Boot Camp

In her book, It's My Turn, she begins with a chapter titled "Boot Camp."  She writes about how difficult it was for her to spend years in Korea as a teenager away from her beloved family.  Boot camp is a perfect phrase to explain how God works.  She was being trained in Korea to be a soldier's wife who would help her husband fight the awesome strength of Satan, the master of lies.  It was tough on her the three years she spent in Korea.  It was tough on Sun Myung Moon to be tortured by the Japanese who dominated Korea.  It was tough on members who follow Rev. Moon who pushes everyone to the maximum.

Mrs. Graham writes in her book how her parents viewed spiritual training.  It is in line with the Messiah's.  She writes, "One's  spiritual survival and growth is not necessarily dependent upon one's roots, or the environment within which one grows.  Some strong Christians have started life like the babies of the ancient Spartans,who were left exposed overnight to see if they were able to survive, and therefore fit to live.  Others have been nurtured lovingly and with care.  Daddy and Mother were of the strong opinion that life is a battle-ground and that homelife and schooling should be a training ground.  I was a child of such thinking."

The chosen nation is Korea.  I explain this in the last chapter of my version of the Divine Principle.  Koreans are a unique people that have the quality to produce the messiah that the Bible calls a "rock."  They are a deeply religious people who have been trained by God, just like the Israelites were, to know His heart and have the heart and guts to fight the good fight.  Ruth Graham was sent there by God to learn Korean and grow in spirit.  Unfortunately, she didn't hear God speaking and even when Rev. Moon came to America many years later and spoke in every state, she did not go to see him and study his message.  She failed, just like her husband.

I don't blame her.  God's voice is so weak in human history that He is rarely heard.  And even if He is, He is usually not followed.  God keeps sending messengers who speak critically and say outlandish things and mankind keeps throwing them in jail.

You would think that after thousands of years mankind would be smarter.  But even in America that has a history of freedom unlike so many countries in the world, many Americans have foolishly rejected God's champions -- even the Grahams.  In their defense, God's messengers are difficult to stomach.  They wear rags and don't have fancy degrees.  How could Mrs. Graham see that God speaking through me when I wrote to her -- a young man in his 20s who writes her a letter while he is living in a religious commune with other drop outs in the remote state of Nebraska.  She didn't listen to me then and I wouldn't put money on her listening to me now, even though I am much older and have a family that doesn't live in some ridiculous commune anymore.

Someday the followers of the new Christ will number into the millions in America and out of that will rise national leaders in all areas of life.  By then the Grahams and Moon himself will be dead.  Hopefully the second generation of the Graham family, such as their evangelist son Franklin, can accept the truth and go into Canaan, unlike his parents.

Mrs. Graham writes that in 1933 she was being sent from China where she had grown up with her parents who were Christian missionaries to the most prestigious Christian high school in the East -- "what is today Pyongyang, North Korea."

"My older sister, Rosa, had been there the preceding year.  Rosa, eager to try her wings, was a good adjuster and had taken it all in stride, enjoying it thoroughly."

"I was leaving all that was loved and familiar to me: the Chinese friends, the missionaries, home; Daddy, Mother, and thirteen years of treasured memories."

It took a week for her to get there.  This is a picture of her at age 13 in 1933.  She writes, "I remember the sense of finality as we progressed through the surprisingly wide streets, passing modern buildings interspersed with ancient Korean ones, until we entered a narrow, tree-lined lane, made our way up the hill, and were deposited in front of the girls' gray brick dormitory."

Typical of the religious life of God's pioneers, her room was austere: "once we had been assigned to our Spartan dormitory room, the homesickness settled in unmercifully.  The days I could manage.  It was the nights that did me in.  Burying my head in my pillow, I tried not to disturb my sleeping roommates, Rosa and Helen Myers.  Night after night, week after week, I cried myself to sleep, silently -- miserably."

"How could I know this was my training period -- my boot camp.  Preparation for my future."

"Recently I  was watching a television program which showed marines training at boot camp.  It was tough, it was rough, it was dangerous.  And yet how much tougher, rougher and more dangerous real combat would be if not for this basic training?"

