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10 years after the end of the war, I was born in December 1955 in Hyuga City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan, as the youngest of 4 siblings. At around 3 years of age, our family of six moved to my father’s hometown of Hiroshima. The reason I was born in Kyushu was that my father’s hometown of Hiroshima had been destroyed by the atomic bomb and was not habitable.
My father was born in Asakusa, Tokyo, in April 1922, but his family moved back to their hometown of Hiroshima miraculously before the magnitude 7.9 Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923. At that time, my father had two elder sisters and 1 elder brother, but after returning to Hiroshima, 3 younger sisters were born, making a total of 7 siblings.
In those days, my paternal grandfather was the plant manager of the salt production division of the Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation with jurisdiction over the five prefectures in the Chugoku region. I only learned later that my grandfather, who also had many siblings, had a brother who was Catholic and another who was Protestant. One of my father’s uncles worked at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. before the war started, so some of his cousins were born in the United States. That great uncle returned to Japan before the war started, while the cousins stayed in the States, so that when the war broke out between Japan and the US, we were fighting on opposite sides. My sister said that she heard our father say, “I never imagined that I would end up pointing guns at my cousins.”
My father studied mechanical engineering at the Advanced Technical College (now the Engineering Faculty of Hiroshima University) and also learned English and German. Before the end of the war, he was drafted for training and sent to Taiwan as an officer and was even given a saber sword. He led a unit of 200 men who were mostly older men from generational farms. With a shortage of weapons and ammunition, my father was aware that if they stood up to the American army, they could be annihilated, so contrary to his superior's orders, he told his men not to fire their guns, because the war was ending. He told them to lie low and encouraged them to endure to the war’s end so they could return home and continue farming. I remember that my father’s body was covered with scars from bullets fired at him by the U.S. military. Besides the military meals, my father was also issued big bottles of “sake”, but since he didn’t drink, he gave them all to his men.
My father’s unit was stationed in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, which was where my mother’s family was living. My mother’s parents had moved to Taiwan and grew rice and ran various businesses. My mother and her 4 older brothers were born there. My maternal grandmother ran a shooting range for the soldiers. She was also a Taiwanese/Japanese interpreter and made and sold “udon” noodles, “inari” sushi, “zabuton” cushions, and other items to the Japanese community in Taiwan.
When my mother was 18 years old, her mother died of malaria after suffering from a high fever for 3 days. Her grave is in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After that, for two years from age 18, my mother went to a dressmaking school in Meguro, Tokyo, with the help of her maternal aunt in Tokyo and her older brother, who was also studying in Tokyo. This period overlaps with True Father’s time of studying in Tokyo and searching for the Divine Principle from the age of 20 to 22. True Father is 2 years older than my mother. Tokyo is large, and I don’t know if my mother ever encountered True Father in any place, but I feel that my mother’s generation, born in 1922, was meant to be the object partner to True Father in God’s Providence.
After her two years of study in Tokyo, my mother returned to Taiwan, but on December 8, 1941 (Japan time), war broke out between Japan and the U.S. Near the end of the war, my father and mother were married under my father’s superior officer, and my mother became pregnant.
In Japan, the end of World War II is recognized as August 15, 1945, but in the United States and many other countries, the end of the war is seen as September 2 or September 3, 1945, when Japan signed a document of surrender. My father and mother were given priority as military family to board a repatriation ship back to mainland Japan. I heard that many people died aboard the repatriation ship and were wrapped in straw mats to be buried at sea.
My father’s older brother was also a soldier and was sent to the Philippines, and he was able to return to Japan after the war. However, my father’s parents and 3 younger sisters and many other relatives who were close to ground zero were exposed to the atomic bomb. His youngest sister, at age 16, died from the atomic bomb, whom my grandmother said was the best and brightest daughter. Two of my mother’s older brothers were also drafted and either died in battle or from illness after returning to Japan, so her only remaining relatives were her father and an older brother who later lived in Kyushu, and another older brother and maternal aunt who lived in Tokyo. My mother told me that the two older brothers she lost were the brothers who were dearest to her.
