The second Interfaith Pilgrimage, held on January 31, 1988, led fifty five members to a very distinctive Thai temple, Wat Thammamongkol, which is 14 stories high, and to an Islamic mosque. The spotlight of the second Interfaith Pilgrimage was a go to to Wat Thammamongkol, an enormous Hinayana Buddhist temple. We visited a Chinese temple (Mahayana Buddhist), which may be very completely different from a standard Thai temple (Hinayana Buddhist). The Thai individuals, who are 95 percent Buddhist, usually have a damaging impression of Christianity. We are planning a bigger theological conference and a social service project for young volunteers of all faiths to be held later this year. During the first two committee meetings, we introduced movies on the Religious Youth Service (RYS) and the Assembly of the World’s Religions (AWR), which left a fantastic impression on the viewers. Father’s imaginative and prescient for the Youth Seminar on the World’s Religions touched the hearts of everybody deeply. We arranged for speakers of assorted faiths to discuss “Youth and Religion.” The members of the Religious Club had been grateful for our support and impressed by our members’ dedication. I originally deliberate this challenge just for dwelling members arid associate members of our church and for folks in my husband’s residence church area, but when I mentioned the idea to Professor Kirti, he was so excited that he not only agreed to steer the pilgrimage but he additionally invited college students, teachers, lecturers, and members of many alternative religious circles to the occasion.
Since then we now have held seven interfaith committee conferences, because of which we based the Interfaith Forum (IFF), with Professor Kirti as its chairman. The response was overwhelmingly constructive, and many stuffed out IFF membership kinds. Our purpose is to increase membership to 1,000 by the end of this yr. We have completed the structure of the IFF as the platform for our work, and 200 people have already signed up for membership. Eighty-5 people gathered for the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage was concluded at the headquarters of the Unification Church in Thailand. When Dr. Lek Thaveetermsakul, president of the Unification Church in Thailand, explained concerning the Unification movement, he was asked who the Unificationists believe Rev. Moon is. In the beginning of 1987, impressed by the success of the interfaith movements in Malaysia and the Philip pines, my regional director Rev. Byung Wooh Kim asked me to initiate the same form of motion in Thailand. On December 19, 1987, we organized the primary Interfaith Pilgrimage. In March we issued the first “Interfaith Newsletter” so as to keep all members knowledgeable about the current actions of the Forum, in addition to to broaden their data about the assorted religions.
The institute offers a sophisticated vary of amenities that will assist in concept and practical learning, as well as promote collaboration and progressive studying amongst its faculty college students. After lunch, all the contributors launched themselves and agreed to arrange a committee consisting of two representatives of each religion, so as to pick a chairman and discuss additional steps in the direction of inter-religious harmony. Most of the participants had by no means even set foot in a Christian church before. I have found interfaith work to be very efficient for our home church work. If the folks have the opportunity to find out about the variability and wonder of all the religions, their hearts can steadily open to obtain the unifying understanding of the Principle. Our month-to-month committee meetings have helped create a detailed heartistic bond among the committee members. The sixth committee assembly of the Interfaith Forum. Its government committee consists of 21 members, representing all the key religions in Thailand.
I felt that this convention was possible only on the foundation of Father’s victory within the spirit world, causing the breakdown of the barriers that exist between the religions. I was amazed on the spirit and the warm atmosphere of the conference. We held our first Interfaith Conference on July 4, 1987. Although we originally planned for only 10 or 15 individuals, to my surprise 30 people attended the conference. Once I found one or two key people who have been truly dedicated to the aim of religious unity, our work began to progress very quickly. Two well- identified professors, Professor Kirti Bunchua from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and Dr. Saeng Chandrngarm from Chaing Mai University, who had been very active in previous efforts to generate inter-religious dialogue in Thailand, have been taken with working with us. Professor Kirti Bunchua stands third from left. All of the sooner efforts towards Buddhist-Christian understanding had unfortunately ended in failure, leaving behind resentment, suspicion, and frustration. Our first neighborhood exercise was in aiding the Religious Club of Chulalongkorn University, the most prestigious university in Thailand, with a particular exhibition about religious unity. A guided tour of a Mahayana Buddhist temple in Bangkok during the first Interfaith Pilgrimage.