by Wolfgang Schawaller-Vienna, Austria
Recently I returned from my second trip from the Philippines. When I left in March around 30.000 or more previously married couples (PMC) have so far received the pre-blessing within only one month.
This takes place within only 30 minutes or sometime more. It depends. It's almost like home church work in an area. Teams of 3 members go door to door and introduce the blessing. Our members explain about the blessing and the whole family wants to receive the blessing. The Philippine people like to receive God's blessing.
From those couples eventually we can make core members with their children. Our members ask if this couple knows other couples who wants to join the blessing. They bring many other couples. Then the other couples bring others. It's almost like the "domino-play" effect
This is what Rev Kwak approved for the Philippines. Members report I heard sometimes up to 250 couples join the blessing. Spirit world is very active and helps our members very much. Members dream about large PMC blessing and the next day it's happening. Sometimes only a few couples. 50 couples. Any size OK. At one occasion some couples came late and could not receive the blessing and were angered. Can you believe that? It's true.
They do this sort of blessing in Africa. Quite successful. No distance to travel and most of all it doesn't cost anything or very little.
When I left Manila a group of a couple of hundreds got blessed. A spiritually open couple suddenly testified about True Parents (TP) and how everyone should follow TP. The Philippines is a very gifted country spiritually, and it's literally on fire spiritually. There are so many missionary activities by so many different churches going on, not just our UC. Spiritual healing takes place almost everywhere in this country.
The goal for the Philippines this year is 800,000 PMC. This is not the problem. The continental director of Asia Mrs. Chung Hae Park Kim wants to move about 300,000 PMC couple into Metro Manila and all the couples should receive the final blessing on November 29th from our TP via satellite on a big screen in Metro Manila, and on radio for the others who are not moving to Metro Manila.
After the ceremony they will have a rally for Family Values and TP in Manila including a picnic for all the couples.
The problem that we are facing there is of course transportation. While I was there we meet police chiefs and the army commander will be asked soon by Mrs. Kim to help in transporting those couples to Manila. They already agreed to help. We will need many thousands of trucks and buses. We couldn't pay the cost. The only way is to find sponsors. In the Philippines the members did a fine VIP work in recent years. Of course Mrs. Kim paid a lot for the VIP work.
Since a month we are buying 2 hours radio time. In this way we inform and educate those PMC blessed couples (which so far received the preliminary blessing) about virtually everything. The radius of the radio station is 200 km.
We teach DP, give important notice and international news related to our world wide church/etc. activities. The American national messiah and I were interviewed. The church wants to buy more time at this station and have many more station set up in the Philippines. It's a question of money. It's almost like the CIS. There are many similarities between the CIS and the Philippines.
TV is the next project. The Philippines is one of the most prepared country to accept TP in Asia. It's a traditionally Catholic country and the people are very religious by nature.
Way of the pre-blessing: First the members introduce the blessing. They come with the purpose to bless the whole home.
The couple receives the holy wine and the sprinkling of the holy water for them and the whole house. Then this couple hears the prayer of TF on a audio cassette or members pray. They will soon take a edited blessing tape and play it up to the couples.
The names will be registered on a application form. The couple receives a brochure about the blessing and it's history, pledge, UC addresses, etc. and other important facts. On the final day all couples will receive a blessing certificate, sponsored by the FFWP International. This certificate will bear the signature of TF and Rev Kwak and the President of FFWP-Philippines They are asked to tune in to the radio station every Sunday evening. As I said, this is the only way to guide this big numbers of PMC couples.