One year after I joined the Church, God sent me to a flower team. First, I was frightened, and I was not sure I could survive, but I later found the team members to be bright spirited and warm hearted, and I wanted to be like them. It was a heavenly soldiers' team. The mottos were ''Absolute investment" and "Concentration with all one's heart."
Every minute was precious, so we saved time in many ways. Our daily life was living in a van. We slept like sardines. We woke up at 6 a.m., and packed our sleeping bags. We took just five minutes to wash up, and to save time we didn't use soap. We parked at train stations so we could use the bathrooms. Then we gathered for morning service, reading Father's words. We made the day's goal, we believed in God's word, and we followed God's word in practice.
At the place the captain dropped us off, we always felt it was God's battlefield. Some of the places were unbelievable, such as in the countryside in the middle of farms, or in the mountains. Sometimes, it was at a very busy traffic intersection. When it was time for pick up, we had to be exactly on time for the captain to meet us. We had total unity, with no words of complaint, and we shared testimonies at the end of the day about how we met God. That is the foundation of faith and foundation of substance. God's grace and results came. That was our faith and life.
I memorized principled life in my body: 365 days a year with no rest, rain or shine, every day working from 6 a.m. to 12 midnight. We didn't go to Sunday service at the church, but we lived in the van. It looked like we were soldiers in boot camp, we were so intensely hard working. We felt that we were all walking the same path of God's course, Father's course, and Jesus' course. Our mission was to build the Kingdom of Heaven. Every day we gave our tears, effort, patience, and hard work, and experienced rejection and persecution. We felt closer and gained the fireball spirit to connect with the heart of God, True Parent's, and Jesus' heart.
Father started calling the people who had gone through that kind of training to the United States in 1973.
We carried on with that spirit. We had a four-day fundraising competition between Japanese and American teams. Many miracles happened during this competition. It was four days with little thinking about eating, sleeping, or language barriers. With God, True Parents, and our central figures, I tried my best with a heart of unity. Many people were buying my flower bouquets, and unbelievable things happened.
The results were that of the top ten, nine were Japanese members. I was the top seller, and the second was the American sister, Libby Mitchell. She couldn't understand how Japanese members could be at the top, so she studied and discovered that indemnity conditions were very important for faith and life. She made many conditions and called heavenly fortune to her. She inspired many American brothers and sisters. Father made a graph and showed us how different the results were before and after the competition, and how much higher the American members' results became. Father was really happy. I was happy that I could help American brothers and sisters to develop a fireball spirit to do God's will. I could transfer my flower-team training to the United States.
I joined National Mobile Fundraising Team (MFT) and stayed with it for eight years. I spent two years helping to train others and six years as a team mother. I worked together with American brothers and sisters, and this was my most treasured experience in my life.
From Tribute, pp. 373-75.