Soon Ae Hong
December 21, 1973
Tokyo Japan Church Headquarters
The testimony of Dae Mo Nim, True Mother's mother
Soon Ae Hong
As soon as I joined the Unification Church, I felt I had to live a life of service. Since I had learned the importance of dedication while I was a member of the "Inside the Belly" Church, I decided to dedicate myself to the Unification Church. I asked my younger brother to take care of our mother and my daughter.
In the Unification Church, I lived a life of attendance for eight months, starting with serving as a cook. I attended Father with such a dedicated heart that I became ill and had to be hospitalized. While I was in the hospital, Mr. Si-yong Kim had a dream in which Father, wearing a crown and golden robe, bowed in front of me.
I also had a dream. In my dream, all the women in the Unification Church were entering Father's room wearing white robes, with a pink flower in each hand. When I looked back, I saw women who were not church members, also standing in line with pink flowers. At that time, I thought that since God had lost women because of the Fall, He had been looking for women for six thousand years. I also saw Mother, my daughter, walking directly to Father. While she was walking to his seat, thunder rumbled as lightning flashed in all directions in the sky and then it gathered at one point. Tens of thousands of people were watching the scene enviously. Seeing the vision, I wondered what it meant. I had no idea that my daughter would become Father's wife.
For a long time, Mother had been raised for the purpose of meeting the Messiah. Therefore, even though she was clever, she was used to being absolutely obedient.
When Mother was a fourteen-year-old junior high student, she met Father for the first time. I took her to Father, telling her, "I will let you meet the Second Coming of the Lord." When Mother saw Father, she bowed deeply. Father told me, "You have such a pretty daughter. Does she do well at school?" After that, Mother had no chance to see Father until she reached the age of seventeen.
True Parents
My daughter turned seventeen in 1960. At that time, many people gifted with spiritual powers were inspired and said that the bride of Rev. Moon had appeared.
It was announced that Father had decided to have an engagement ceremony on the first day of the third month of the lunar calendar [3.1] in 1960. The day was coming near at hand, but there was no announcement as to who would be the bride. Both God and Father must have been impatient, because by all means the ceremony had to be held to advance the providence.
At that time, I had another dream. A phoenix descended from the heavens. Another phoenix ascended from the earth. They came together in the sky. The eyes of the heavenly phoenix looked very much like Father's eyes.
One day when I was holding Pledge Service alone after having taken a cold bath in the early morning, I saw a vision in which I was told who the people were that the heavenly and earthly phoenixes symbolized, Father and Mother. I was very inspired and danced around, shouting, "Heavenly Father, we are no longer orphans. Our True Parents have come, haven't they? We have become True Parents' children, haven't we?" From that time on, I no longer had the feeling that Mother was my physical daughter.
Since then, I received revelations day after day. Although the date that Father's engagement ceremony would take place had been announced, no one except me knew who the bride would be. So, I bowed in the direction of Mother who was staying in a high school dormitory. I bowed toward Father as well.
Mother looked like a child when she was sixteen years old. But when she became seventeen, she looked more mature. Whenever she came to the church, the atmosphere became very bright. Father seemed to be intently observing her. His eyes were on her even though many other people were there. Another seventeen-year-old girl would have felt embarrassed if someone looked at her in that way, but Mother remained calm and fearless.
One day Father said to me, "Bring your daughter immediately to me!" Father then met Mother face to face. During that time, Father investigated Mother's internal qualities. Over nine hours he asked her many questions. Watching Mother answering the questions boldly, I was surprised at her inner fortitude. Finally, Father said to her, "From now on, you shall have a good tutor." He asked me to go out, and called in Mrs. Won-pok Choi.
For one month until 3.1, Mother lived a life of attendance to Mrs. Choi. When other members saw Mrs. Choi and a young woman eating food that had come from Father's table, they said to one another, "Who is that girl?" Some people with deep faith thought she must be a woman of great significance.
At last, the engagement ceremony took place on 3.1, 1960. The wedding ceremony was held twice on the sixteenth day of that month -- once at noon and once at night. During the wedding ceremony, Holy Salt was used for the first time. Because True Parents had come into being on earth, we can consecrate all things with Holy Salt.
I then went through three years of indemnity, a period of trials for me. The daughter had become the Mother and the mother had become the daughter. Whenever I became arrogant, I was struck by Heaven. Father also tested me. Even when I greeted him, he would not say a word to me, nor would he even look at me. It seemed to me that all of the Unification Church members treated me in the same way. I became ill. I had stomach pains as if I had cancer. Satan tested me in that way. I had to spend this phase eating nothing but one cup of rice soup a day.
In the past I had experienced a time of suffering in the course of my life of faith in search of the Messiah, and I was determined to endure this period by not becoming arrogant, and by being grateful for these suffering ordeals.