The Words of the Ichijo Family

Testimony from Fran Ichijo, Erika's mother

October 29, 2003

Glory to God and Mansei to God and Our True Parents! We are grateful for this handiwork of Heaven!

Looking at all the testimonies of matchings done by parents so far, it is clear that each circumstance is a unique expression of God’s love and concern. Not one has been accomplished the same as another, although they all reflect sincerity, true love and a desire to fulfill God’s will. Our story is no different but in its external presentation maybe it can help other parents who are seeking to match their children.

Yoshi and I had been looking seriously for a match for our daughter Erika for about 2 years, very earnestly in the past year, and posted her on the BCCandidates website. Quite honestly, we contacted about 15 families, some with just a casual conversational mention, others with more in-depth give and take.

While we trusted God’s hand the entire time, it was often frustrating that we could not find the right person/family. Erika is faithful, polite, pretty, deep and kind, and somewhat shy. Of course, being partial to our lovely daughter, we thought we’d be fighting off the suitors one by one. We knew intellectually that we just had not found God’s choice, but sometimes only faith kept us from feeling discouraged. It was more of a course for us to grow in, rather than Erika who was just patient and trusting us and God.

We did many prayer conditions and cold shower conditions (last winter). Finally, we decided to stop trying so hard, and just wait, as Erika was going on STF anyway and wanted to do that before the Blessing as a good foundation.

We clearly asked our specific ancestors to help us find the right match for Erika, put it in God’s hands and stopped contacting any families. (We are not saying that everyone should not contact one another, this is just what we did at this point.) We also wrote all this down on our prayer altar, and specifically assigned certain ancestors to this task, and asked the ancestors to have the family call us. With a prayerful mind we waited.

September 30, 2003, we got an e-mail from the Cromwells who were working together to find a match for their second son, Anmar. Thomas had incidentally met Erika when she was visiting Tolyn Burkholder who is blessed to their first son, Tossa. Although this meeting was way back in April, the Cromwells were currently talking to another family at that time. However, Thomas remembered her well.

The Cromwells had been missionaries for 25 years in the Middle East, which we respected tremendously and felt that they represented the Middle East. We never had known the Cromwells or their son before now, but after less than 2 weeks of prayer and discussion we decided it was Heaven who made this match, despite pre-concepts that we may have had as to the "right match" and "right family". It is hard to describe, but for us it was an intuitive feeling. As well, Anmar’s name is Islamic (which means "spring in the desert") and we had foremost in our mind to fulfill Father’s exchange marriage idea with an interracial matching or with an enemy nation. At this point in time, America is warring with Islamic factions. The bottom line, however, was that we wanted the young man to faithfully accept the match that his parents chose, as Erika was prepared to accept ours. We felt that this type of faith and commitment would carry them through the ups and downs of marriage.

Sunday morning, October 12, Anmar woke up to his father’s voice, "You’ve been matched!" We went over to meet him for the first time and had lunch together. We told Erika that night by phone and she tearfully was grateful.

The ironic thing is that Anmar was living only half hour away from us and we had been searching worldwide for over 2 years!

They have only spoken on the phone and have not met yet, but we are confident that this will be a loving and powerful couple for God!

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