The Words of the Crostwaite Family
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The Words of the Crostwaite Family |
Susan
Crosthwaite
Question: What motivated you to initiate this?
In 1995, when True Parents globalized the blessing, people began coming to the ceremony with far less preparation than those blessed before that time. Sadly, this led to many broken blessings. I was counseling members who had experienced one, two or even three matchings or blessings that had ended in tragedy. Not to mention the pain of those members' broken hearts, I was very concerned that the dignity and value of the blessing itself was being eroded in the eyes of members.
In response to this situation, in 1998, I began doing two things: first, searching for spouses for those who had experienced this heartbreak, in order that they might find happiness; and second, working to raise the standard of the matching qualifications. This was so that in making effort to meet the qualifications, candidates would be better prepared for the challenges of restoration in the course of their blessing relationship and would more deeply value what they had received. This would in turn protect the value and sacredness of the holy blessing. In that way, I wanted to support our blessing candidates to have higher aspirations.
Fundamentally, we developed a system' under which people could be free to say yes or no at any time during the process. According to the Principle, God created us as beings with free will. This is one of the points we emphasize in our system -- people having the freedom at any point in the process to say no. This feature encourages and emphasizes the importance of freedom to invest in the relationship without particular time pressure.
The logic behind our system is one of free will and ownership; if you feel you can-not say no, you may not freely say yes with your whole heart. When one does not feel obliged to say yes, one can freely say no if one wants to or needs to. This actually helps people say yes when they really want to.
Question: Did you seek the support of national or regional leaders?
From the outset, the European regional president (then, Dr. Yong Cheon Song) and the UK national leader at the time (Tim Read) placed great trust in the process we were developing. With the encouragement of the European Blessed Family Department committee chairman (Geros Kunkel), I presented the procedure we developed at a European leaders' meeting.
At these meetings we always highlight our best practices and receive much encouragement. President Song gave us the authority to work on the European level. "I give you the authority to do the introductions," he said. "Just let me know when members are matched so that I can give my approval." He and his wife liked to see the commitment photos, but they relied on and trusted our staff and the matching advocates, who know the candidates, to make caring and responsible decisions about the introductions, and they trusted and supported the commitment made by the couples.
We launched the program officially, after ten years of effort and development, at the 2008 European Cheon Il Guk Annual Assembly, our annual Europe-wide meeting.
Question: What qualifies a matching applicant for participation in your system?
We require that the person be tithing regularly, attending Sunday service a minimum of three times a month and making effort to find spiritual children. These requirements are for the purpose of demonstrating that the candidate is trying his or her best to share the faith and care for people, and that he or she is an active part of an Unificationist community.
We also asked members to spend at least a year in active membership after coming to have faith in True Parents. The candidate is also expected to have been sexually abstinent for at least a year prior to the matching process. Under the Korean Family Education Department, a person has to have been a member for just six months, but in Europe we would still prefer that it be a year. Candidates must have also attended a minimum of a seven-day Principle workshop, plus, of course, blessing education.
They need to be involved in responsible employment or study and in developing their local Unificationist community. There is no value in introducing people to each other if one of them is living at a remote distance from a church community and has no interaction with our members. It tends not to work. These are the standards we have set, based on much experience.
Question: How do people actually meet?
Blessed Family Department representatives -- we have sixteen throughout Europe -- and other matching supporters across the continent can view candidate profiles in our secure database and suggest for introduction a suitable person that is in their care.
As system supervisor, I accept potential candidate applications after all the forms are presented electronically. The forms are checked and signed by local and national leadership before being sent to me, after which they are put into our database.
Each person seeking to be matched has a matching supporter (sometimes the national Blessed Family Department director) and an advocate, who knows the person well and who is willing to help with that person's initial introduction and when the candidate needs personal support. The candidates' supporters communicate and pray as they feel necessary (over at least three days) and then if they still feel it would be a good match, introduce the two candidates by presenting the other candidate's picture and profile to the person they are supporting, in their own locality. Individually, the candidates have some time to decide whether to be formally introduced to each other. If it is "no" from either side, no further introduction takes place. It sometimes takes days or even weeks for the process of suggestions and introductions to reach the point that the potential couple actually start communicating with each other.
