Testimony about ministers who went to the recent Blessing

I had planned on doing the blessing in Dallas. I like keeping things local if I can because it’s from there that it will grow, if it grows at all. We brought people to a lot of different things but a lot of things it’s hard to multiply from national, international deals back in the grassroots area. So I find that when I keep things local, it helps me.

But in this particular case, I just felt like, well, I can’t support this Las Vegas thing unless I support it totally. If I support it with even one couple, what am I doing? So I kind of did a plus and minus thing, and then I had to pray about it, and I just decided everybody is going to Vegas. We sent seven couples to Vegas.

Four of these couples — I had a couple, a Unification Church couple, and I thought this would be really good for them so I sent them as well, and of course my wife and I went.

We had Bishop Thibodeaux, who is one of the 172 ministers, and her husband. I sent Bishop Edwards, who actually went with us in the ICC conferences back in 1987 and so on in Korea. He had this incredible experience at the rock of tears, yet this man has never been blessed. So he was actually really excited to go with his wife.

I sent an imam, whose name is Marzouq, who just got married a year ago. But we don’t really know his wife. We found out the day before the blessing that his wife is actually Christian and he’s a Muslim. She’s been researching our church online, seeing all the worst stuff you could study. She didn’t know anything about us.

Here’s what was going on. She would meet our members, meet me, walk away from the church, thinking, these people can’t be the people that these other people are talking about. She would tell her husband, I’m reading this junk, but here these people are. I don’t understand. He was like, well, you should understand. Let your spirit tell you the truth.

In the Walmart she found a cult book, and of course we were in it, and she read that and came back. Anyway, even just days before the blessing this kind of stuff was going on. But she was having so much conflict.

She arrived in Vegas with her husband, they received the blessing. This woman was actually in the weekly update video. She was the one who was saying she felt the blessing was going to change America. Her husband was blown away because the first thing out of her mouth was, I’m just so grateful for True Parents for giving this blessing to us. And I just know that the blessing is going to change America.

It was an amazing talk. When she was done, he actually threw his arms around her and told her how much he loved her because she had made such incredible leap in faith and understanding in just a short period of time. He was blown away.

Pastor Jimmy Clark and his wife Glenda were there. These four minister couples, every single one of them want to do the blessing in their churches now, or wherever. Clark called me two days ago, said, I have to meet you Saturday. We’ve got to do the blessing. We’re going to take this thing, we’re going to go with it, we’re going to do our best, were going to bless everybody who will receive the blessing. He said, I want to do at least two blessings before the end of the year.

Mrs. Thibodeaux, her husband is a movie star, he’s famous around here in Texas, and they know a lot of people. They are going to have a rededication ceremony. She wants to bless everybody that comes to the rededication. The whole thing has turned into a rededication for everybody she knows. She is the owner

and founder of a seminary here in Dallas and one in Columbus, Ohio, and a bunch of different things. So she is going to be having this big event where we are going to be blessing people.

Doctor Linda Holliday, I got off the phone with her today. She’s holding a national level retreat in Pensacola, Florida, and basically she’s going to bless every couple that comes. I heard today that is the largest one she’s ever done and a lot of people have signed up to come to it. It’s at this big resort and they’re going to do the blessing. She has asked my wife and I to come and give the blessing on the beach in Florida, November eighth. We are going to do it.

Bishop, he wants to give the blessing in his church locally, but then he wants to work together with the other ministers that went to Vegas and start working together with them to partner their churches, bringing people together in larger groups and bless their churches. That’s the plan.

My main thing that I’m telling all the ministers, I don’t talk to these guys and say let’s go to the blessing, you’re going to like it, it’s great. What I tell everybody when I talk to them about the blessing, especially the pastor, I tell them first of all that America is in trouble because of the breakdown of the family, we are in a dire situation, and that I am asking God and praying together with other ministers like them, and I am asking them to partner with me to save America.

Then they say, what do you want to do? I say, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to create a blessing movement in America, but I don’t want you to be misled. I’m not talking about just amen on you. I tell everybody we’ve got conditions for the blessing and I want you to fulfill all of them. And the reason I do this is because I know that if you set conditions to receive the blessing, the blessing is going to have greater value to you. Your heart and your mind and spirit are going to be prepared to receive the blessing, and when you do receive the blessing, you will receive the blessing indeed. You’re going to feel blessed. There is going to be a change that takes place because you will have a greater value for the blessing.

Then I tell everybody, if you’re going to ask God to do something great and mighty like save America, you need to have some skin in the game. That’s why you need to do these conditions, because I’ll be danged if you’re going to ask God to do something like this but you do nothing. So we are going to have to set this condition so that we can give God a condition so that he can move, the Holy Spirit can move.

So every one of these guys are right now in the middle of a 40 day purification period. Bishop gave me a testimony just the other day about how he is finding new love for his wife during this 40-day purification period.

When I told him about the 3-day ceremony, he told me, Reverend Jackson, you mean I’ve got to consummate my marriage three days in a row? That’s how old they are.

The point I’m making is that I don’t mess around with them. I tell them the truth. I tell them what we are going to do. I explain it to them. Then what I try to help them understand is that when you give the blessing, pastor, you need to hold your people’s feet to the fire. You need to help them to find greater value of the blessing by helping them to set these conditions too.

I don’t want to do blessing lite. Really I believe if they make the conditions, they are going to have a greater experience, and hopefully they will have a deeper experience with True Parents and God and the blessing.

That’s what I’m doing here in Dallas. I’m really excited about it and it seems like the ministers are too.