The Words of the Vierra Family
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The Words of the Vierra Family |
Immediately after high school, I joined STF in America. I was following my older brother's footsteps. I ended up doing STF for three years. I felt it was best for me, especially before college. Last year I entered college, where I'm studying biology. I have mostly been involved in helping Service for Peace get started in France.
My original desire was to get matched and blessed right after finishing STF, because I felt it would be the best way to receive protection when going to college and also because at that time I felt, spiritually, particularly well prepared. However, because of school it became impossible for me to do so.
Even though my mind had been mainly focusing on receiving True Father's matching, my parents asked me if I would not mind being matched by them. Actually, I could foresee a lot of value in having my parents do the matching, especially related to communication. Indeed, the most beautiful aspect of my matching was all the communication.
First of all, I knew my parents made serious conditions to be guided by Heavenly Father in their choice. After their decision, they talked to me, and then I talked to my fiancé's father. This latter conversation, by phone, was very valuable for me. Especially in that, being Korean, my father-in-law emphasized the importance of the involvement of the whole family, including the grandparents, in one's wedding, because it is a life-long commitment. So even before sharing with my fiancée, whom I did not know, I felt 100 percent trust that Heavenly Father was behind this matching.
Finally my fiancée and I and both sets of parents were able to meet. It was really beautiful. Speaking to her parents, I felt very good, as she did speaking with mine. Through this abundant sharing and our finally getting together, we came naturally to acceptance.
I am very lucky because even though my wife, Kim Yi-sun, is Korean, she speaks good English. She moved to Bosnia in 1998, where her father is the national messiah and acting national leader. Misunderstandings sometimes happen because English is not her native language and not mine, but those always end up being very funny. Nevertheless, when I came to live with her family and thus encountered the Korean culture, I experienced culture shock. It seemed to me that Korean people had no expression of love or care in their facial expression, so at first I was always worried that I might have done something wrong. Quickly, though, I became used to other, internal, ways of expressing love.
I can value both of our past experiences, my own on STF and hers living abroad as the daughter of a missionary, for the harmonious give-and-take relationship we have had to this point. Those experiences have especially helped us to come to accept each other's background and culture. It is interesting to compare Korean and European culture. We have been thinking to adopt only the good points of each for our life together and for raising our children in the future.
Before the blessing, I spent some time with some of my wife's aunts. I am grateful for the advice they gave us concerning the blessing. They encouraged us to think deeply about all our ancestors who could not for any reasons build a happy family. Even though the environment and restless preparation did not help us to focus internally, she and I kept a grateful and also repentant heart toward our ancestors. We pledged deep inside that we would strive earnestly to establish an ideal family centered on God so as to please God and to liberate our ancestors' hearts. Keeping this mind-set helped both of us to value the Blessing Ceremony.
After the blessing, I came to stay with her family in Korea and this has been wonderful. I received such a warm welcome from all her aunts and uncles; I could really feel I am becoming part of her family. I was impressed and grateful for all the wisdom her aunts wanted to communicate to us for the success of our relationship, even sharing a few times throughout the night. During the course of about a month, we came to see almost all her extended family living in Korea. Even though we could not speak the same language, we created very close bonds of heart, especially by exchanging smiles and playing together. Looking back on this time I feel it was precious; it has helped me to understand my wife's background and thus her present mindset so much better.
She will come for a short time to France to visit my family as well. In this way, we feel our union will become blessed not only by Heavenly Father but by our whole family in the way her father explained to me by telephone the first time we spoke.
These next coming years we will both focus on finishing our studies in our respective countries. We might live together after that. In this way, we would like to continue preparing our hearts before starting family life and learn to communicate well for the success of our future relationship.
Our vision for the future is to develop a serious God-centered relationship and always to keep in mind that we are pioneering the way of an ideal family, which our ancestors could not do, and therefore to feel that we want them to experience true joy through us.