This testimony of faith is taken from the memoir of Alejandro de Souza, who for many years served close to True Parents as an interpreter and assistant, accompanying them on their tour of South America and to many other providential events. It recounts a harrowing flight through a thunderstorm in early 1996, as True Parents were preparing for their tour of Central and South America, and what he witnessed of True Parents in the midst of it. The text has been edited for readability while preserving the meaning of the original. — Editor’s Note
In early 1996, I boarded a small plane with True Parents. We took off from Jardim in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, bound for Montevideo, Uruguay. The next day, Father was scheduled to deliver a very important message. Among the many mysteries of the Bible, he would publicly reveal for the first time who the biological father of Jesus was. That message was later delivered in more than 20 countries across Central and South America during the tour.
The plane had five seats. Two were for the pilot and co-pilot. Both were experienced pilots, and the older of the two was a veteran who had worked for many years at the Uruguay Credit Bank. True Father, True Mother, and I took the remaining three seats.
The first half of the trip couldn’t have been more pleasant. With his characteristic curiosity, Father asked the pilots one question after another about the plane’s performance and the knobs on the instrument panel. Then he read my palm and shared some thoughts with me.
“Looking at your hand, I can see you’ll succeed at anything you set your mind to. Do you know why I appointed you vice president of the Victoria Plaza Hotel? It’s so you’ll meet people, go to gatherings, and make lots of friends. I’m a minister, so I can’t live that kind of life. But you can.”
As we passed near Iguazu Falls, the pilots’ expressions began to harden. With no warning in any forecast, a thunderstorm front stood in our path. Enormous clouds rolled toward us, forming a perfect storm. “Dark” doesn’t begin to describe it. It was pitch-black, and it covered the entire horizon. I hoped the pilots would quickly descend and land anywhere at all—on a road, in a field.
Night would soon fall. At Carrasco Airport, Korean and Uruguayan leaders would be waiting for us, worried. But we had no way of getting word to them. This was in the days before cell phones.
Finally, the decisive moment came. As we entered the heart of the storm, the plane began to pitch up and down. Every time we hit turbulence, it dropped several meters, and the shock went straight to my stomach and my head. At the same time, the plane swayed violently from side to side. I wondered how much longer this fragile fuselage could hold out against the forces of nature.
It was like being inside a blender gone mad. The jolts the two of them were taking hurt me more than my own. One moment their heads struck the ceiling; the next, before anything could be done, they slammed hard against the window and bounced back up to the ceiling. The luggage compartment door flew open, and bags came pouring out toward us. I wasn’t even aware of what was happening to my own body. All that pained me was every single jolt they were enduring. There was no reason for them to go through something like this at their age. Father was already 76 at the time.
I had no idea how this flight would end. But I was certain of one thing: this could not be the end for us. God and Jesus had waited two thousand years for the birth of the ones who, with such an ancestral, cultural, and genetic background, would take on this historic mission. That providence could not end inside this small plane, in the middle of a thunderstorm.
The ordeal seemed to last an eternity. And at last we got out of it. Or rather, to be precise, we didn’t get out of it—we went straight through it. Whenever I glanced over, the pilots’ faces were white, and they seemed to be trembling with fear. Once the plane stabilized, they finally smiled. One of them pointed behind us and said,
“Look back there, a little higher up. You can see where we came out.”
To this day, I don’t know what words could describe the colors and the swirling of that eye of the storm.
Before long, we found a place to land. I don’t remember whether it was Rivera or Artigas, but we were already in Uruguay. What I do know is that it was a small, dreary airport with no one there but the one attendant on duty at that hour.
True Mother sat down on a long passenger bench, and I headed to the restroom. Father followed me in and, standing beside me, asked,
“Ale, were you scared?”
“No, True Father. I wasn’t afraid for a single moment, because the two of you were with me. If I’d been alone or with anyone else, I would have died of a heart attack at the first jolt.”
Father replied with a laugh in his voice, “Aha! You must have a lot of sins!”
When he came out of the restroom, True Father said to True Mother,
“Omma, let’s go. Let’s keep flying. We still have a way to go.”
True Mother had not yet recovered from the shock. Her face was still pale. She didn’t want to board that plane again, but Father reassured her, saying,
“Omma, let’s go. It’s not such a bad thing to have an experience like this once in your life.”
