The Words of the Wise Family

STF Testimony

Tomeo Wise
November, 2001

Tomeo is an 18-year old Second Generation member from Colorado. His parents are Roger and Hiromi Wise. He is in his first year of CARP’s Special Task Force educational program. This is an excerpt from a testimony he gave in mid-November, 2001 at an MFT workshop in Memphis, Tennessee.

My goal for this condition was to unite with my central figure, and never give up, which was our group goal. I did a confession and 40 hour fast in order to purify and prepare myself. However, I faced many challenges. I did not know my captain, Roger, and I thought I would not like him. I did not know people in my team at all. I was told we would go to Michigan, which I thought was not a good area. On top of that, I got an old MFT van, which was my van for the last 30 days. So, I was completely negative.

Once I started fundraising, I asked myself: why was I here? I knew that I needed to have clear, deeper motivation to be here. My motivation I found was to become a better person, close to God. Also, I wanted to set a better example for my sisters who were not doing so well spiritually speaking.

I realized that I needed to challenge myself more. One thing I decided to overcome was fundraising in big stores. Roger suggested me to set some conditions, like 7 people in one store. He told me to always think from God’s viewpoint, and I tried to apply his guidance to wherever I was fundraising: "I am not doing this for myself, but for God." This way, I started breaking through in big stores.

Another point I worked on was being more responsible, or taking ownership of our team. I struggled with my responsibility of converting the van, especially setting the sisters’ sleeping area. I needed to change myself, and I made efforts to make sisters happy.

I also worked on my prayer life. I used to pray for meaningless things, so I wanted to pray for the Providence. We had 40-minute prayer before the competition started on the beach at Lake Michigan. It was terrible weather, but as soon as I got out of the van, I got the desire to talk to God! In this prayer, I was able to repent for being disconnected from God all my life. This helped me a lot. From this point on, it became much easier to pray and connect to God.

On November 5th, I really wanted to reach my goal, $350. The first run, which was 4.5 hours, I restored $40. Next run, I got dropped off in the same area to continue, but I could restore $100 in the last 2 stores. After that run, I was dropped of in old people’s apartments. Anyway, I tried to visualize a $100 run, but I was asked to leave. I tried not to lose spirit and I just kept fundraising in Burger King which was across the street from the apartments. I made over $100 there. I never did well in blitzes, but I tried to focus on accomplishing my goal. I still needed $40 to reach goal. I just kept going. At the last minute, I met a person who rejected me earlier at McDonald’s. This time, he asked some questions about what I believed. I did not have time, but I gave a quick 3-blessing lecture to him. Then he prayed for me, handed me $40, and left. Because of this person, I could reach my goal exactly!

I still need to do better, focus more, and support my team more.

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