Return from Taiwan to Kyushu, Japan
The first place the repatriation ship landed in Japan was Hyuga City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu. My mother’s father and brothers decided to stay and settle there. My father and pregnant mother continued to my father’s hometown of Hiroshima, which had been burned to a wasteland by the atomic bomb in August 1945. My sister was born in July 1946 at a Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima. She was a breech birth and was not breathing initially, but a doctor resuscitated her so she could give her birth cry.
Hiroshima was a burnt wasteland where it was difficult for anyone to live, which gave rise to many conflicts in their relationship. Finally, my mother left her baby and went to join her father and older brother in Kyushu. My father chased after her to Kyushu, carrying the baby in his arms. There, my grandfather and father collected seawater in metal drums and boiled it to salt, which my mother bartered for other food items to support the family.
One day, my father discovered a ship with a German motor that was stranded in a shallow sea. He was convinced that it could still be used and negotiated with the prefectural governor to obtain funds to start a business to salvage and refurbish the ship. He gathered capable workers from Miyazaki to Fukuoka and began a ship repair factory. My two older brothers and I were born there in Miyazaki.
Life in Hiroshima
10 years after the war, my father’s older sister contacted him asking for his help with a steelworks factory that her husband operated. Several years later, our family of 6 moved to Hiroshima and lived with my paternal grandfather in his newly built house. My father’s older brother also lived in that house, but his older brother couldn’t get along with their father, so his older brother, wife, and 3 children transferred to work at the Japan Tobacco & Salt Public Corporation in another city. Our family stayed with my paternal grandparents and two aunts.
Hiroshima was in a construction boom at that time, and my father’s maternal grandfather was a chief carpenter who had built a large soy sauce factory and other buildings in the city. Regarding memories of my grandparents, I only remember my paternal grandmother, who lived with us. I understand that my father’s cousins who lived in the U.S. once visited Hiroshima. Even though there are photos of that visit, I do not remember it as I was only 3 years old. But I do remember wondering why my grandmother was always receiving international mail. An English dictionary was among the belongings of my paternal grandfather. After my parents passed away, I learned from my sister that my great-uncle (who had worked at the Japanese Embassy in the U.S.) opened a used bookstore in Kobe City where he made a living selling old books he brought back from the U.S. For some reason, my mother also had an old copy of the Gospel of Matthew.
The house my grandparents built after the bombing was constructed before electrification, and it only had bare lightbulbs and a vacuum tube radio. There was a wood stove with two burners in the kitchen, but no bath, and we used water from a neighborhood well with a hand pump. We went to a public bath until I was in the third grade. We cooked rice on a wood stove built in the backyard, and even though I was the youngest, I often helped by splitting wood with an axe and cooking rice on the backyard stove.
My father’s two younger sisters had difficulty finding marriage for having experienced the atomic bomb and were living with my grandmother, so our family of six initially lived in only a six-tatami room. After it was found that my father’s sisters were not affected by the atomic bomb, they were able to marry, and the two old rowhouses on the same property that had been rented out were demolished. A Goemon bath that had been in one of the rowhouses was installed in our backyard, so we finally had our long-awaited bath at our home. However, this bath was still impractical, so my mother had a wooden bath shed built. She also had the wood-stove kitchen remodeled into a small room for my older sister, and a detached house on the empty lot for my grandmother to live in.
During the period of high economic growth, my father’s income increased, and electrification became more widespread. We built a kitchen in one corner of the living room and began using a propane gas stove. Until then, we were using the wood stove in the backyard and a charcoal brazier in the living room or a portable charcoal brazier in the yard for cooking. I saw that my mother was very busy chopping firewood for heating the bath and going out to buy charcoal briquettes for the braziers, so from elementary school age, I was helping her with the housework.
Around that time, the electric rice cooker first came on the market; then we bought a black and white television set. From around my first grade in elementary school, the Japanese and American music records that we had been listening to on a gramophone, we could listen to on an electric record player. I began listening to western music that was popular on TV in the 1960s and 70’s on records bought by my sister, who was 10 years older than me and already working, and by my oldest brother, 8 years older than me. I would completely ignore my studies and homework and monopolize the TV until my older sister and brothers came home from work or school.
