The Words of the Gabb Family

National Messiah Testimony

Steven Gabb
October 10, 1999
Paul Rosenbaum's unofficial notes
Maryland JFWP potluck dinner

I want to give you all an overview of the providence, as I've experienced it in Israel. Starting in 1996, with the National Messiah Providence, I was living in Pittsburgh, when I got the call. I wanted to apply for National Messiahship. I said to my wife, "It's unlikely we'll be called, but let's apply, we may never get the chance again."

She said, "un unh, if we apply, they will call us, and we'll have to go!" As usual, she was right.

We went to Chung Pyung Lake and had 40 days to prepare.

Already we had to inherit a heavenly heart because we were asked to come at the time when we had to give True Parent's speech in the nation. We took our whole family to Israel, because we couldn't all get there, otherwise. We arrived at a very providentially important time. It was the anniversary of Rabin's death and the anniversary of Abraham's moving.

I had to host the FFWPU's Inauguration ceremony. We had about 72 people come to this event. These were very important V. I. P.'s and other public people from Israel. The speech was pretty strong, if you remember True Parent's Inauguration FFWPU speech. And, in our case only the strongest of our guests could actually stay till the very end.

From that point onward, we started working on giving the Blessing. Mr. and Mrs. Abe, the Japanese National Messiahs lived with our family in the National Headquarters building. It is a large house with 5 bedrooms, and the rent in Israel is very expensive. We are paying about $2,000 a month what we might be paying $1,000 a month, over here. Still, it was chosen as the landing place for the NM's. And so we lived together, with the Abe family. In the history of the Providence in Israel, providential families have had to live together and unite and overcome many things, example: Joseph, Mary, and Zechariah. So also our families had to unite and overcome many cultural things, and learn how to harmonize, as well.

We went through the process of starting from ground zero. We had to search for our own standard of heart. I learned that "you have to look at life as a parent", in other words, everybody's growing, etc. In our first 10 months together, we were always having to fight out our differences and eventually the Gabb family and the Abe family forged a new family, often through the efforts of the children, really. And, because we both loved each other's children, we had a base to continue for God's Will and to Fulfill that Will.

Israel is not an easy place to do God's Will. We cannot openly do missionary work there. The government will not tolerate us proselytizing. But we could do the Blessing because we were not making anybody change their faith. At first when we publicly did the Blessing, we did the whole Blessing Ceremony. Within the first Blessings, we had the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions represented.

Once in Gaza, we gave the Blessing to a Muslim couple and we had to go there in the middle of the night. They were all prepared, with all their family and relatives there, As I came into the area, I noticed that this was like a prison situation. It felt like I was walking into an African country, or a third world country, the people of common means had so little, while those who were supposedly representing the Palestinian people had so much, often undeservingly so. After a while, we found that it was difficult to get people to commit. So we decided, like in other countries, to go door to door. We went out to make our 185 couples. There were about 20,000 done officially by Japanese volunteers.

We also have about 59 or 60 couples that have actually done the 40 day separation and the 3 day ceremony.

We do have a Sunday service, but since in Israel Sunday is a working day, and Shabbat is the Sabbath day in Israel (Shabbat being on Saturday), so we have an internal Sunday service in Israel for our core members. Father has set the standard or the pattern by disbanding our own church. In North Israel, there are a lot of Christian Arabs, for example in Nazareth. Many of the Japanese did a number of bridge ceremonies. Mrs. Weizmann, wife of the first Prime Minister of Israel, received the bridge ceremony with the head of the WFWP of Japan.

We have a very unique relationship between Israel and Japan. We had about 10 to 30 people who bridged with the Japanese sisters. There is a real deep interest among the Israeli people toward anything Japanese. Particularly many young Jews go to Japan to learn martial arts, and some of them spend many years becoming like Zen monks, in their desire to learn these unique fighting styles of martial arts.

In 1998, Robert Beebe came with the International Education Foundation and came to teach over 400 people in Israel moral re-education. For this reason, the people, especially the Israeli Educational Establishment is grateful, for now, in Israel there is really a big problem with the young people. They are very tough, almost militant and they respect nobody, especially the old people in society. I often see them in the market places, in Jerusalem, or on the buses, push other people aside. They will never get up and give their seat to the old people on the buses or public transportation. In fact, they will bully the old folks and make them get up and give the youth their seats. The young people also show no respect for traditional morality, and this really disturbs some members of the population, particularly the Muslims, and orthodox Jews. In fact, our kids had a hard time adjusting to life in Israel. My kids really had to toughen up, in many ways. It really stretched our abilities to have to live all together.

Living together as national messiahs with the Japanese volunteers in Israel was, in many ways one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life. We had to eliminate all of our ideas. In Israel, volunteers can stay for as long as a few months up to about 2 years. As long as you don't get into trouble with the authorities, you can stay as long as you need to, generally. For the most part, the authorities are not so worried about us. Lately though, we did have a difficult time, because two of our Japanese members had to go to prison, for a few days, while they were waiting to be approved.

As a foreign person in Israel, you can work, but you may not get paid. That is you may, or you may not get paid, depending on your situation, who you are working for, and the tax situation involved with what you are doing. It can be very frustrating working for a year, and then finding out that you are not getting paid.

Living together, there is an interesting dynamic in restoring all different kinds of positions- many of our Japanese volunteers are young members, but they all have a very sincere heart and a very absolute standard that they are trying to accomplish. Their rule is to restore the Mother's Position. Even many of them don't understand what this means, but still they want to go out and restore this situation. In restoring the ENEMY, in loving your ENEMY, you have to go with the understanding that you are going to love your enemy, you will be meeting your enemy and loving and raising up your enemy.

What is the purpose of the National Messiahship Mission?

I have come to understand that it is to Pay Indemnity, and to take on the sins of the nation. Whatever went on that was wrong- that is whatever it is that's been historically wrong, that's what you take on yourself as the National Messiah.

I found that I was very much in the position as a mediator. As the Able National Messiahs, we had to take a Bridging Position and we had to take it - abuse - persecution, indemnity - from both ends.

Mr. Abe (a 42 Blessed Couple) had a most difficult situation. And I have to tell you the most difficult situation in restoring these positions is the sister's position. I'm warning you sisters, if you are in this position, you have to pray a lot.

My home was Bathsheeba. This was also Abraham's hometown, and we had to restore all these relationships with women, wives and concubines, and King David's, King Solomon's positions. True Parent, True Teacher and True Leader (same as Kingship) This is the meaning of our recently completed Hoon Dok Hae Conference, now. Beginning of the point of restoring Sovereignty. In these conferences (the last one in Washington, DC) People are getting transformed. Father's words, his direct words, are intoxicating. I believe that the National Messiahs are acting as a doorway. And, if you are in the right position, the door will open up. When you meet someone important, a spiritual door opens up. We have to become aware of that.

From my experience in Israel, our Japanese brothers and sisters have this amazing attitude. I really love and respect, because of their level of hard work and sacrifice, Japanese members, when they come en masse, let them do whatever they want to do. We have a strange idea of leadership, in the west - we tend to accept this person whose leading first and if they don't fulfill, we become quite critical. In the East, in the Orient, it is the opposite, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. They will only accept you as their leader, after you prove you are on the same page with them. 

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