More thanks as well to everybody involved in the preparations, especially Simon Rosselli and Cecilie Fortune and everyone who came and got involved and to all of you who have never been, well, you really don’t know what you are missing.  But here’s a glimpse…….

summer camp 2010 small things from Simon Cooper on Vimeo.

About 135 us spent 4 nights down near the Essex coast in a great scout camp and had an incredible time together.

big sis - lil sis

pointing towards Australia

something from my secret pal...i wonder who it could be?

at the beach

what's going on?

who's taller?

]]> http://familyfireplace.org/2010/08/summer-camp-2010-certainly-im-amazed/feed/ 3 http://familyfireplace.org/2010/06/young-generation-breathing-life-into-forgotten-cult/ http://familyfireplace.org/2010/06/young-generation-breathing-life-into-forgotten-cult/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:52:07 +0000 Tim Read http://familyfireplace.org/?p=4605 Forgotten? Well – lets do something about that!

Here’s the article from the SUN newspaper today (readership of 7.6 million):

click to view - and zoom in - or right click to download

“It was a nice coincidence when I met Emma Cox the journalist that we found out we both studied English Lit. at Newcastle, just I finished two years before she arrived there. I think she has done a good job of creating a narrative through simply telling the story of two couples.

There is so much incredible content to share from The Divine Principle and True Parents life, so we should keep on working on how to communicate it.” (Simon Cooper)

Captain Michael Dick and the team

After 3 years of entry our team finally won the Interfaith Diversity Cup here in Scotland which is played amongst a diverse group of religious and charity groups. Today 16 teams took part in this annual 5 aside football indoor tournament played in Edinburgh.

Stephan Williamson (currently in Germany on work experience)organized a team of his university friends who came together in a good display of team unity.

We won the final against a Glasgow side,who were the winners last year,on a penalty shoot out after the final match drew at 2 -2

We not only won the cup, but Murray Scott, our goal keeper won also the man of the match trophy!

Once again I would like to thank the players: Michael Dick Captain, James Steel, Ross Baird, Scott Fusco, Murray Scott, Calum Wright, Murray Scott and also our photographer and kit manager Eric Williamson.

Here is a profound STORY for all of us, sometimes angry parents, to be careful how we treat our children:

The Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, took a child to sit on his lap. While on his lap the child urinated. The prophet then asked for some water to clean himself. The father of the boy took his child and shouted “you stupid boy, what have you done,” and terrified child recoiled in fear. The Prophet hugged and consoled the child, and told the father: “My clothes can be washed. But watch how you treat your son. If you deal harshly with him like this, who can then restore his self-esteem?”

I heard this story on the radio from Abdal Hakim Murad he concluded by saying: “in its earliest years, the soul is vulnerable. Our greatest duty as parents is to preserve it from harm.”

remember kids don't think like adults, and thank goodness for that.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
(Matthew 6:21)

This is a huge principle. This is not an indictment, or a judgement. This is just a self evident truth. When people invest their money into something a bit of their heart goes to that thing. It commands their attention. Where we send our money our attention follows.

When people buy shares in a company. Even they don’t know so much about all the internal workings of the business, their eyes go to the little abbreviation which symbolises the company in the financial pages.

(the sound is fine on the video…BUT at the start of the message the radio mic is on mute for a few minutes… sound starts again at 9mins 16secs in.)

God is not interested in getting our money, but he is interested in capturing our hearts and our hearts are connected to our personal finances. I think we sometimes some of us try to pretend otherwise out of a false belief that money is ‘not of God.’

—Tithing is a spiritual law given by God to humankind to assist people in finding abundance, fulfillment, and gratitude in their everyday lives.

The law of tithing is to give 10 percent of one’s increase back to God, with God represented on the physical level by the source of one’s spiritual teachings — often a church, synagogue, mosque, or a spiritual teacher.

—When a person tithes, the universe that works under the spiritual law of tithing says, “If you have that much to give, that means you are open to receive more.”

—To be rich towards God is to give ‘our extra’ what we don’t need to those who are in need. — —Use your stuff as a tool to allow you to join in achieving a vision that is greater than your own comfort. The decision on how much EXTRA we have is always going to be down to us, and our conscience. When you see someone with just the shirt on their back and their hand stretched out in need, something tells you that you’ve got some blessings to share.

You have a little time, a little window of opportunity while you are here, so…

Turn your temporary worldly wealth into eternal wealth.

sleeping through Sainsburys

pretty in pink

We are feeling very blessed to have another baby and especially to have  a girl after having four boys. Chieko is bionic, she already came home Saturday afternoon. Am doing my best to be a helpful husband/father and do more than I usually do. She does need to rest more.

The boys are properly blessed. They needed a sister. Eddie is not the youngest any more, and seems much bigger all of a sudden.

Here are a few clips from their first moments with their little sister:

I will remember this birth. Well especially if I put something down here now. Chieko went into hospital on Thursday night, and told me what to put in the packed lunches for the boys. The contractions became less frequent but they kept her in and then on Friday evening they started to get stronger again. After having taken the boys to McDonalds for dinner…fridge was a bit bare, I left them with a a friend of ours at home, and was planning to go and see Chieko and then pop into Lancaster Gate: we were doing an evening reading of the Book of Acts, all 28 chapters. But I never got there. Chieko was saying, “why don’t you go to LG, the baby wont come for a few more hours….” Felt like that would not really be the right thing to do. I mentioned this to Dolores Read on the phone who was helping with the prayer for the baby. She said: ” Well, there are a lot of people to join in the reading at LG, but Chieko only has one husband.” Enough said.

