The Words of the Berg Family

Mia Testimony

Staffan Berg
March 5, 2003
50 day Workshop Grad
Tempe, Az
Mission City: Mia (Seoul)

I visited several churches in my area of Seoul's Mia-district during the CIG Activity time after the 50-day workshop. It was an amazing experience. The power seemed to be with me. Even though the same objections to True Parents were raised by the ministers I visited as so many times in the past, I could just push through them.

The first example is a very large main line church with its own campus on the main street by the Mia subway station (3 -dong). It has one Senior Pastor (not available) and 20 Assistant Pastors. I just walked in with our approach book and my partner, Kazuyo McCarty. We were escorted to the Assistant Pastors' Room and there were able to talk to one Pastor who spoke fairly good English.

Surrounded by other Pastors, he politely insisted that Rev. Moon was seen as a heretic and he was not interested in pursuing our request for N-S Unification membership signature any further. I pressed him on the point and asked if he saw Rev. Moon was a "friend" or an "enemy?" As he declined the friend- category for Father, I proceeded to admonish him to adhere to the biblical teaching of "love your enemy."

Next, he stated that his Senior Pastor was very clear and strong about Rev. Moon and his teaching not being welcome. He definitely did not want to pass on the little pink book of Father's Words and flyer I wanted to give him for his Senior Pastor.

I complemented him on having a good and clear Senior Pastor because the Bible states that God favors those who are either hot or cold but spits out those who are lukewarm. And St. Paul, before his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, was a strong adversary to Jesus' followers. So, I had hope for his minister. He could also change and see the light. Jesus would speak to him. The Holy Spirit would let him know the truth if he prayed deeply enough.

After a little more discussion his uncompromising stance started to waver. At the end, he accepted the book and pamphlet to give to his Senior Pastor even though all the other ministers in the room were glaring at him.

The second church was also a large church hanging on a cliff side at Mia's 9-dong. I visited a friendly Senior Pastor in a nice red brick building with my partner Toshi Jumonji. This minister was also clear and very politely insisted that Rev. Moon was not welcome and his teaching not palatable. I observed that in the US, ministers had been of the same opinion a few years ago. Yet things are changing. Even 144,000 clergy couples were Blessed by True Parents last year! He now had an opportunity to catch up with the times.

First he did not want even to touch the same little pink book of Father's Words we wanted to give him. Towards the end of our conversation, he reached out and actually wanted to receive the small book and the flyer we were offering. We left in friendship.

A third large church housed in several floors of a tall brick building high up on a hill side at Mia's 9-dong was little more difficult as neither of the two pastors we talked to there could speak any other language than Korean. I visited them with Kazuyo McCarty and Akemi Yoneyama. These two pastors were of the same mindset as the other ministers had been initially. We were not able to move them due to the language barrier. We parted in peace after we offered a prayer each.

Based on these three experiences, I firmly believe that we can change all South Korea's Christian ministers very quickly with the help of, a, western ministers (Unificationist or not) and b, good translators. True Parents have made the climate ripe for conversion. I possessed a lot of spiritual assistance talking to all these ministers. A few more visits to each of them and a Divine Principle workshop will do it.

Sincerely,
Rev. Staffan Berg

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