Interest in Christian movies, American music
When I was in the early grades of elementary school, I saw the black and white Spanish movie “The Miracle of Marcelino”, which left a deep impression on my heart. I wondered, “Could an innocent child like that be able to talk with a statue of Jesus?” At that time, for some reason, I was impressed by biblical movies in which Moses or Jesus appeared. I listened over and over to Nat King Cole, Bob McGrath, Pat Boone, and others on single, 45-rpm records and Christmas songs on LP records that my sister bought. Even though I couldn’t read English, I sang along, imitating the lyrics. I couldn’t buy any records myself, so I listened to those my older sister and brothers bought. Of course, I also listened to the old Japanese and English 45 rpm singles and LP records that my father and mother had collected to listen to on the old gramophone.
I was always playing and had never borrowed a book from the elementary school library, so the teacher in charge of the library one day suggested that I borrow and read a book, since there was no record of me ever having taken out a book. The first books I borrowed were one titled “Christ” and another, “Fabre’s Book of Insects.” I don’t remember much of the content, but there was an illustration of Jesus talking with God that deeply impressed me. I wondered, “If I were like Jesus, would I be able to talk to God? I wish I could talk to God, too.” When I saw the movie “The Sound of Music”, I thought for a while that I would like to become a nun.
Economic Hardships
However, during my junior high school years, our family began to face various trials. My father lost his job, and my two older brothers could not continue going to the private high school. My brothers looked for part-time and live-in jobs. In addition, when I was 16 years old and a sophomore in high school, the Nixon shock and the energy crisis shook the nation. The first Nixon shock (the Nixon declaration of visit to China) was on July 15, 1971; the second Nixon shock (dollar shock) began on August 15, 1971. The first oil crisis began in October 1973 with the outbreak of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War.
In elementary school, we had school lunch, so when things were difficult at home, I could at least eat lunch and even ask for 2nd helpings of skim milk that nobody at school liked. However, in the public high school, even though I was able to continue my studies, there was no school lunch, and I often had no packed lunch to take with me to school. Sometimes I collapsed from anemia during the morning assembly in the schoolyard.
Every year, I was always chosen as a representative to the class student council or other committees, but I felt constant pangs of conscience for the contradiction in myself, where I ignored my problems yet criticized my classmates for their misdeeds and blamed those around me. One day, I took a packed lunch to school that had salted cod roe as a side dish. I remember tears filling my eyes as I apologetically chewed each fish egg, one by one, and thinking, “Instead of such a pathetic person as myself eating this, how much better it would be if each fish egg grew to an adult fish and filled the hungry stomachs of many people around the world.”
My maternal grandfather produced rice in Taiwan, so my mother taught me the importance of each grain of rice that could multiply to 10,000. I was taught to eat every grain of rice at mealtime and not leave a single grain in the rice bowl. I never imagined that I would one day work at a fish plant in Alaska in the production of cod and pollock. I felt that God had remembered my feelings of unworthiness and my tears of repentance from that time and sent me to work at a fish factory.
True Father’s Plan for the International Highway
Around the time of the Nixon Shock, the Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka advocated the Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago. Thinking about the disparities between the Japan Sea side and the Seto Inland Sea side of the Chugoku region (southwestern part of mainland Japan), I thought that more highways should be built across the mountainous Chugoku region connecting the Japan Sea and the Seto Inland Sea. I also thought that international universities, international villages, convention centers, and hotels should be built, not just in Tokyo and other large cities, but in this mountainous region rich in nature.
In 1982, after receiving the Blessing, we were called to Belvedere, where we were sitting on the lawn waiting for True Father. Father came and stood right in front of me and spoke to us about many things. For some reason, the only thing I remember Father saying is: “You are the group that is to build the international highway.” When Father proposed the idea for an international highway system, I was surprised and excited to think, “Wow, I had the same idea as Father!” Perhaps it was my paternal grandfather’s influence that made me think on the level of the 5 prefectures of the Chugoku region. My father used to say, “Because of the One Domain One Castle Edict, the feudal lords were no longer able to build a castle for each of their sons, but in another era, your grandma would have been a princess living on top of a mountain.” Maybe that was the reason why I began to think of the people on top of the mountains in the Chugoku region.
