The Words of the Kikin Family
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The Words of the Kikin Family |
The history of the Unification movement in Ukraine began in 199I. The foundation for it was laid through the supreme effort and sacrifice of Korean, Japanese, American and European missionaries who totally invested their hearts into developing God's providence in the harsh spiritual climate of our country in the post-communist years. In August 1996, when our Korean national messiah, Rev. Su-won Chung (who was blessed among the thirty-six couples) visited Ukraine for the first time, he met around a hundred members, some of whom were already blessed.
During a three-day workshop, he shared through a translator his life-long experiences of attending and following True Parents and his deep love toward the Divine Principle, which has helped us better understand how to practice the Principle in our lives. Many brothers and sisters adopted his tradition of reading fifteen pages of Divine Principle every day. He and his wife visited Ukraine often, and it felt like the beginning of a new age for our country. More changes followed after Chung Su-won's fourth son, Chung Jin-pal, came to Ukraine in February 1999 in response to True Father's direction that three generations of the national messiah's family dedicate themselves to developing the providence in their nation.
Based on the conviction that our life of faith should resemble True Parents' course, our Korean national messiah's family suggested a twenty-one-year plan for Ukraine's development modeled after True Parents' twenty-one-year course from 1960 through 1980. This has become a strategic guide for all the activities of the Ukrainian movement.
The central idea of the plan is that in every aspect of our lives and activities we should aim to embody the maximum of God's Shim Jung while horizontally following the pattern of True Parents' vertical providence during three seven-year periods. These periods project onto the Ukrainian reality the development of True Parents' providential mission.
Describing the plan in detail is a topic for another article, but here is a brief example: During 1960-1967 True Father established the Unification family through expanding membership and conducting Blessing Ceremonies. Accordingly, the first seven-year course in the Ukrainian twenty-one-year plan is a "family level" course as it sets the focus on expanding the local church family through witnessing, education and the blessing. Practical goals for this course included building the temple (training center) which we simply didn't have before, starting some businesses in order to create a financial foundation and beginning public relations activity in order to foster positive public opinion about the Unification Movement in Ukraine.
The subsequent two seven-year periods are on the national and international level. The second seven-year period in our plan focuses on the further expansion of participation in Blessing Ceremonies, creating a church education system and wider interaction with NGOs. During our third seven- year course we plan to cooperate with branches of the Unification Movement in other countries to create the foundation for our society to recognize True Parents.
When we first heard the plan on God's Day 2000, no one was able to grasp the idea. Yet, several months later, when Rev. Jin-pal Chung discussed it again with a group of leaders who worked in Ukraine headquarters at that time, it was one of the greatest sources of inspiration ever. The plan has created a powerful vision for everyone from individuals and families to the entire movement, as well as a strong sense of involvement with True Parents' providence. It has afforded us a much deeper understanding of the meaning of all our activities, given clear definitions and criteria, which we use to evaluate our progress. Generally, the twenty-one-year plan became the core vision around which we strongly united with our national messiah.
Implementing the plan required developing a system that would allow us to attain the goals set. We started working in accordance with this plan in 2000 and therefore are now in the middle of the second seven-year course.
We have faced opposition from the authorities until now; we are still unable to register the Unification Church in Ukraine. Although the result of our activities is still comparatively small, the plan shows that we will be able to achieve victory by following the trail that our True Parents have blazed. All members are united with this vision. We regularly analyze to what extent our lives and activities correspond with the plan in reality. Such analysis allows us to understand both our strengths and weaknesses, to correct our mistakes and to direct our efforts properly.
We started using the Korean word "jeondo"' instead of "witnessing," to remind ourselves about the deep meaning of the original term. We realized that in essence jeondo means changing yourself with the help of the Divine Principle, as only then are we able to witness to people, whether meeting them on the street or in executive offices.
"Change" has become our motto and mantra. We regularly analyze how much we have succeeded and often find that we need to correct ourselves; being too excited about the process, we forget that what matters is the result.
We reevaluated the very basics of our faith and were inspired to change our nature, thinking, concepts, behavior and culture. Having experienced the changes in themselves, leaders who worked in headquarters directly with Rev. Jin-pal Chung started passing on this vision to center leaders and then to all other members, uniting everyone around one vision and spreading the useful virus of change. It has been a long and sometimes painful process, but when members feel changes in themselves, when their own understanding, character and behavior has changed, they are empowered and can confidently witness to guests.
