One Love: A Global Family
Reflection on the World Peace Tours

In Sup Park

During this past year, my wife, Sun Jin, and I had the honor of participating in and accompanying True Mother, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, in the South American portion of the second world peace tour and in the third world peace tour representing three generations.

Prior to embarking on these tours, I reflected on the significance of these events. I asked myself, why is True Father, who is eighty-eight years old, still directly reaching out to the world? It is difficult enough for most people his age just to stand up! Also, what would give True Mother the strength of purpose to sacrifice her life and health, stand on the frontlines and deliver God’s message of love and peace?

Through the Universal Peace Federation, True Parents have the urgent wish to restore God’s true love, true life, and true lineage as well as the Blessing to every level of society. With this basic understanding in mind, I embarked on these world peace tours to support our beloved True Parents.

Of course, the tours themselves were spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially challenging, to say the least. However, I felt the sincere desire and willingness of everyone that I met during the tours to unite and to accomplish every event successfully.

The foundation in each nation varies; however, it is an amazing and astonishing fact that in the span of one lifetime, our True Parents with their blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice as well as the deep conviction, devotion, and faith of our brothers and sisters have created a global movement and more specifically, a global family. We many times take for granted that we have the remarkable blessing of having brothers and sisters in virtually every country of the world. Blessed family members in some countries may feel disheartened at times during their life of faith because they feel isolated or their responsibility seems overwhelming, but we must never forget how far along we are as a family and movement from a global perspective.

Accompanying True Mother, I could witness that she would invest wholeheartedly in every country by taking the time each morning to talk to people. Her foremost message was to allow for love to flourish by giving and initiating loving relationships. I could also sense her concern for the future as she invited children and youth to sing. She unconditionally taught and nurtured people in each country as if each was her very own child and a precious child of God.

In one especially poignant moment during breakfast after the event in the Bahamas during the second world peace tour, True Mother, with tears, answered a question from a minister regarding how she felt being anointed as the True Mother. She replied that although feeling unworthy, she made an absolute promise from an early age to God and Heaven to restore the world back to God.

Through the Universal Peace Federation, I believe that True Father is advancing his core teachings about God’s purpose of our creation, engrafting into God’s lineage, spreading the Blessing, building harmonious, God-centered families with three generations, and knowing the power of true love and living for the sake of others. These key ingredients of peace are reaching a much broader base of people.

As I contemplate about the speeches given, I derive a deep sense of urgency. The message of true love or living for the sake of others, true life, true lineage, and the Blessing seem like on the surface simple concepts. However, if we reflect on how True Father and True Mother have uncovered these truths, then the concepts attain a more profound meaning.

They each have faced tremendous suffering during the course of their lifetime both externally and internally as well as both spiritually and physically. They have experienced occupation of their homeland, the horrors of war, starvation, beatings, torture, imprisonment, persecution, ridicule, betrayal, theft, and so forth. They have overcome ungodly forces with the power of true love and forgiveness. They uncovered the precious truths that can liberate God, individuals and nations, and they give blessing to the world with the authority of true love. They have built a global family not based on hate or revenge but on the force of true love and absolutely living for the sake of others.

I myself, have had the tremendous honor to receive on many occasions their forgiveness, grace, patience, and love. So, the words in these speeches given by True Parents are empowering and challenging us to do the same. Through these words and the authority of their example, True Parents have given us the strength to recreate our relationships, families, and eventually restore the world back to God. As many Ambassadors for Peace have stated, this message is timely and relevant for today’s world.

Meeting People Along the Way

During the course of the tours, I had the tremendous privilege of meeting many great people. It was a joy and an honor to spend the time I had with them, even though the pace of the tours was fast. It is difficult to describe here the wealth of experiences that were compacted into such a short period of time.

I was able to get a first-hand glimpse of a spectrum of people and was moved by their dedication, sacrifice, history, and love for God, True Parents, and their nation. I learned so much through them. Similar to looking at a snapshot or a photograph, I hope one will be able to gain the essence of the experience with the simple description of each encounter. Many of these encounters are memorable and inspiring.

For instance, I was moved by the smile of a pregnant mother as she was drinking the holy wine and bowing to her husband; a brother who had been imprisoned for several years under former communist governments as a missionary; a mother of another missionary who had been imprisoned who donated her house to the movement in the memory of her child; a young person facing the harshness of a critical audience who assured me that things would be better next time; a young person whose parents had passed away but was working and saving up to participate in the Blessing; praying with people at Holy Grounds that True Parents sanctified during their world tour in 1965; a young person sharing about her two-year experience on the European Special Task Force and how much she had grown spiritually through that experience; a person on the hospitality team who talked about 40 years of experiences with True Parents; one person who did everything to organize the event, from scheduling, being the MC, giving the slide show, moving stage props, inviting friends, neighbors, and relatives and even having her own children doing the performance; Ambassadors for Peace who were inspired by their experiences in Cheong Pyeong and interreligious conferences who organized events themselves.