Over 1.000 people gathered in the evening of November 3rd, in the Grand Union Hall, the oldest hotel in Ljubljana, to listen to Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s speech on the "God’s ideal Family -- The Model for World Peace". The event is the part of the 120 cities tour for the purpose of the inauguration of the Universal Peace Federation.

When we heard the news True Parents will come to Slovenia, it was a great challenge as we are just 20 families all together. But we immediately started with Chung Sung condition with all members and special prayer team of 3 sisters offered strong condition in addition to this several people made 3 days and 7 days fasting. There was an interesting testimony from our national messiah, Mrs. Lim, the wife of Adam national messiah. She very much wanted to come to Slovenia to receive True Parents but because of several situations, she has given up to come, then at that night Rev. Lim who passed away two years ago, appeared in her dream with such a big stick and hit her back three times very strongly. As we all know Rev. Lim as such a gentleman we could see spirit world is really working for this historical event. This inspired us more.

We started to prepare for this event four weeks before with the creation a full time team guided by Armando Lozano, National Representative from Spain and Sun Woo Irgl, national representative from Slovenia. We formed a team of more or ten members who against all difficulties believed the event was possible and the hall will finally be full.

Since the foundation of Ambassadors of Peace in Slovenia is not so big we had no choice but go completely public with event. We printed more than 30.000 fliers that were distributed on the streets. We send over 4.500 letters of invitation to all the important people in the nation. We let everybody know that Father was coming to the town. We formed a ‘Calling team’ that we first gathered addresses and actual telephone numbers of all kind of organizations and then with the phone calls we explained about the event and got the personal names of the organizations. And after we sent the invitation we followed again with phoning for the confirmations.

To make things more interesting our outreach efforts were challenged by our need to support Bosnia event, that meant two days less of reaching out to people and also the national holiday of November 1st were all the people goes to the cemeteries, the whole nation stops. Therefore we had no other choice but going to the cemeteries ourselves to invite the people. In fact some of the guests who came told us that they got the invitation in the cemetery.

The final two days we also had a group of 15 second generation from Spain delivering fliers in downtown Ljubljana and also we placed sandwich boards near the hotel and posters in shops in downtown.

Finally the big day came. True Parent’s party arrived at the airport around 10:30 in the morning. We didn’t need to use the VIP lounge since the whole small airport was ours. On the way to the hotel the party went though the beautiful and rural countryside of Slovenia. True Mother asked the driver where the city is since nothing but green fields, forests and farms could be seen for many kilometers.

But love for nature is one of the key elements of Slovenian people so it was the perfect introduction to the country. Perhaps because of this True Father joked with the audience you should not be "Slow-venia but become Fast-venia".

The hotel had celebrated just few days before 100 years old with all kinds of events and inviting to cake to all the people in the nearby Triple Bridge Square, the heart of Ljubljana. The hall of the hotel has been a witness to key historical meetings, from the Second World War to the Communist era, to the new democratic nation. The hall is truly a piece of art and gave to the program a very elegant and noble feeling.

Still Slovenian people are not easy to move. So we were worried until the last minute whether people will respond to it. Also we have reserved the first half of the hall for the local guests. But to our joy, people came. All kinds of guests from the political world, the religious area, and culture and business area, as well as relatives and friends of members, as well as some members who have kept a distance with our movement from a long time.

The doors were open one and half hours before. And to create a warm atmosphere, half an hour before the official event we had three musicians from our Federation sharing traditional Slovenian folk songs and religious popular hymns and holy songs. This introduction was magical in some sense because people truly enjoyed the waiting and didn’t move around the hall but remained seated.

The master of Ceremony was our brother Ales Bratcovic. He did a wonderful job, very professional, serious but at the same time close to the audience. Later on, Mr. Mirko Zamernik, Member of the National Assembly and one of our best Ambassadors of Peace, gave the welcoming remarks to Rev. Moon. Later in the program he got the Good Governance award at the hands of Rev. Yong Chol Song since he was the youngest major and one of the most respected politicians in the country. He also prepared a gift from the National Assembly and offered it to True Father.

The beautiful theater style hall was completely full. We were very grateful for the international support. Over 400 family members and Ambassadors of Peace from Italy came to support the program. To this we have to add the coming of 50 people from Austria, 40 from Croatia, 40 from Slovakia and another 40 from Spain.

Father in his speech gave quite many challenging sentences. We were worried how the audience will take such strong comments since for most of them were the first time to come to one of our events. But at the same time Father gain the trust of the people by showing his love for them and a very close almost personal relationship with the people. In fact people clapped many times. The hall remained always full and the atmosphere kept always a joyful tone.

Father enriched his speech with many comments, deep and insightful some times and funny and challenging in another times. He remained on the stage two hours and forty minutes. During this time he managed to catch the sprit of the audience, which responded with continuous applauses.

It was very clear when True Mother appeared on the stage to receive the applause and the flowers that she was extremely happy. And there was a sense of victory in the air.

On the following day, more than 600 people gathered and welcomed True Parents in the ‘White Hall’ in the same hotel. Pres. Song read the Heung-Jin Nim’s message from the spirit world and True Father gave a comment for half an hour. Several people’s singing followed and cute Shin-Jun Nim’s greeting with the True Parents’ friendly singing together, joyful Hoon Dok Hae was ended.

When True Parents party was leaving, all our people were on the street in front of the hotel to send them off with applause and whistles. This was enough expression of the feeling of sadness of their leaving but we could see all our heart were filled with the gratitude and want to welcome them again in Slovenia.

‘Thank you, thank you, True Parents, please come again!’’

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