Return to Detroit

Daniel Tracy
May 8, 2006

After having attended a very successful service project the day before, our two STF teams received another blessing of attending Sunday Service at Detroit Church on the 23rd of April - which just happened to be youth service week!

Before the service we were invited to a high-schoolers meeting where we were asked to share short testimonies of how we had grew in developing our life of faith. It was an unexpected opportunity but turned into a deep experience for both us and our 2nd gen brothers and sisters.

When the actual service was beginning we started to see the service room fill up and empty seats disappear - it was a full house, and the main event on the program was testimonies from STF! We began by singing along with the youth, then presented something of our own; new song of inspiration in Korean. Some testimonies of Chung Pyung visits and reports of outreach successes were given by local members. Mr. and Mrs. Howard gave a short but so moving testimony about the Parents' workshop. Emotions swelled as joyful and moving times were recalled and tears spread throughout the room. Mr. and Mrs. Howard testified to STF in the sincerest, most heartfelt way, leaving the audience speechless.

Our testimonies came from Yun-a, Wolsung, Thaddeus and Jason, who each gave their unique flavor of experience on STF to the members gathered. By the end of the service (which ended around 1 o'clock!) everybody's hearts were soaring as we received numerous personal thank yous. We were even invited by Mr. Nada to his Japanese restaurant for dinner - but after a little bit of fundraising of course!

As we gathered together that evening, Mr. Nada's heart was just overflowing, and we felt it. Not just though his buying more food for us than we could handle, but his deep heart and love for us, is what moved each of us. As we were slurping our Yakisoba and munching our sushi, Mr. Nada shared about his own experience of fundraising and said how he understood us completely - he had done fundraising for over 7 years. He even gave us some guidance about the frontline. He said that as we are fundraising, Satan is always looking to invade, so feelings of hopelessness, anger, fear, are all Satan trying to get us to behave like him. No matter how much you are rejected, still we have to resemble God on the frontline, not Satan, through loving unconditionally and constantly setting good conditions (fasting until reaching goal, challenging your area etc). We can all testify that we felt God and True Parents' heart through him, encouraging us on, asking us to keep going despite our struggles and challenges.

We were blessed almost too much in Detroit - now we really pledge to invest everything, especially as we prepare to attend True Parents and True Family on their tour. We deeply thank Rev. David Kasbow and Mr. Art Roselle, and all Detroit family members for their support and taking care of us!

Mansei!

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