Wow, that was some break that we Monkey Girls took, wasn’t it? Actually, we were both very much caught up in all the summer tort…uh, I mean, all the exciting summer events that just ended recently. So, here is an update on what actually happened this summer. To save space we’ve included a lot of links to BCworld for testimonies in greater detail. There are also a lot of PHOTOS on Bcworld so check it out! This issue will be roughly organized as: Summer events reports, regional area reports, STF report, and misc. stuff. Alrighty now, here we go:

(A) USA Workshops, National:

There were two national level high school and middle school workshops this summer. They were both very ‘historic’ in that they were the first workshops organized by the newly restructured N. American 2nd gen Department, in the ‘Settlement Era’ and specifically under the instruction of Hyun Jin Nim. Both workshops focused on Divine Principle Education. There were two sets of workshops- the East Coast one was held at Camp Sunrise, NY, and the West Coast one was held at Prado National Park just outside LA. The Camp Sunrise high school workshop was from July 1st and ended with Hyun Jin Nim’s speech in Manhattan Center on the 14th. 130 Participants attended from areas from Maine to Florida, Alabama to Chicago. The middle school workshop started then as well and also lasted for 2 weeks with 190 participants. The LA workshop was different in that both the high school and middle school workshops ran simultaneously but with different programs and staff. There was a total of over 300 Blessed Children as either staff or participants from Alaska to Texas and Wyoming. Both workshops were resounding successes and laid the foundation for next year’s workshops which will hopefully be one combined national-level high school workshop followed by four regional middle school workshops. For testimonies about these workshops check out this link: http://communities.msn.com/BCWorld/testimonies.msnw

The Blessing workshop was held at Camp Sunrise from August ???to?? and had 60? participants. It was headed up by Young Joo oppa (head of 2nd gen department) and was the first ever Blessing workshop to be held since the new matching system and formed part of the new set of requirements needed to be fulfilled in order to be Blessed. For a testimony from the Blessing workshop check out Audrey’s Blessing workshop ’01 at: http://communities.msn.com/BCWorld/testimonies.msnw For a copy of the Q+A session from the workshop check out jennifer’s ‘Blessing Workshop’ at: http://communities.msn.com/BCWorld/blessingmessage.msnw

As well as the national workshops, there were numerous other regional workshops held around the country. These include Camp One Heart in the Bay area from June 19-29, an elementary school workshop held at camp sunrise after the middle school one, a camp in PA, one in Florida and I’m sure there were others that we missed.

There were two major RYS projects this summer- one in Honduras and one in Trinidad. As in other years, a lot of Blessed Children attended. There are some beautiful photos at: http://communities.msn.com/BCWorld/bcphotos.msnw

This year’s tour was different to past years in that it was focused in one city- Miami, Florida. It was also smaller than previous years but there was a lot more interaction with the local community. For more on this, check out the PLA website: www.purelove.org and the photos and testimonies on Bcworld.

1. 21 day Settlement Age W/S (about 70 participants)

This was a continuation of the workshop Hyun Jin Nim has been holding around the world and our European CARP, 2nd Gen and Assistant Continental Director all gave lectures on the new teachings they had received in those workshops. That way we could all get up to date with all of Fathers Teachings and while confusing many of us was good to learn. Then we had the physical part of the Workshop which involved about walking about 30 miles in all, with one hike started at 2am. We also played more sports than I've ever played in my life and I must say I’m a lot healthier now. I have to say since I attended this workshop personally that it was the best workshop I have ever attended and I gained so much out of it like every participant. The standard was amazingly high and we didn't have one negative or complaining person which was quite amazing considering the stuff we went through.

These workshops are constantly improving and feature most of what you would expect from a workshop. Highlights included: (New) Blessing Education, Testimonies from elder members including the wife of the first European Member, the toughest hell training I have ever seen with a total 2 people being taken to hospital and about 8 collapses (but I guess that wasn't the aim) and although some people found it hard to adjust to the workshop schedule and standard everyone did get a lot of it.

This I didn't attend so I can't say too much about it but for those who don't know about the Mobilization is. Its basically a big mix of activities for the more hardcore of us including: Fundraising in Holland, Ocean Challenge in Germany, Service Project in France and so while you get to experience many challenges to develop yourself you also get to see the sights of Europe admittedly mostly from the window of a Van (but that's the Moonie way right?)

