STF's Visit to Lone Star 2nd Gen

Jason Tobkin
June 9, 2006

Hello everyone, brothers, sisters, and parents. I just wanted to share my testimony of the Houston workshop (One week Texas 2nd Generation WS at Camp Lone Star) that our team just participated in. I think going into the workshop our whole team (Vasiliy's Team) was kinda uneasy as to how we should handle this workshop, because not only were we gonna be in a staff position but we were also going to represent STF and Hyun Jin Nim before our younger brothers and sisters. So the pressure was on, which is always good!

I've had a personal connection with Texas because half of my STF year has been in Texas in Dallas, Houston, and Austin so I knew most of the kids, at least by sight. But even with all that time I still felt very distant with the BCs, old and young alike. So this was our opportunity to really get down and personal with the 2nd Gen. there.

We started with participating in a Staff workshop run by Shin Chun Hyung, the 2nd Gen. representative of Texas. He's quite an amazing brother who really took ownership of this workshop and prepared us for being able to give as much as possible to the younger 2nd Gen. Also as Director and Assistant Director we had Hiro Hernandez, a 2 year STF participant, and Stacey Cho, who did great with taking over when Shin Chun Hyung had to go.

The focus of this workshop was to "Find My True Parents." We were taught a Korean dance as a way of developing unity among the staff and we'd be teaching it to the kids as well. Some of the speeches were given by Akiko Ikeno, who has such a passionate heart to raise up the 2nd Generation and connect them to True Parents and True Family, and some from Mrs. Breyer, (otherwise know as aunt DJ) founder of the Sung Hwa academy in Texas and also Mother figure of the camp.

All the staff worked together with such heart, passion, and desire to make this workshop the best that has ever been held in Texas. As an STF team participating there for just a day and a half we wanted to be able to be the most serving and everything, but it was hard because the staff was already so awesome and well prepared!

The workshop was created so that even in such a short time we became very close to the kids. The STF members were spread throughout the 5 teams so we could all invest our hearts into our younger brothers and sisters, and we tried to bring the spirit of STF by singing energetically and passionately before lectures!

For the time we were there we could only hear Akiko Nuna's speeches. She has an amazing way of saying the same things in an entirely different way, making us able to learn so much more and I felt that was very good for the kids. She basically gave an over view of the Divine Principle and Father's course, incorporating the Vertical Axial Line. She made it very rich and personal by sharing some of her own precious experiences with True Parents and True Family.

That evening, Yoshi Tanaka, as a representative of STF gave his testimony of life on the frontline. He delivered it with so much heart and love to reach to these kids, aligning it with the focus of the workshop.

I felt, and I hope, that STF's visit had some impact on the workshop. Definitely the experience of the workshop had a big impact on me. Some participants and staff members say that because of our coming to the workshop they were now willing to say that they want to come to STF in the future which was awesome to hear!

I want to thank all of Texas and STF for allowing us to go down and help with this workshop because it was a powerful experience. And for me personally it was exactly what I needed. Take care everyone only one more month to do all we can do with this first year. God Bless!!

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