An MFT Story by Peter Nordquist November 24, 1998

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is my pleasure to present to you this morning another true MFT story abbreviated to cut to the chase:

It was autumn 1983 on the IOWC somewhere in the West. Upon volunteering for the IOWC, I had prayed the following prayer: "Heavenly Father, I thought I worked really hard in the last 10 years, but obviously not hard enough. What could I have done better?" and received the following answer: "When you saw that Mr. Kamiyama was emphasizing cash result at the expense of members spiritual growth, you could've said something and he might have listened to you in particular, but you didn't say anything." to which I replied, "Yes that's right. Heavenly Father I want to pray for the opportunity to indemnify that." About a month later I got that opportunity and jumped at it. There arose the plan to help the IOWCs make more money by sending 1 member from each team to the National MFT. I volunteered and was sent to Mr. Tate's region in California, and by Mr. Tate was sent to his crusher team under Joe Crusher, (name changed to protect the guilty) the team leader.

The first day before going out fundraising we received a short drill about what to say from Joe. I was deeply disturbed by his instructions as they were against regulations that I had learned in 5 years fundraising on the East Coast. Being the last to be dropped off, I shared my concern with Joe Crusher. He agreed with me but said that he trusted Mr. Tate who was trusted by Mr. Kamiyama who was trusted by Father, and thus was obeying Mr. Tate's instructions anyway.

Considering the seriousness of that time and situation, I was deeply disturbed. The IOWC had the mission to raise up Father's name and good works in America so that Father wouldn't be sent to prison. In Father's talk, given to all members in attendance after the Day of All Things in early June (perhaps the 11th, if my memory serves me correctly), Father said, " The situation in the world today is worse than at the time of Jesus. If Communism takes over the world today, it will root out religion from the face of the Earth. In the time of Jesus, if Christianity had been destroyed, God still had the other religions that he could've worked through. But nevertheless, Father is going to show you how to get victory!"

But Joe Crusher under pressure from Mr. Tate was ordering his MFT members to "not say Rev. Moon or Unification Church because we want to be able to fundraise here again." I tried his method for a week just to be able to say that I was being objective. This method very quickly led to someone asking me, "If this is with Rev. Moon, I will not give you the $5, but if it is not with Rev. Moon, I will give you the $5." To my eternal shame, I said that it was not with Rev. Moon and took the $5, and justified it by saying that I was being united with my team captain, who was united with Mr. Tate, who was united with Mr. Kamiyama, who was united with Father.

With that experience as evidence, I wrote a 7 page letter to Mr. Tate explaining that I had been on the MFT for 5 years (2 under Pres. Salonen, 3 under Mr. Kamiyama) on the East Coast and had heard Father speak many times and that I knew Father's tradition of honesty in fundraising and was the very member that had received $20 twice from True Parents while fundraising at a stoplight at 56th and 11th Ave. in Manhattan and whom Father had consequently praised in a speech" as wearing a big I.D. That guy had guts. Where do you think you can hide in the spirit world...etc." and which quote was consequently put in the little blue book set of Way of Tradition.

Mr. Tate visited the team, yelled at me, said he wasn't telling anyone to lie or not say Unification Church or Father's name, and sent me to another team. Now was my chance to do the right thing and to practice real heavenly deception under my new team captain Joe Jr. Crusher, who followed the same routine that Mr. Tate had just insisted to me that he wasn't telling his team captains to follow. Secretly, after leaving the van to fundraise, I took my real church I.D. out of my pocket (that actually said Unification Church on it) and put it on and fundraised properly -- speaking openly, proudly and boldly about Father and the Unification Church and Divine Principle. Amen. This went on for about 3 months (as well as various other adventures) culminating with a Sunday that I had the highest result (while secretly wearing my church I.D. and saying Unification Church etc.) Meanwhile I had again confronted Mr. Tate. I knew damn well that he could set up the IOWC fundraisers under his care with better area and product and asked him why he wasn't doing that. He said, "We have many other financial concerns than the IOWC and can not be bothered with worrying about the IOWC." A couple days later I was sent back to the IOWC and wrote a 1 page report and gave it to my IOWC commander, Nico Wheeler, (from Luxembourg or Belgium). He asked me if he could give it to the higher up Korean in charge of the IOWC in America. I said " Go ahead".

Three months later Mr. Tate was promoted to the fish mission and was replaced as MFT commander by Joe Coin. Mr. Tate then disappeared for a month. Not even his wife knew where he was. When he came back, he had apparently repented for his mismanagement of members spiritual lives, and so Niel Angelino told me anyway, drove around the country with another Japanese MFT commander trying to find and bring back American members who had left the church under their leadership.

My point? The following: America is in the archangel position. Who knows or teaches the mission of the archangel properly besides Father? Korean and Japanese leaders and members tend to emphasize the Adam and Eve nation missions. However, Father said that the most important historical mission has been the mission of the archangel. Jesus was killed trying to restore the failure of John the Baptist and has been doing the archangel mission for 2000 years from the spirit world. Father himself had to first accomplish the mission of the archangel before God could promote him to the True Parent position.

So what? So I delivered the message to the higher central figure from the position of having risked my life to deliver it to Mr. Tate. How did I risk my life? Through disunity. By directly disobeying orders from my team captain and commander, I opened myself to be attacked by Cain/Abel or Adam/Eve -- that's attack by the spirit world and physical attack while fundraising and Chapter 2 (sexual) attack while fundraising -- but I knew that already, and I knew how to deal it from having gone the formula course already! Thank you God!