests a year, even without irrigated fields. That’s
how rich the soil is. Crops such as beans and corn can be grown just by
spreading the seeds over the ground. Very little human labor is needed.
Once while traveling down the Paraguay River on a boat, we stopped
at a house sitting near the bank. The farmer who lived there realized that
we were hungry, so he went into his field and dug up a sweet potato. It was
the size of a watermelon! He told us that as long as he leaves the root in the
ground it will continue to produce potatoes for several years. To think
that potatoes can be harvested without annual planting left me with a
strong desire to take them to countries where food is lacking.
People who advocate developing wetlands stress the economic
benefits of such development. The Pantanal, however, provides plenty
of economic benefit just as a wetland. The area has virgin forests of
ebony pine, and the wood is hard with high density. Natives claim that
a person could drive a spike into one of these trees and it would still
live more than a hundred years. These trees are used to produce ebony,
which does not rot and is said to last longer than iron. These trees are
so large that a man cannot put his arms around them. Imagine what
it looks like to have forests filled with such precious trees. I had some
seedlings of these trees planted on four hundred hectares of land in the
Pantanal. The trees our members planted have made the Pantanal even
more beautiful.
It is human selfishness that is destroying nature. Human competition
for the shortest route to economic success is the reason that the
earth’s environment has been damaged. We cannot allow the earth to be
damaged any further. Religious people must lead the way in the effort
to save nature. Nature is God’s creation and His gift to humankind. We
must work quickly to awaken people to the preciousness of nature and
the urgent need to restore it to the rich and free state it enjoyed at the
time of Creation.
Because it has become widely known that the Pantanal is a treasure
trove, a struggle over its future has begun. The place that we should be
protecting is about to become a battlefield for greedy humans. For the
past ten years, I have been taking leaders from countries around the
world to the Pantanal and sponsoring discussions on how to protect
this region and the rest of the world’s environment. I am gathering the
world’s environmental experts and scholars in order to encourage them
to take an interest in preserving the Pantanal. I am working to stop
the Pantanal from being destroyed by the merciless material desires of
human beings.
As the environmental issues grow more serious, many environmental
groups have sprung up. The best environmental movement, however,
is the one that spreads love. People take care of things that belong to
people they love. They do not, however, take care of or love the natural
environment that God created. God gave this environment to humanity.
It was His will that we use the environment to obtain food, to have
it in abundance, and to experience the joy of living in the beauty of
nature. Nature is not something to be used once and thrown away. Our
descendants for many generations to come must be able to rely on it
just as we have.
The shortcut to protecting nature is to develop a heart that loves
nature. We must be able to shed a tear at the sight of even a blade of
grass that we see as we walk along the road. We must be able to grab
hold of a tree and weep. We must understand that God’s breath is hidden
inside a single boulder or a single gust of wind. To care for and love
the environment is to love God. We must be able to see each creature
created by God as an object of our love. With our spiritual eyes opened
we could see that a single dandelion by the roadside is more valuable
than the gold crowns of kings.