The 8000 Blessed Couples of the Washington, DC, metro area celebrated their 12th anniversary on the evening of October 15 at New Hope Academy in Landover Hills, Maryland. More than 100 brothers and sisters gathered for the occasion. Dr. and Mrs. Hugh Spurgin spoke on the topic "Blessed Family Life in the Completed Testament Age."

Organized by the 8000 BFA of Washington, DC, the event marked the 12th anniversary of those couples blessed either at Madison Square Garden (July 1, 1982) or at Chamshil Gymnasium in Seoul (October 14, 1982). There are 214 families from the 8000 Blessing in the DC metro area.

Dr. Spurgin spoke about the process of preparing our children for independence and shared reminiscences of their daughter's matching and Blessing in 1992. He compared our experience as parents, giving our children increasing responsibilities and trusting them to fulfill them, with True Father's increasing trust and reliance upon us.

Mrs. Norah Spurgin emphasized the importance of our children building deep relationshops with other blessed children. She said she organized summer camp and other means of bringing blessed children together to form bonds that will fortify and protect them as they enter the adult world.

Two gifts were prepared for each couple attending the celebration. One was a small book of speeches by True Father, Hyo Jin Nim, In Jin Nim, and James Baughman on the topic of the Blessing. The other is a directory of the 8000 couples in the DC metro area. The metro area chaircouples (William and Donna Selig, Paul and Jutta Tobkin, Mehrdad and Anna Mizani, and Robert and Diane Abendroth) prepared and conducted a survey and entered all the information into a database. The directory includes all the blessed children's names and birthdates and several charts showing our "growth" curve. There are 502 blessed children in the DC metro area.

The focus of the evening was internal rededication. All the couples recited our wedding vows and sang "Song of the Banquet." Local brothers and sisters--Otmar Weinman, Patsy Casino, Antonio Betancourt, and Fran Ichijo--offered a beautiful variety of songs. Carlos Betancourt prepared a sumptuous dinner that was enjoyed by all. Door prizes included a 13-inch color television and 50 grams of ginseng extract. The grand prizes were two large framed photos of True Parents (donated by Ken Owens of New Future Films). Larry Moffitt was the master of ceremonies. Letters of congratulations were sent by Ambassador and Mrs. Philip Sanchez and Dr. and Mrs. Bo Hi Pak.

At the seventh celebration of our Blessing, President Baughman said, "The BFA is not a formal organization. It is more accurately defined as an informal gathering of brothers and sisters where we can support each other in a horizontal way. In other words, it is not the same as the church hierarchy. The association is very important to understand because it doesn't matter what position one holds in the church--president, state leader, fundraiser--we are all equal in this association. We share similar concerns and the need to support one another."

At the same event, Hyo Jin Nim described the Blessing as "the beginning point of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, when we go to the spirit world, we will not go there because of some record or external achievement, but because of our Blessing. The key will be our blood lineage with the True Parents. That will be the connection that we will have to Heavenly Father when we go to spirit world."

--by William and Donna Selig

Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Copyright Information