NY

This year, Young Joo Yoo oppa has taken over responsibility for the Belvedere Youth Ministry. Someone named Mo Sook Park is assisting him in creating a new sort of program, with youth Ministry on Saturday afternoons and Family Services on Sundays.

Will Denn is up there somewhere, chilling.....=)

NJ SS is reconstructing their core membership again this year. About seven New Jersey Sunday School kids, the seniors from last year, are on STF, and just generally a lot of things are changing. Kiwako Kono, Mitsuru Miyoshi, Mija Hessell, Misako Sato, Young Kook tokito, Issei Miyoshi, Tokubumi Toyoda and Sylvia Becker are making plans for the new year, and Matthew Jones oppa and Naokimi Ushiroda oppa are part-timers. Most seniors and juniors are either group leaders or assistant teachers for the junior high school kids. The prayer meetings (once a month in Clifton, once a month in Belvedere) and the actual program is still a work in progress, as the location of Sunday School is still not clear, but they're off to a pretty good start.

A new school year with a couple of different changes. There are two houses that Dr. Chin donated to CARP (they're real nice) and presently there are some people living there and some programs held there. There are CARP services held once every two weeks and everyone was put in a team for internal guidance and support-type reasons. The next upcoming event is the Students' Activities Fair where clubs on campus vy for new membership. Wish them luck.

Heard they've gone white water rafting, bowling, etc etc…

There were many tearful good-be parties and ceremonies for all the high school graduates who were leaving for STF. Last weekend they also had the new G.O.P. orientation workshop with over 30 new BC’s going to Korea this year.

For those of you who didn’t know, there is a school run by Aunt DJ down in Texas. This year there are 28 BC’s studying there with the high school aged children holding basic responsibility to keep the school organized.

3 Regions (out of 9) now have a regular youth group so that all the BCs in that area can get together and do something constructive, learn something and have fun together all at the same time. They also provide a way for us to invite friends to our community especially since often we don't do extremely deep DP style content but lean towards character & skills development and community service. This way quite a few of us have already invited friends who now attend regularly and since we already set it up with a high spirit that doesn't get taken away by new people joining us. The whole of London also continue to get together for Sunday Services every month with about 70 BCs at a time attending we also do things such as DP study, or street preaching afterwards. We've also had a few workshops including a joint one with the Dutch and Scandinavians BCs in Easter which was quite amazing. The Scottish Region also had its own Workshop while other regional Activities have been going on. This summer most of the British BCs over 13 took part in the European Activities but for those 12-13 we had a 7 Day DP workshop with the content obviously aimed towards that age group which was great especially with 80 kids which is the largest workshop of that kind we've had in Britain a few Dutch BCs even joined us as well. That Workshop mainly tried to help the BCs get into their first workshop. So our aims were to give them the basics of the principle, provide them with their first real challenges while strengthening (or starting) their faith.

The youth group in Sydney all went on an ‘outing’ to the Botanic Gardens last Sunday and took some beautiful photos around Sydney Harbour. We’re planning a mini-workshop for the end of September to be combined with the Melbourne youth group. There is also an RYS project happening in October.

STF

For those of you who have not heard, this year has the biggest enrollment into STF in history, with over 70 new 1st yearers. There was an opening 5-day workshop held at UTS in NY to which Hyun Jin Nim visited and was shocked by how high the spirit already was. This was followed by a two-day initiation into fundraising. Right now, there are 10 Fundraising teams led by World CARP, First Gen, veteran team captains with 7 Teams being led by 2nd year STFers with all the STFers currently on a ten day F/R condition. They will then meet up half in DC, and half in Michigan. From all reports the new STFers are amazingly inspiring with some of them already making a $300 average. Please keep all of them in your prayers.

MI is the teams that will be at the workshop in Michigan (10th-12th)), and DC (8th-10th) are the teams that will be in DC. The workshops will be two days and they will set out on a 30-day condition. Thank you Jeremy Speller (who will be at home trying to get a visa).

There are already plans being made for winter workshops, not to mention next summer’s events. There is a lot of movement going around in the BC world. It’s been two years since we Monkey Girls started on B’Cuz with less than 100 people on our emailing list. Now there’s almost a thousand spread out all over the world. In two years so much progress has been made. We hope that this helps to keep up to date on what’s going on in the BC world. We’ll keep trying to bring you updates as often and as regularly as possible. Please feel free to email us anytime. Finally, a big congratulations to new parents Kenritsu and Eunha Yamamoto with their baby girl, Kara born just this past August.

The Monkey Girls
Tamami Kawamura
K. Rattley 

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