July 3rd 2011 Blessing Preparation Workshop

This morning I was reading “The Time 100” for this year. “The Chinese paragon of free press” it reads, is a lady called Hu Shuli who said “ Believe in what you do, do it smartly, and never give up.” I like that as a motto! It could well apply to our hopes for the future generation of young Blessed Couples.

For two months Dr. David Hanna and I have been working on material for the workshop which was held on Sunday. We’re addressing the need for 1st Generation Blessing candidates to be prepared well for the Matching and thereafter their Blessing. This material will be made available at the forthcoming EU-BFD Annual Meeting as a standard for local level Blessing Preparation for 1st Gen. candidates to be given by local staff.

As I looked out over the group of 15 people – 3 of whom are up and coming new Blessing candidates, and 3 of whom are applying for re-blessing and Single Blessing, I felt a great feeling of hope that we have some new candidates coming forward now. Also we have just created a booklet about the Single Blessing (for men and women over 48 years old and above ) which is available on request.

One of the staff who listened in whilst helping said in tears, “It was an impressive presentation….it was quite a privilege for me to be there…..I want to take responsibility for this Blessing and the content has helped me to think about what I’ve committed myself to already some time ago. Can I do it? It helped me to re-focus and stay on track about what I’m doing every day and why I’m doing it.”

We also enjoyed the presence of several 2nd Gen. young people who were invited by Pastor Simon Cooper as a means of helping them to understand the meaning of the Blessing. As I became aware about one of them, an amazing story of God’s Grace was told. Annette Ormond explained to me how she met a young lady when she came to L.G. on Saturday, mistakenly thinking that the seminar was to be held then. At the door was a 2nd Gen young lady from another country who had just arrived, and had no where to stay. It just so happens ( how wonderful is our loving God! ) that she is the daughter of a friend of Annette and Roy. When Roy was helping True Parents in New York with the founding of the IIPC in 2003, he was greatly helped by a medical doctor. Since then Annette has been longing to return her generosity and give her something special. Now, through the Grace of God she is helping her daughter – welcoming her, giving her accommodation, and bringing her to the Blessing Preparation Workshop. How personal and caring our Heavenly Parents are!!!

Over the past 12 years I worked to develop a new system for 1st Gen.Matching which is described and explained in the ‘1st. Gen Blessing’ section of www.bfdeu.org. In July 2008 President Song allowed this system to become the Official System for Europe, and since then we have helped 22 couples to go to the Blessing, in cooperation with several other regions. In the workshop I explained about this process and how people can apply for matching in this way.

I hope you will be encouraged to increase your efforts to reach out to others and invite them to become Unificationists, so that gradually we will need to have this workshop very regularly to prepare our candidates for the Matching and Blessing!