Returning to my high school days, I attended a prefectural public high school, so the tuition was cheap and I could continue my schooling. But my father had no work, so my mother worked every day from morning to night for low wages at 2 or 3 part-time jobs. She concluded that she couldn’t put me, the youngest daughter, through high school while also doing the cooking and housework for my father and brothers. So, when I was 16 and a sophomore in high school, my mother and I moved to a cheap apartment for just the two of us. My heart felt like it was being ripped and torn apart; I pleaded in tears, “I don’t need to graduate from high school, just please don’t get divorced.” But my mother would not yield and said, “In this age, a woman must at least graduate from high school or she won’t find a decent job in the future. You absolutely have to graduate from high school! If we divorce, it would leave a mark on the children’s record, so we won’t divorce, but just live separately.”
Japan’s economy was in shambles at that time because of the dollar shock. To help me graduate from school, my mother left early in the morning, even before I left for school, to do all kinds of part-time jobs, cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry, so that I did not see her until late at night.
One day on my route to school, I saw a sign in front of a gardening store that read “Bible Study Class.” I was interested in Christianity at that time, so I went inside. A woman missionary, who seemed American, was speaking about the Bible in halting Japanese, saying “John the Baptist...”, but I did not understand anything. That was on my route to school, but since I commuted by bus, I only passed by there on Sundays when I went to the house where my father lived and was taking care of his mother. Later, that missionary also visited me at the company where I worked.
I occasionally met the Christians from that Non-Church denomination and young and old American male missionaries. I was once invited to and attended a meeting they held at another house. My only impression of them was that they were warm-hearted, good people. I was busy with schoolwork and required extracurricular activities, and the time passed quickly. Before I knew it, I had graduated from high school and was working at a pharmaceutical company.
Due to the oil crisis and other factors, the company I worked at also underwent restructuring, reducing its workforce in just a few years, from approximately 7,000 to about 4,000 through voluntary retirement, etc. After working there for about one year, the office departments with two workers were reduced to just one; the field staff of unprofitable sales departments was cut in half. Those were severe times when, with reduced personnel, they had to achieve better sales results than before for the company to survive.
In the spring of 1975, between February and March, I was transferred to a new department where I was hastily handed over all the office work as a single worker. I was so busy I could not take time off, even if I caught a cold. Having just turned 19, I was baffled by the illogical world and the many things I didn’t understand about adult society. I felt I was in pitch darkness, seeing that the society and world situation seemed to be even dirtier than I was.
Even so, I wanted to contribute to society in some way and continued studying many things at home. In that year of 1975, during the busiest month of March (the end of the fiscal year), after working overtime, I was heading for a bookstore on a different road when I saw a western man about 100m ahead of me walking down the middle of the street directly towards me. He stopped right in front of me and asked me in English, “There is a church close by. Are you interested in coming?” I answered, “I am interested, but it’s getting late, so I will go on Sunday.” Then he showed me the location of the church that was right nearby. It was a humble church that had been converted from an old two-story hospital that was built right at ground zero of the atomic bomb. I went to the Sunday service at that church, which turned out to be the Unification Church. There were many foreign missionaries there. I didn’t understand anything in the Sunday service, but after the service, the mission leader gave an introductory lecture that impressed me deeply. “This is it! This is what I was looking for!”
I then bought a ticket to a 3-day “Day of Hope Festival” with evening lectures on the Unification Principle given by Mr. Bo Hi Pak at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Public Hall or the Kenshin Auditorium in downtown Hiroshima. Because I was ignorant about the Bible, I did not understand anything he said, even though he spoke passionately in fluent Japanese. What left a deep impression on me was the hopeful music by the New Hope Singers, the dances by the Hansan Dance Troupe, Korean music, and the positive, bright Latin music “Guantanamera”. The person I met on the street was a member of the International One World Crusade, IOWC, a missionary organization. My spiritual father had asked me, “Why do you have such a sad face?” I answered, “My parents live separately.” He drew the Four Position Foundation and said, “If you understand this, the problem can be solved.” I felt deeply, “I really hope God exists.”
