The Words of the Tanemori Family |
The following is a testimony from Kaori Tanemori, from Westfield, NJ, of her experience sending a copy of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's autobiography to her local mayor. Attached is his letter in response.
After reading the testimony of the distribution of 430 copies of True Father's autobiography by Asuka Sawada (True Father's Autobiography Distribution Testimonial) on the website, I also wanted to deliver True Father's autobiography; I am ashamed that I only had one version in English and one in Japanese.
Anyways, I wanted to give my precious individual copy to someone who would definitely read it. First, I thought of one my neighbors since we had just moved into our community. However, I was not sure if they could read English or not. Next, I thought of giving it to my children's school teachers in the area we lived in previously, but I noticed I didn't have any contact information for them.
When I checked the website of our new community I found the mayor's home address and all other town counselors' contact information. I prayed and asked God, "Who will read it?" Then I used a lottery to decide whom I should deliver the book to; the answer was our mayor. So I wrote a letter greeting him as a new resident of the town, and asked him to read the book to lead the community as a peace loving global citizen. I included my home address, e-mail address and telephone number. My husband sent it the next day. I also talked about it with my friend and she also decided to send the book to her mayor in an even bigger and more influential city.
Recently True Father came to New York and Hoon Dok Hae was held with him in East Garden almost every day. I was only able to go once since my four small children were too noisy, which caused me to have a headache and had to leave while True Father was speaking. I had also recently given up participating in the ODP workshop being held in New Jersey this last week because of an over flow. Since I had nothing to offer in front of God, I just started doing Hoon Dok Hae again on own at home (I am sorry to admit, but I had given up many times).Even though True Father was here in town, I couldn't to do anything but Hoon Dok Hae at home, instead of East Garden. I was really disappointed in myself and I thought, "How long will this continue as a stay at home mom?
However, just after I canceled my participation in the ODP workshop, I received a letter in response from our mayor. He was happy and said in the letter that he would donate the book to our town's memorial library after he finishes reading it himself. I felt strange at first since I was not sure if he liked the book or not. But later I understood his public mind more and what a wonderful idea it was to have the book in the library since more people will now have a chance to read it.
I believe, even though I feel my life of faith and my public mind is so poor, God used me and found the right person (a mayor) in order to deliver His message to more people.
I hope this testimony will be helpful for those who are staying at home too.