I arrived in Kuwait City on a Saturday with just one immediate problem on my mind--where could I find a bathroom with toilet paper? They used a different system, which had a bowl with shooting water you stood over. I ran around looking for help, but there was one major problem--no one spoke English. An hour later, my search ended at a Sheraton Hotel and, in the process, I located a Catholic Cathedral and a smaller Protestant Church.

My first task was to find employment for I only had a three-day tourist visa and, as an American, would have to leave on Tuesday. I went to both churches the next day and met a German businessman who needed someone to manage his photographic processing laboratory. On Monday, he took me to change my tourist visa to a work visa, which normally could not be accomplished without leaving the country. However, because of his “connections,” it was a simple task. It appeared God had already been preparing my path and all I needed to do was be sensitive or aware of His guidance.

Over the next 3 months this locally famous businessman took me around to all his business contacts in the mornings. In the afternoons, I ran his laboratory, having studied photo processing in high school. This was basically my schedule from early morning until 9 p.m., six days a week with a few hours break in mid-afternoon for the hot climate’s midday siesta.

This was so cool! Heavenly Father had arranged a way I could stay in the country, get paid, do what I enjoyed, be introduced by this “John the Baptist” to so many English-speaking Kuwaitis, and get a geographic and cultural understanding from his 15-year foundation there. The major drawback was my health, for I quickly developed stomach problems due to following a Kuwaiti custom of drinking a small cup of Arabian tea and coffee at each business visit before talk could begin. I quickly learned that Arabs in Kuwait apply customs and etiquette before business at all levels of their society.

Once I secured my presence in the Kuwait by getting a work visa, I then searched until I found my fellow Japanese and German missionaries. My fellow German missionary found a job in the desert driving a tractor and the Japanese missionary, Harunobu, was able to obtain an extended tourist visa. My German brother was only about 20 years old and 1 year in the movement, a bit naive with a strong will and determination.

of True Father being the Messiah. About 30 days into our condition, since there was no way to meet publicly, we were in her apartment praying. While praying, we were both humbled by a brilliant light appearing in the corner ceiling of the room. It stayed for the rest of our prayer and we both could feel intelligence within the pulsating light and concluded it was an angel. Two of her fellow teachers also heard conclusion and participated in our weekly evening dinner parties a few times.

One Sunday afternoon, I got an idea to go fishing near the picturesque water towers in Kuwait City. I brought a blow up plastic raft, a fishing pole, rope and bait, and anchored myself about 100 feet off shore. Very quickly, I was hauling in a large, fighting fish that kept pulling my line out again and swimming under my plastic platform. Finally, I got my fish to the top and freaked out. A large shark was hooked and its top fin was about to cut my plastic boat to shreds. I let the line out and paddled to shore and won the battle when I landed this big fish on the beach. You can bet I never went fishing in my plastic boat again!

Another method of outreach was meeting the foreigners attending the large Catholic cathedral. It was there that I met up with a secret Christian group that did not have their own church building. They were mainly of Indian nationality. The next Sunday, I followed their directions into the desert and drove quite a while until I found them meeting in a large group behind a hill. We held a service there and I sang our Holy Song, “The Lord Is One.” I then gave a lecture combining the Last Days and the Second Coming. I did not get involved with them after that meeting because I had a spiritual feeling that they were being watched.

I attended two classes at Kuwait University to learn Arabic, but after staring at these strange symbols and hearing hard to pronounce deep throat sounds, I gave up on the classroom type lessons. I decided to teach myself, creating a system similar to what I was using to teach English. I wrote a list of key words and simple expressions, found various Arabs who were willing to pronounce the words, and I then wrote the words phonetically in English. After this, I spent a lot of time talking with Arabs using my simple, broken Arabic and learned by trial and error. They enjoyed my broken Arabic and I could quickly understand what they meant, perhaps some of my understanding coming telepathically.

It was about a 15-minute walk from my apartment to my workplace. While walking this distance, I began experiencing intense feelings of loneliness and heartbreak, many days with tears flowing down my face. It even became so strong one time that I walked over to a seaside wall and, as I was looking into the Arabian Sea, had thoughts telling me to end my suffering by jumping into the deep water. I was in some kind of a trance for a moment. When I came out of it, I jumped back realizing what I was thinking. Shortly after this experience, I spiritually received a message that these were not my feelings. They were the feelings of nearly 500,000 foreign men who had left their families to work in Kuwait for a few years to make money to bring back home. Their heartbreak was due to the sacrifice of being away from their loved ones.

From this and later experiences in other countries, I came to realize that each nation of the world, and even areas within nations, have collective metaphysical feelings of the people living there that visitors can sense and think are their own. In the Divine Principle, this is partly explained in the section of “collective sin.” I was able to develop this metaphysical, telepathic sense of knowing others’ feelings to understand the people around me and I was, at times, even able to read their minds.