Martin Tage Herbst is from Copenhagen, Denmark. The elder of twin children, his twin sister was born 5 minutes after he was horn. He was blessed in 1982 in Korea to Yuriko, a Japanese, and now they have four children.
He joined the Unification Church in 1978 when he was still in high school. Having a brilliant career in billiards, he won five National contests, one of which was for boys, two for juniors and the other two for seniors. “At that time,” he said, “my ambition was to become a world champion of billiards. But when I joined the church, my ambition changed to becoming a champion of God’s love and truth”.
A diehard atheist before joining the church, he was snatched out of that world by his spiritual mother, Danielle Danklefsen. Even though he had received the D.P. lectures and was going to the center frequently, he was still never convinced. The reason was, “I didn’t want to be religious since I never liked religious people because I saw them as too weak, too hypocritical, too afraid and too selfish”. But he kept going to the center because he was impressed by the genuine and humble standard of the U.C. members, and their commitment to creating a better world.
Then it happened. One evening, as he was coming home from the center, he was suddenly filled with a tremendous force and felt he could walk right through any wall. And he was stopped from doing that because he felt compassion for those who would have to bear the burden of scooping away broken walls. After a while, the strange feeling left him. That was the precious moment in which he first had the experience of the living nature of God. Feeling completely reborn, his unsavory opinion about religious people changed and it became a natural thing for him to be part of these most decent people.
Trials and tribulations are the veritable threshold upon which our faith in God is tried. And any new convert must swallow this bitter pill. Martin had his own share of the bitter pill. His physical parents became irate because the U.C. has stretched its obnoxious tentacles to snatch away their beloved son. The U.C, in Denmark at that time was too young to have the strength to diffuse the missiles of persecution that sooner yearn to taste it in full measure”. Our young brother has tasted just a tiny drop of the sweetness in being part of God’s decent people. Therefore, not even his physical parents whom he loved dearly would deprive him of tasting the full measure of it. Fleeing persecution from his parents who could not understand his rebirth, he moved to the center and became a full time member, engaging in witnessing and fund raising.
The mission later took him to England where he served as a center leader in charge of fundraising, witnessing and home church. Three years later he came back to Denmark and became the leader of CARP movement, teaching 2, 7 and 21-day seminars.
From 1991 to 1993, he was sent to Prague in Czechoslovakia as a city leader. With the assistance of one of his spiritual children who was a student at the University of Prague, he was invited to give a D.P. lecture on the Spiritual World to a group of lecturers and students. In these seminars, those invited to give presentations were normally rated. He was rated the highest and eventually was given an appointment to teach History of Philosophy at the University.
He became the National leader of Slovenia, part of former Yugoslavia, from 1993 to 1996. Putting his great leadership mettle into work, and strong unity with the Japanese sisters, the membership that was a hand full rose to several hundreds both as church and Women Federation for World Peace members within three years. As an experienced man in the mission, he feels obliged to emphasize that the key to victory in our mission is the unity between husband and wife, “I truly believe that my wife is my second messiah who can tell me things no one else can, judge me with heart and love me like no one else”.
Martin decided to come to the seminary in 1996 because he feels it is necessary to combine spiritual knowledge with academic knowledge to be more effective in our missions. He is quite happy to be here and strongly appeals to the students as well as the staffs to work harmoniously and make the seminary an institution God and True Parents can be proud of
After graduation, he hopes to invest himself in doing God’s will, giving hope to people through the example of his own blessing.