"Looking back over my life, now I can see the importance of those difficult times at Pyeng Yang and I am grateful."

She was being trained for a far greater mission than the one she has had.  She has had a difficult life anyway.  Her husband has been gone so much and she had to raise the kids.  But God had trained her to be able to handle the providential mission of being one who introduces the living Christ to mankind.

Korean Christians

Rev. Moon asks for total blood, sweat and tears.  He walks his talk.  There is a reason why Ruth Graham's parents sent her and their other children to Korea to learn.  They knew Korea was where the greatest faith and finest Christian teachings would be given.  Korea was famous as being the center of Christianity in the East.  That is where the Messiah would come from -- a land of incredible faith and strength.  The Messiah doesn't come from Paris, France or St. Louis, Missouri.  He comes from a place that has been tested by fire.  To use another metaphor would be a nation that has become as hard as a diamond that began as a dirty, simple piece of coal that was put through years of heat and pressure.  The Korean Christians are the most devout in the world.  Where is the largest Christian church in the World?  Korea.

Ruth Graham has been able to visit both South Korea and North Korea.  When she was in South Korea, she visited the university that persecuted the young messiah in the 1950s when he was just starting.   A few women professors and some students had visited Moon's shack and were converted to his teachings when they heard lectures.  The university fired the professors and dismissed the students.

A newspaper article said this about her trip to the communist North:

         Ruth Bell Graham comes "home" to North Korea

         PYONGYANG, N. Korea (EP) -- Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist
         Billy Graham, has arrived in North Korea Sept. 22 for a six-day visit
         sponsored by the communist nation's tiny Christian minority.

         "I never thought this day would come!" Graham exclaimed as she was
         welcomed at Pyongyang's Airport. "I almost feel as if I were coming
         home."

         Her enthusiasm is understandable -- for three years in the 1930s Graham,
         who was born in China, attended high school in Pyongyang. Her father, Dr.
         L. Nelson Bell, spent 25 years serving the people of China as a missionary
         surgeon, and all three of his daughters attended the Pyongyang Foreign
         School in what is now North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of
         Korea). It was known as one of the finest schools in Asia, and drew
         students from many countries. At the time Northern Korea had a sizable
         Christian minority.

         "Those were some of the most memorable years of my life, and many of
         my best friends over the years have been people who were classmates
         there," Graham said. "After leaving in 1937 I never thought I would be
         able to return. But now 60 years later God has opened the door."

Rev. Moon was also allowed to return to this prison state that very few have ever been able to get into.  The leader Kim Il Sung invited Rev. and Mrs. Moon to North Korea. He befriended Rev. Moon and made Moon's birthplace a national park in his honor.  Shown here are pictures of Rev. and Mrs. Moon with Kim Il Sung at his home and of them standing in front of Moon's home that he was living in.

It is amazing that Rev. Moon was invited because he has been the greatest anti-communist in the 20th century.

Rev. Moon is the friend of many world leaders. President and Mrs. Bush traveled throughout Japan on a speaking tour Mrs. Moon gave in nine cities. President Reagan has praised Rev. Moon for founding the influential newspaper, The Washington Times. Rev. Moon has donated over a billion dollars to this newspaper. In 1974, President Nixon invited Rev. Moon to the Oval Office to thank him for his support. Shown here is a picture of Mrs. Moon with the former Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney and President Reagan's daughter, Maureen. They were attending a speech Mrs. Moon gave at a meeting of her women's organization, Women's Federation For World Peace. When Mickhail Gorbachev was president of the Soviet Union he invited Rev. Moon to come and speak to the Politburo.

Cult or Crusade?

There were many strange so-called cults in the time of Jesus. There are many strange so-called cults today. Rev. Moon's movement is not a cult. It is a crusade -- the greatest crusade the world has ever seen. Which side are you on? Rev. Moon's crusade that says Elijah and Jesus are not coming out of the clouds or Rev. Graham's crusade that says Elijah and Jesus are coming out of the clouds? I hope you pick the logical crusade instead of the superstitious crusade.

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