Matching supervisors in other countries -- for example the United States, Thailand, Japan, Oceania -- are in communication. We have also built working relationships with Blessed Family Department representatives in those parts, and we introduce people in the same way.
Some candidates who have been blessed before have experienced the heartbreak of divorce. Sometimes we encourage those brothers and sisters to witness with the express desire and intention of finding their own spouse. This has worked successfully four times in the past several years.
Question: Is there reference to the vertical values we have always associated with the matching?
Yes, very much. The vertical element needs to be strong in order to help us maintain our focus on God, rather than focusing on the horizontal aspect of the relationship. I believe this is part of reversing the results of the Fall in our lineages and in our lives. Without this vertical element, we would become no different from the dating sites of the worldly culture, some of which are very good programs but do not comprehend or serve the purposes of God and True Parents providence to fill the world with families of true love.
Question: What is the next stage for those who have been introduced?
There is a seven-month period of "heavenly courtship." The reason I coined this term -- and I like it a lot -- is that we want to see develop, within the Cheon 11 Guk culture, a sense of not taking anything for granted when you are introduced to someone. We want people to make effort from the deepest part of their hearts, see and serve the other person as God's child and win the heart of that person. In the old-fashioned sense, we want to see couples treasure one another and make effort.
This is especially important because it will bring out the manliness in our young men, and therefore bring out the womanliness of our young women, which are important aspects of the heavenly culture.
Specifically, that seven months means a twenty-one-day communication period followed by a twenty-five-week heavenly courtship phase. At any stage in the seven months the couple can choose to discontinue the relationship. After twenty-one days of communication they can say no, and return to the matching candidate group, or say yes and take the twenty- five weeks to consider whether to accept and be committed to loving the person he or she has been introduced to.
The system is carried out flexibly. Two people who have been introduced should take a minimum of four months and a maximum of seven months, and certainly not more than a year. (Some people subconsciously hang on and won't come to a decision, due to unresolved issues in themselves.) A couple is considered matched when we present the commitment photos, names and data to our regional president.
Susan
with young European members in Chung Pyung around the time of the
Blessing Ceremony last year.
Question: Is your main work with young members?
We have been blessed with quite a number of new members in Europe, particularly in Albania, and Eastern Europe generally. I have been so amazed to watch the young ones in their twenties being so happy to receive an introduction from their elders. It has been such a joy for me to watch them in their beautiful faith, in their understanding and gratitude that this is coming from God.
For example, we introduced a young lady from Albania to a young man from a Slavic country. After she was presented with his photographs and profile, she went into shock a little bit. She said to her advocate, "I have to show you my diary from a year ago." They looked at her record of a dream that she had had one night. She had dreamt of being in a room with blessed couples, where the leader was showing on a board who was to be matched. In the dream, when it was her turn, he said "And who will be the spouse of this sister?" A big heart, representing God's heart, appeared over Eastern Europe. She understood that she would have to learn a Slavic language. God said to her (in the dream), "I hope you don't mind, but this person only joined yesterday; he's a young member." When she looked on the forms of the person she had been introduced to, she saw that he had joined our movement two or three days before she had the dream.
Question: Have you seen many instances of spiritual guidance?
Out of seven couples whom we had introduced to each other in one country since True Father went to the spirit world, four of them had had dreams of whom they would be introduced to, three weeks to a month before the introduction.
One young Eastern European sister that has been a member for four years, an active member with spiritual children, had several dreams in which True Father asked her why she had not applied for matching and encouraged her to do so.
These are, I think, good examples of how the spirit world is deeply involved; and it has been more apparent since True Father went to the spirit world.
My only hesitation in relating this is that people who don't have dreams may feel their matching is less valuable. But you don't have to have a dream or vision to be moved by God. Far more important than having spiritual experiences is how you invest in the relationship and develop your love.
Question: The preceding points seem to contain valuable guidelines for first- or second-generation members alike.