The last day of the Day of Hope Festival was a Thursday, and many people said to me, “From tomorrow, Friday, there will be a 3-day seminar. Please come and participate!” Because it was late, I called home to tell my family not to worry, but it was my oldest brother who took the phone and he started scolding me in a loud voice, which instead gave me the determination to go to the seminar.
It was the busiest time of year at my company, and I had just been transferred. I knew full well that I couldn’t get any days off, so I just paid the seminar fee and skipped work on Friday without permission to participate in the 3-day seminar. On Monday, when I went to work, my boss was surprised to see me, but because he was a kind and virtuous man, I was able to make amends by apologizing. I later learned that my boss had gone to a mission school when he was a student.
Next, there was a 7-day workshop scheduled for the May holidays, and since that is the time when most employees take their vacation, I asked my boss: “I want to study Christianity, so can I take time off for the May holidays?” I was surprised to hear him agree and say with a smile, “I also went to a mission school.”
The 7-day workshop participants from Hiroshima and other areas went together in a van to Fukuoka, where I had a mysterious experience. During the lecture on Jesus’ life, a face that looked like Jesus appeared above the upper left corner of the blackboard, and He was gazing intently at the workshop participants. Thinking it was an illusion, I looked away, but when I looked back at the blackboard again, I could still see the face like that of Jesus. Was Jesus supporting the workshop?
I was also deeply moved by an 8mm film they showed many times of Reverend Moon’s missionary work and events in America. I learned the Unification Principle for the first time from the IOWC team that came to Hiroshima in March of that year. I obtained a basic understanding at this 7-day workshop, but I did not have the confidence to become a full-time member.
Commuting to Work and Participating in Church Activities After the 7-day workshop, the next step was to experience church life. To my surprise, there was a dormitory for young workers[1] close to the company where I worked. I needed to get my mother’s permission, and when I asked her if I could commute to work from the youth dormitory near the company, she answered, “I trust you,” because she also understood that I often had to work late and had trouble arriving at work on time. There was a photo of True Father on the wall of the dormitory.
Right away, I was involved in witnessing and fundraising for refugee relief and Victory over Communism. When I asked, “How can I understand God?” I was told, “If you witness, you will understand God.” When witnessing, I prayed to God: “Rather than 100 inadequate people like me joining, I wish one person would join who can lead 100.” Perhaps God heard my heartfelt prayer because I quickly connected with one person. The person I met while street witnessing was 7 years my elder, and I met her at the same spot where I met my spiritual father. She was a prepared person; she had attended a mission school and was a school teacher. She immediately understood the Bible and the Principle. I was so tired in body and spirit when I met her, that I don’t even remember what I said to witness to her. Since she was a school teacher, I always called her on the phone, saying, “Teacher so-and-so,” and invited her to church services.
Within no time, she came to live in the youth dormitory to experience church life, but I was sure that it would be a struggle for her to live with me in the same place. At the same time, I was physically and emotionally at my limit from my new assignment at work and my relationships with brothers and sisters at the youth dormitory. Again, without permission, I packed my things and left the youth dormitory to move back to my mother’s apartment, where I paid the rent for the apartment. Since my company was close to the church and the house where my father and brothers lived, and the various places church members lived were also nearby, I would run into them sometimes. When I found a photo of True Father on the road near my house, I felt led to at least attend Sunday services.
In my work, I felt I was ignorant and incompetent, and it took me three times longer than other people to do simple tasks, so I felt bad about asking for overtime pay. I was thinking of giving my savings back to the company in the future, when I quit, so they could use it to research and develop new medicines. I had saved about 1 million yen in one year. When I was thinking that I would rather have that money used for the church’s world missions than by my company, I was invited to an exhibition of marble vases. I was attracted to a marble vase that had a pattern that looked like a sailboat sailing the sea. It was quite expensive, so I thought that they must need funds, and I told them, “I don’t need the vase. Please let me just donate.” Yet, they said to me, “You should have your name engraved on it and take it home as a keepsake. Then I thought, “Maybe they have too much inventory,” so I accepted it.
After some time, I was invited a second time to a marble vase exhibition. When asked if there was a vase that caught my eye, I said, “This one,” and pointed to a plump, white vase that had a heart-shaped, yellowish green pattern on it. I was told, “That is the Holy Spirit.” I purchased this marble vase for almost twice the price of the first one.
