I had available to buy it. Therefore, I was able to work on the construction.

In similar ways, God instructed and helped us to construct the buildings in our temple area. Many government administrators who came to see after this temple completed said that they could not understand how we could construct such amazing buildings in the mountain reserved for the army. If we had tried to do them in our own ways, we could not have finished anything. A few other churches wanted to buy the area before we did, but the owners did not want to sell their land. Just when I tried to buy their land, they had some urgent situations and they had to sell their land to me, as they said.

We are still working on our temple area in these ways. It would not have been so difficult if our area was located in other place. The former president, Jeonghee Park, and the local government protected the area from development because it was supremely beautiful. Therefore, the construction was very difficult.

When I tried to build the temple building of Seoul Church in 1976, about 10 years before we built the Harvest Temple,

a government official in the Korea Housing Corporation refused us permission to purchase for the construction of the temple. Then I prayed to God, “If you do not help us, we cannot continue to work on the temple construction. Please help us to get the permission.” Then the next day, Gyuwon Jang the elder submitted the application for the purchase and I waited for their response. He came back to me with the good news that our application was accepted. But I got a phone call from Gyuwon Jang at home that evening. He told me the government official wanted to retract our application. Then I went to see the official.

He begged me to cancel the permission. “It was my terrible mistake,” he said. “This area is just for houses, not for churches. You cannot build a church on it. I have never made such a mistake in the thirty years I have served in government.” But I said “No.” because it was the work of God.

After that, the official continued to interfere with our construction. We needed another permission from local government, but he pressured them not to give it to us. So I prayed to God again and then finally, with the help of someone, who I still do not know to this day, we received permission