The national messiah nurtured the tradition of constant Divine Principle study. The love for the Divine Principle has naturally awakened in us the desire to convey it to others. Brothers and sisters invite people on the streets with the goal of bringing guests to a twenty-one-day Divine Principle workshop and having the guest join the year-long education program after which they will be able to help develop the providence.
In order to achieve better results we have worked out a plan and are developing an education system based on True Father's directions. In 1994, True Father spoke about giving lectures directly from the Divine Principle book, so all our one-, two- and twenty#one-day workshops are given using Exposition of the Divine Principle and the Divine Principle outline with diagrams prepared by Mrs. Eu. Our experience giving lectures in this way since 2003 has shown that the internal qualities of guests who join the movement after such workshops greatly improved.
After an introductory talk, one- and two-day workshops and advanced Divine Principle lectures, guests go through the "actionizing" program which consists of lectures on life of faith and tradition, practical engagement in mannudboklavi (fund raising), jeondo (witnessing) and attending Sunday services. The first level education program's goal is to prepare the guest for the twenty-one-day workshop and to encourage him to join the one-year education team.
Currently, seven Ukrainian cities have an education center. All the centers follow the same program for first-level guests, after which the guests attend a twenty-one day workshop conducted by our headquarters. This workshop includes two identical parts. In each part, the participants study the Divine Principle book in full and True Parents' course. This helps them understand the Principle better and feel a deeper affinity toward True Parents. If the guests cannot attend the whole workshop, they can attend half of it.
For guests who are not able to join the year-long education program, we have an alternative program that they can participate in at their local center while continuing their studies or work.
We hold six twenty-one-day workshops a year. The workshop dates for the year are decided in advance, which makes planning easier and helps us prepare the guests for the workshops.
When True Parents visited Ukraine on October 20, 2005, True Father proposed that students take a year off from their studies in order to learn and practice the Principle. In line with this, for the year-long education program, students take a year of academic leave.
The program aims to educate Shim Jung leaders who are able to gain a global vision and dedicate themselves to realizing the providence True Parents are guiding. After graduating this program people generally become full-time or home members of the movement.
It has become a tradition to hold three forty-day pioneering campaigns every year. The term "pioneering" relates not only to preparation for opening centers in new cities but also to bringing activities of the existing centers to a deeper level. Besides full-time members we mobilize students, actionizers and blessed wives to join the campaigns as well. For many members such campaigns became break-through moments.
After analyzing the previous ten years' witnessing results, we were able to make overall goals that we divided among the members. Each member is to send 6 guests per year to the one- year education team. To do this requires each member to bring 12 guests to a twenty-one-day workshop, 48 guests to a two-day workshop, 96 guests to a one-day workshop and 286 guests to an introductory lecture (roughly, one guest per day except weekends).
From this, we have our goals for each week, month and year, and we monitor our results. A center leader checks on and helps brothers and sisters fulfill their personal goals. Every week, center leaders give Shim Jung reports, which include not only numbers but also descriptions of the emotional situation of the center members, their struggles and victories. Through these reports, the headquarters staff can understand the situation and provide better guidance. Throughout the year, the elder members from headquarters visit the centers and do street witnessing, in order to personally set an example and to understand the centers' situation better and to help take care of the members.
Five to six times a year we hold all-Ukrainian members' meetings in Kiev with the goal to educate our brothers and sisters. At these meetings we convey True Parents' recent instructions and guidance, news about current providential events in the world, share our experiences of success and analyze results.
The majority of our full-time members are young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-seven. Understanding how important parents' support is, we help brothers and sisters witness to their parents. During such meetings we hold a one-day Divine Principle workshop, answer parents' questions and share with them about different activities of the Unification Movement in Ukraine and abroad.
For brothers and sisters to gain a global vision and an intercultural communication experience we invited second-generation members from other countries to Ukraine. They were the Second Generation Educators Team (SET) from Europe and students from Korea and Japans We organized a variety of service projects, meetings with volunteer groups, sports competitions and sightseeing for them in several Ukrainian cities. During these programs, the young brothers and sisters from other countries and first-generation Ukrainians members of a similar age could experience street witnessing and practice giving Divine Principle lectures. From the testimonies we heard, we are confident that the program helps participants see the Principle in a different light and realize its value more deeply.
