Pretty as a Picture

John Parker
June 16, 2012

John and Yuko Parker's matching in December 1980

In December of 1980, I attended the matching in the World Mission Center. I sat nervously in the Grand Ballroom, waiting for True Father to find my perfect match. I was excited to see my older brother Bill Parker and my close friends get matched. But before I knew it, morning had become afternoon, afternoon had become evening, and evening had become late at night. Finally, all of the sisters had been matched and I gave up hope that I would be matched this time. All of a sudden, they requested that brothers with several years of college sit down in several lines in front of Father. An elder Japanese member carefully handed Father a thick binder full of pictures of Japanese sisters.

Father looked up at the brothers and then flipped through the binder to find the right sisters for them. At one point he looked at me, flipped through the binder, and looked at me again. I was so excited because I knew this was the very moment Father was looking for MY match. Father took a picture out of the binder and shook it at me! News of the matching was faxed to Yuko in Japan. Because the fax made my complexion look very dark, Yuko concluded that I was from the Middle East.

Not that that was a problem, it's just that she was surprised to receive my photograph in the mail several weeks later which revealed that I was actually Caucasian! When my brother Bill and I called my parents to share the news of our engagements, they asked him about my match with Yuko. They were curious about what she was like, but instead of explaining how we were matched, he just exclaimed "She's as pretty as a picture!"

John Parker