My second brother, who is 3 years older than I and never criticized or opposed me, is now keeping both marble vases for me while I live overseas. When I was in junior high school, my brother was unable to continue his studies at a private high school because of financial difficulties at home. He has no high school degree, but is very friendly and is good at anything he does. My sister told me that he buys old houses and renovates and sells them. My oldest brother, born in 1948, is retired.
Maternal Grandparents
My mother’s father was from Saga Prefecture in Kyushu, and her mother was from Hachijo Island in Tokyo ward (almost 300 miles south of Tokyo). I don’t know how they ended up in Taiwan as rice farmers, but I understand that my grandfather had to move from his hometown due to the construction of a dam in Saga Prefecture. I imagine that, being the second son, he decided to seek new horizons and opportunities in Taiwan. His surname “Sei” is common in northern Kyushu. My grandmother’s surname is “Kikuchi”, and according to my sister, she was from a family of magistrates and was of the Soto Zen Buddhist sect.
After my mother passed away, a family registry was discovered in her belongings that gave the Taiwan address and the names of my grandmother’s parents and her place of birth. This happened when we were living in Panama as Ocean Providence pioneers, so I sent a letter to the government office in Hachijo Island. The answer we received was that because of the bombing during the war, there were no family registry documents left in Tokyo or on Hachijo Island. Because my parents were in Taiwan, they were spared the massive air raids that happened on the mainland, and it seems like a miracle that the records of my mother’s family and parents were preserved on a single family registry.
When I researched that Taiwan address on the Internet, I found information about a Taiwanese Presbyterian Christian. It seems that after my mother’s family had all their assets confiscated and left Taiwan for Japan, the land is being used by Christians.
The Unification Church in Hiroshima later moved to a remodeled hotel that was close to my company and right beside the youth dormitory. As I continued to commute to work from home and visit the church, I began having dreams of Rev. Moon. And when I went to the church, strangely enough, it turned out to be a Holy Day. This happened several times. I once had a dream where a white rope was lowered from a sheer cliff about 20m high, and I saw many people in white robes holding onto the rope and climbing up the cliff where the ground looked like it would crumble under their feet. I was one of those people. After climbing about 21m and mustering all my strength to crawl to the top, Rev. Sun Myung Moon was standing on top of the cliff. So, I went to the church and asked if something was happening. I was told that there will be a 3-day workshop soon. So, I participated in a 3-day workshop again. In the end, I participated in a 3-day workshop four times and a 7-day workshop twice.
When the Home Church Providence began in Hiroshima, groups of three people formed a sisters’ home church or a brothers’ home church. Working youth and students lived together and witnessed to people by inviting them to dinner meetings. So, I left my mother’s apartment, and together with two other sisters, we rented a house that was between the two places where my parents were still living separately. I invited them to the home church. I had my father make a shoe rack for the entrance of the home church, and we enjoyed eating and chatting together with the home church members and junior male students from high school. The house where my father lived and the apartment where my mother lived were both very close to my home church.
While continuing to work at my company, I was able to bring 3 younger coworkers to a workshop, but they did not show much response. Surprisingly, the younger brother of one of them became a Unification church member in Kyoto, but the other two coworkers did not show much interest.
After working about 6 years at the company, Rev. Sun Myung Moon appeared in a dream again and said, “Come to Yoyogi.” I thought, “What?! Yoyogi is where the Holy Ground is in Tokyo - even though I am now working at an outside company?” I also had a dream where the coworker I invited to a workshop was sitting with me in front of Rev. Moon. I wondered, “Is she going to become a member?” I agonized thinking about how I could witness to her. Before long, three students from my former high school came to the church, even though I wasn’t the one who witnessed to them. One of them was two years younger than me, and much later she told me that “I stood out” when she saw me running on the field or basketball court during club activities at high school.
After working for about 7 years in the company, many of the company employees knew that I was a Unification Church member. Also, since three former students from my high school had joined the church, even though I didn’t know who had witnessed to them, I thought that maybe a spiritual foundation had been made, so I quit my job and became a trainee in a 100-day workshop.
