The Words of the Verheyen Family
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The Words of the Verheyen Family |
Dear family
We send our love and prayers from the Netherlands to our True Parents and our brothers and sisters through the Way of the World.
The Way of the World is a great inspiration to all the family. We look for it each month. Thank you for putting it into print.
Before I start month report, here is a general outline of the nature of a Dutchman.
The Dutch family unit is very strong and plays a major role in this society. The bonds in the family are very close and social relationships are largely centered in the family. Consideration respect and obedience are of first importance in the relationship between children and parents, and this makes it difficult for people to center their love completely on our True Parents. The sensitivity of the Dutch to the personal needs and interests of others makes them love Now Testament, so it is difficult for them to allow our Father to love through them in the Complete Testament way of loving.
The Dutchman is outwardly open and friendly but it is not easy to break through his inner reserve. He is always on guard. Both of these characteristics are much molded by his natural environment, particularly by the sea.
The sea has been on one hand a friend, bringing trade and empire but on the other hand an enemy. The sea has further influenced the Dutch by making them very strong and hardworking stubborn and courageous, watchful and of a serious disposition.
Their stubborn logical approach to life appraises each new step or venture before it is embarked upon, so makes it difficult for them to change their way of thinking.
But it is good for Father that once they accept principle then nothing will sway their decision once made.
Being people of the earth natural and physical minded they find spiritual concepts difficult to grasp as they are not spiritual overall. They long to be good and have high moral standard, they are extremely thrifty and save everything, yet give extravagantly all they have. They are so sensitive and considerate that they are adamantly convinced that only their way is correct and yet are most tolerant to foreigners and strangers. They are very proud, independent individuals and yet extremely humble.
The big event of this month was the publication about the Divine Principle movement by a well -- known magazine here in Holland
We were happy to see the positive way the article was written. We hope this will inspire other magazines to write only positive articles for their magazines.
We mailed out letters to many leaders of groups and people who are of importance to the public, asking them to read the article and then contact us. We have already received some replies. One man who is the secretary of a spiritual group, came to the house for more information. We gave him the 12 chapters.
We had a very happy Children's Day celebration all the members came to the Amsterdam center, we had a big dinner with singing with much joy. Teddy spoke to us about the Unified Family in every country. We saw slides of our Leader and Mother's visit in Europe and the blessing in Essen.
We always long for our Parents return to us when we see the pictures. We received very much spiritual growth and many wonderful memorable moments of their visit with us. At midnight we all gathered for 40 minutes of prayer and thanks to our Heavenly Father fer making Children's Day come true.
After the prayer we went to the Holy Ground and had prayer again, and at 1 o'clock in the morning there were shouts of Mansei, Monsei, Monsei ringing through the park.
We have had many new people come to the center this month. and are now having an all out drive witnessing to students.
We have 2 large universities in Amsterdam and there are a lot of students in this city. We hope that out of these students a good leader will come forth, who will turn the university over to the Heavenly Father. We are also trying to get into the high- schools. We have one young high school boy studying with us. He is much interested and wants his school to know about us.
We receive' a letter from another high school boy who lives in a nearby city. He had received a hand bill from us. He was interested in the Unified Family and was writing about us as a report for one of his high school classes. The high schools are becoming more open to the teaching of different religious being to them.
One of the boys spoke to a group of young students, who want to make the world a better place to live in. Five of them came to the center. They were much interested in us, a group living together as a Family with such harmony and love.
There are many groups trying to live in a family like group, but fail in their effort. They wanted to know our basis for making harmony. We told them our foundation was the Principle.
The Holland Family is new on a 120 Day Fast and Praying 40 minutes each day to make a condition for 120 people to accept the Principle in the near future.
Paul and Christel {Werner] from Essen, Germany visited us for a day. In the late afternoon we returned to Essen with them to see all the progress they have made during the last two months.
They are going ahead full speed with so many new and young faces. Paul took us to their new center a University city nearby and to see the new business they had just opened. We were very happy to see this new progress in Germany.
One of the patents members visited us from forth Holland.
They had read the article in the Bres Planete. They thought with great joy the first chapter to them, and they were very impressed. We want to win the parents of the members.
We wish to thank all of you for your informative letters this month.
We send our love in our True Parents name.
Teddy and Pauline