The experience gained in Ukraine inspired all the program participants. The second-generation members could meet people their own age who were not born into the movement but choose to follow True Parents. At the same time the Ukrainian brothers and sisters met young second-generation members who have dedicate themselves to fulfilling God's will. This gave them inspiration and a practical vision that their children will be able to follow such a course. This type of international program allows young people to develop internally as well as externally and gain an interesting experience of intercultural communication expanding their vision to a global level.
Our brothers and sisters are happy to welcome young people from all over the world and through cooperating, continue to grow and support True Parents in building Cheon Il Guk by 2013. By inheriting their tradition we want to embody it ourselves and set the model for the younger generation.
With deep appreciation to our elders who have set a standard of faith by walking a path of blood, sweat and tears, we understand that victory will come if we sacrifice ourselves, are willing to challenge our own thinking and take the position of an object partner. Overall, our experience in the Ukraine shows that through practicing the Divine Principle and striving to have our path resemble True Parents' course, while correlating the horizontal providence in our country with the cosmic-level vertical providence, we are able to achieve consistent results.
I was reading True Father's speech and found the following phrase: "In order to gain victory in jeondo (witnessing), God's words must always resound in the center." I kept that in my mind and tried to convey the idea to brothers and sisters. I realized that what we do on earth affects the spirit world as well. Therefore, when we read the Divine Principle and do Hoon Dok Hae in the center, it influences the spirit world and the center atmosphere in a very good way.
In the early days in Korea, President Hyo-won Eu would give lectures for sixteen hours a day. This was a very important condition in order to achieve victory in witnessing. When I was in the city of Poltava, we did a three-day condition of lecture training by reading the Divine Principle twenty-four hours a day, each one of us reading for an hour.
Soon after, one of our members met a famous astrologist from Poltava, Mr. Vereshyagin and invited him to our center. When he visited us, he was simply amazed by the energy he felt there. He was exclaiming with delight saying, "How did you find such a place in Poltava?" He mentioned that he had visited various famous monasteries and churches, pyramids and had even been to Tibet but had never found such a place. He did not know that we had been doing the condition of reading Divine Principle.
For me, the pioneering started from the three-day workshop we had prior to the campaign. By that time, I had already gained the determination to bring a good result. During the prayer at the end of the workshop, I spiritually received a sword and a helmet and felt the spirit world's support. I didn't think about anything other than how to win in this forty-day battle. First, I had to win over myself. In order to discipline myself, improve my character and gain unity with God, my goals were to control sexual desire, the desire to eat and the desire to sleep. In other words, I had to overcome myself and not be a slave of my weaknesses.
After Hoon Dok Hae and morning exercises, I stood at the whiteboard and practiced Divine Principle lectures until late at night. My back and knees ached, and my throat hurt because of reading aloud. All kinds of thoughts kept coming to my mind, such as, "Why am I doing this? Perhaps I should do something else." There constantly seemed to be other things to do in the center, but I kept in mind the experience of having received the sword and helmet and the spirit world's hope for me to become a victor.
Our center was surrounded by eight old churches and a monastery; it's a historic and spiritual place. Grand Duke Vladimir started baptizing the Kyivian Rus from this very place. With the spiritual foundation of our ancestors and saints, I was desperately calling upon them and upon Heaven for help in order to gain support in witnessing. But I understood clearly that the results mainly depended on me, on my dedication to serve God and fulfill my mission.
Every week from Saturday midnight until 4 AM, all our center members were doing a vigil condition. Every evening, we discussed the guests' situation and planned the next day. It was very difficult to accomplish the goal if we didn't plan clearly who would do what.
Once a month we give public lectures in schools. One day we got a phone call from the Police Department of Juvenile Delinquency inviting us to visit them. From my previous experiences with the police, I could not expect anything good from this meeting. I was very worried and my heart was beating extremely fast. When I entered the department, several investigators pierced me with their glances. One of them introduced himself and said that he really liked the lectures we were giving in schools.
Since then we have been cooperating closely with the police in educating teenagers. This friendship has helped us in a situation with the mother of one of our guests. She didn't know clearly who we were but had heard a lot of unfavorable information and therefore came to the police with a complaint. Due to our friendship with them, everything was very quickly resolved and the mom let her son join the yearly education program.
We did our best in order to achieve the goal and change ourselves, and over the forty days, Heaven helped us prepare six people who participated in the twenty-one-day Divine Principle workshop and then graduated into the yearly program. During the year our center sent twenty guests to do a twenty-one-day workshop.