After my 100-day training in Hiroshima and Okayama, I participated in a 21-day workshop and became a full-time member of the Hiroshima Church. Every 3 months or so, I would change to a different mission. In February of the following year of 1982, I was assigned to the newspaper company in Tokyo. I was surprised, “I could come to Tokyo! Will I be able to visit the Holy Ground in Yoyogi?” In three months, I worked at three different newspaper delivery stations collecting the newspaper fees, soliciting, and fundraising for the Victory over Communism activity.
Suddenly, there was talk about going to America. I thought, “What!? America?” But my spirit was that of an offering: “If it is God’s will, I will do it.” I was told, “You might die!”, but I thought, “If that’s God's will, so be it.” It turned out that there was going to be a Blessing, and we were told to prepare to go to America. I absolutely had no confidence, but I followed instructions in making preparations. We had to prepare a passport, obtain a visa, buy a suitcase, clothes, and shoes, etc. About 500 sisters gathered in Tokyo from all over Japan. I thought, “They are all amazing people.” In the end, the actual number of sisters who were able to prepare everything and fly to America was 250.
Meeting True Father for the First Time at the Matching Ceremony
In June 1982, we flew from Haneda airport to New York via Los Angeles. When we arrived at the New Yorker Hotel, it was passed midnight. I was pushed to the front line and sat on the carpet. Rev. Moon soon came and stood right in front of me. My first impression was, “Wow! He is just like my father!” Father was looking for matches for the Western brothers that he had asked to stand up. Because Father was standing right in front of me, many times I thought, “Is it me he picked?” But from above my head, Father was pointing here and there at other people, matching them, while seemingly ignoring me as I sat right in front of him. I thought, “I am not worthy of the Blessing after all. But I can only imagine how overjoyed my ancestors must be, just to be able to meet the Messiah. I am grateful even if I’m the last one left in the room and am told, “There’s no Blessing for you.”
While I was having that thought, apparently Father had pointed at me, because the sisters around me were making a commotion, saying, “It’s you! It’s you!” Only then did I realize that Father had pointed at me. The moment I was 100% in self-denial was the moment Father chose my ideal partner. Up until then, my encounters with Father had been spiritual, but this was my first meeting with Father in the flesh. I felt that Father is an incredibly amazing person with psychic powers and knows everything I am thinking in my heart.
Since my mission had changed to America, I determined: “I will love America; I’m only going to speak English!” But when I was matched, the first thing my fiancée said in front of the sister interpreter was, “I can speak Japanese.” That surprised me, too! The sister interpreter looked at him and said, “He’s good-looking, isn’t he?” I thought, “What’s she talking about?” I felt disappointed in that sister interpreter who only judged by external appearance. Since I have high ideals, I wasn’t thinking about good looks or anything like that at that time. On the other hand, I am not very feminine and had no confidence that I could be a good wife or a good mother.
Jesus went to the cross at the age of 33 without having been able to marry; so, I was thinking that it would be disrespectful of me if I didn’t wait to marry until I was past 33. And if I were still alive after the age of 33, perhaps, then I could marry, I thought. My fiancée and I were both 26 when we participated in the Blessing Ceremony in New York. Neither of us had three spiritual children, so we signed a pledge to each restore three spiritual children. Afterwards, we each went to our separate missions. In November 1989, 7 years after our Blessing in 1982, we started our family life (as husband and wife). My husband had turned 34 in October, but since my birthday is in December, I still had not passed from 33 to 34 years of age. At that time, I had completely forgotten my earlier thought of feeling disrespectful to Jesus if I were to marry before I was 34. I felt that God and the spirit world know everything. I realized that we are arrogant, inconsiderate, incomplete people with many shortcomings who still have not liquidated our sins and fallen natures. Amen.
We have been living in Panama for 35 years since 1990, we will both soon be 70 years old. In 1989, at the age of 70, True Father brought victory as Adam in the vertical and horizontal 8 stages. As long as God gives us life, I believe that we all have some type of mission to fulfill during our earthly life. Aju.
May 21, Wednesday, 2025
Miyako Kanagy
[1] A housing facility of the Unification Church for young people who witnessed and participated in Unification Church activities while continuing to hold regular outside jobs.