3) Surviving on the Lunch Boxes of the Students

Look. When we were doing pioneering witnessing in the frontiers of Korea, each day it was difficult to make enough money even to live just that day. When young members went out and walked around, it was not uncommon for some of them to limp like this. Under such circumstances in the pioneering days, our missionaries went to some villages to pioneer as leaders, and because they did not have anything to eat and because if they were to work in that village the persecution would be more intense since people would accuse that they came to the village to look for work, many of them had no other choice but to commute to a place far away for work.

So all the members who were under them... A leader is not supposed to draw pay checks from the headquarters and in that kind of situation continue doing pioneer witnessing. Even while going through all this, he would rather die than to complain about his situation. The members could not believe how this was possible. When the members found out about the leader's situation six months or a year later, they grabbed onto him and wept.

So, they began a campaign to bring lunch boxes and give it to the church leader. So, how miserable was the heart of the leader who was to eat that lunch box? How much would he be thinking about the student who gave him his own lunch box and went hungry in school? In this atmosphere, they built a strong bond of heart with the determination, "Let us overcome all this, and even if we were to fall dead fulfill the Will of God."

Then, when they went to school... Even until just a few days ago, those who used to bring the best lunch boxes to school before joining the Unification Church did not bring it any more after joining the church, and at every lunch hour they were hiding alone in the schoolyard, and at times as they were coming back to the classroom they were seen by their friends. The reason for such caution was that if their parents were to find out about it, they would be in big trouble. Not once or twice, but because the students have to repeat this every day, their friends who could not believe this went to their parents and protested, "Your children used to bring good lunch boxes, but these days after they joined the Unification Church you don't even prepare lunch boxes for them; how can parents do such things? Do you not consider those who go to the Unification Church as people? Why don't you treat your children properly as your children?" So, the parents asked their children, "They say that you do not eat your lunch in school, but what is going on?" When they were asked, they could not but tell their parents the truth.

When the parents found out what was going on, they put up a vigorous opposition saying, "You bastards! The members of the Unification Church are all vampires who snatch our children's lunch boxes, exploit them, suck their blood and eat their flesh." Such events were not infrequent and were found all over the country. So, when people heard that the members of the Unification Church were coming, they made a lot of fuss saying that people who suck the blood of their children are coming, and they mobilized an opposition force in the village to beat up the members or do all sorts of atrocious things. Especially, the Christians all over the nation intimately partook in these atrocities, saying that the pack of wolves who snatch away the lambs of God were coming. How do you think I must have felt as the Teacher of the Unification Church when I was leading them under such circumstances?

If you were the leader of the Unification Church, wouldn't you be wondering, "What would happen to them ten years later?" For this reason, I earned money with my own hands. When I built a factory, I worked in the factory for 24 hours at a time, and I gave ideas; everything was done with my own hands... Because I had to prepare for the future in this way, I have been laying the economic foundation. (94-231)