I believe certain aspects of our system can be useful for our children. For example, giving our children freedom, giving them time, within reasonable parameters, and encouraging the second-generation members to have good preparation in faith and heart, allows them to experience the foundation of faith and foundation of substance long before they are introduced to someone for the blessing.
Question: Can you say a word about second-generation matching?
That is a responsibility for parents. In Europe we are very focused on empowering parents through the Parents Matching Convocations and the Blessing Preparation Workshops to which parents are encouraged to come -- as indeed they are in the United States. We learned from the U.S. when they began the parents' matching convocations. We find parents need, and deserve, a lot of support and encouragement to take on that responsibility and to gain confidence.
Question: There are various matching web sites, for both first- and second generation members that help candidates from different countries and different continents find each other. How do these fit in?
We rely more on unity between people and candidates' advocates than on the undoubtedly excellent technology of the web sites. Our cooperation with other regions is more through personal contact by e-mail or in personal meetings, as exemplified by our communication with the Thai Blessed Family Department. Thai sisters have been matched with brothers in Italy and Germany.
Question: You must have faced obstacles -- cultural barriers, etc.
In some situations where I had tried to facilitate international cooperation, I really felt True Father was working from the spirit world in easing some difficult relationships between national Blessed Family Departments -- in the context of specific situations. But even this would not be possible without having built relationships of love, care and friendship. More than anything else, that is what our system is based on. President and Mrs. Song had encouraged us to unite in love and to work together, and we have invested our effort to be true friends to one another.
With thirty-six countries come as many languages, so every time we have an international meeting we have to extend ourselves in order to understand each other. Having to make effort to work together and to be kinder to each other is a blessing in disguise. It makes us work at it. It deepens our unity.
Jozsef
and Hajnalka who received the blessing at ages 41 and 35
respectively, with their son, Doman Petrik
Jozsef came from a background in the military and professional security services in Hungary, protecting the very high level political leaders, pop musicians and religious leaders that visited the country. He had been a member, and was blessed in 1995 but was later confined to his native Romania because of visa problems for two years, so his fiancée gave up the relationship. A few years later he managed to settle in Hungary. Even though Jozsef did not have contact with our church in Hungary for eight years, he maintained his purity.
In 2010, Jozsef was praying for help and guidance for his life, and felt that God was calling him. Hajni had regularly witnessed with the Hungarian members, and served their families in various ways, even though her own blessing relationship had broken down. She courageously kept going with love and faith. One day in 2010 Hajni saw Jozsef in the city square. Remembering him from earlier days, she invited him to come to their Peace House. He rejoined the church. The Hungarian national leader recommended to me that they would make a beautiful couple, so we prayed over that and decided to "introduce" them.
A few months ago they sent me this beautiful photograph with their baby son.
Veronika: I was very serious when preparing for matching, and I tried to set up many meaningful conditions that would be at the same time good for my personal development. It took me some time to even decide about it, so after I decided, I was trying to use everything that came as an opportunity to prepare myself for my future partner. After a year and a half of waiting, it came and it was intense. I felt connected with Pedro somehow from the beginning. When we were introduced, I was so nervous and emotional. Still when I think back, I remember that it was, for me, like a miracle to meet Pedro. Our lives and personalities were in some way so similar, but at the same time different. After a few days of Skype meetings, I felt that I was sure about being matched with Pedro. Skyping with him was very romantic.
Now we are living together in Prague. We have been through many ups and downs, but I can see that this makes our relationship stronger and represents the first building blocks of our blessed family life. Even though it is not always easy, I really love Pedro and feel strongly that he is a huge blessing given to me, for which I am very grateful to God.
Pedro: My preparation for matching was done mostly through prayer but also through development of my qualities so that I could be a good partner. Being introduced was a beautiful and intense experience. It seemed as if we had known each other for a long time. During our twenty-one- day "heavenly courtship," we communicated mostly through Skype and e-mail. We are now living in Prague and working with CARP. We love each other very much and we hope to create an exemplary family in the future.
Note: To establish and maintain such a system required the willing effort and sacrifice of many people, including South London church directors Franklin and Cecilia Fortune, European Blessed Family Department Director Rainer Fuchs and my husband Ashley! -- Susan