Anyhow, I read along in the delivery room from my little Gidean, while Chieko waited. William Haines pointed out to me it’s a good chapter to read at such a time, since Acts all about the birth of the church. It felt special to think of the 21 people reading in LG while we waited for the baby to arrive. The next thing I knew it was about 1am, I was just waking up in the rocking chair (yes they had a rocking chair in the delivery room – v comfy) and Chieko was getting ready with the midwife to give birth. I called Dolores to let her know for the prayer. I was still kind of waking up and then the baby came. It all felt quite calm and peaceful, just the three of us and then well I guess it was four of us in the room. The midwife asked me if I wanted to cut the chord. I had to have two goes but managed it in the end.

Chieko was amazing all 9 months. Also, the midwife was great, looked like she could have helped deliver the baby in her sleep. After a while I held the baby for 30 minutes while Chieko had a much needed power nap. And then at about 4.45am I came home. Woke Damon up and told him he had a little sister, he smiled or said something. And then I crashed out for a few hours, bit tired.

Still thinking of a name. I think we are getting there. It’s hard after four boys to get into girls names. And I just feel like she should have a name no one else has. I guess that is why the names True Father used to give to families for their children are so special, cuz you will not find them anywhere else other than in that individual’s passport.

Having been matched with Chieko by True Parents and then receiving the marriage blessing from God through them, everything that happens in our family starts from True Parents. So, when we celebrate and experience the joy of new life, I remember and give thanks to God and True Parents because with out them this family would not exist.

figuring out the message

We are doing our best to plan a national campaign to allow for as many of us as possible to get involved. I want to share with you the skeleton timeline that we have come up with:
22nd March – 11th April:
• Printing and mailing leaflets
• Promoting and presenting campaign vision to congregation
• 21 days of spiritual devotion

12th – 25th April:
• 2 weeks of focused outreach with 360 leaflets per member

25th April – 16th May:
• 3 week message series with a theme for new guests in each local church
(Prepare in advance hospitality team in each church to welcome and involve guests in fellowship. Prepare people to teach.)
4th – 6th June
• Weekend Divine Principle workshop (30 new guests/30 new members)

Goal and focus:
• Join together in spirit with True Parents and Hyung Jin Nim as they make a new start with the new Cheon Il Guk calendar and the new temple.
• Bring spiritual revival to our congregation.
• Bring a new culture of celebrating and sharing our faith in True Parents and the spiritual power of the Divine Principle.
• Welcome new members to our local church communities.

as Matt Damon says in Green Zone: "get your game face on - we're going in..."

I have started going out again over the last month to witness in the street and reach out to friends inside our church community and also beyond. What has struck me is how much this work is like a living prayer. As I share what I believe everything comes into focus, and I am guided to understand more deeply what my faith is about. We all need that. It’s similar to my experience of starting to take on our Lancaster Gate HQ church. When our vision and ideas are related to something tangible they come into focus; we can evaluate and start to see more clearly. (Principle of Creation 3.2)
For me what it means to be a member of our Unification Movement is to worship God (every day and with others), tithe, teach the Principle, and bring people to True Parents so that they may experience rebirth. We need to get ourselves some tangible steps in these different areas so that being a church member becomes clearer for our life. As long as it remains vague I am wasting not only God’s time, but my own.
The other experience I had is that I need to be a witness as well as do outreach. (It’s a divine principle to be and to do.) I need to be a witness to my wife, to my children, members of our community, my wider circle of friends, and to new people I meet. But especially within my family and community it needs to happen everyday. And this is when it gets personal: we are learning how to share God’s love and True Parents’ love that we have experienced. To be a witness I have to cultivate something to share.
This is why we want to start with 3 weeks of spiritual revival. We are preparing in HQ tonight by having a reading of all 28 chapters of the Book of Acts from the New Testament. We hope to read that between 9pm – midnight. Now if you are already outreaching and feeling like a witness or want to get started straight away then go for it! I know many of you are already doing a lot to reach out, and spiritual revival of course does not exclude outreach. We just felt we need to make conditions together in our community to bring the Holy Spirit into our relationships and personal lives.
There is a lot more to say, and probably lots more questions to answer, but maybe this is enough for now.

Just to conclude: let’s make this a successful campaign where we learn from our experience, grow through our mistakes, and celebrate with each other when we bare fruit. I believe we will come out the other side in better spiritual shape, like a body with fresh blood being pumped through it.

my due date is next wednesday but I am expecting the baby to come this Friday because this Wednesday and Thursday is not so practical for our schedule. I just want to be back to a normal state so I don’t need to make a determination to stand up again after sitting down. Last two weeks were quite tough in that sense.

This pregnancy I received lots of blessing from lots of people especially from children’s classmates’ parents. They are all really excited about the baby.

I was a super healthy eater in the last 9 months and only ate out 4 times, once in McDonald’s, twice chinese, and once Simon took me to the River Cafe. I cooked really healthy meals everyday for 9 months.

Wednesday 17th March

I just need to do one more load of laundry and just go and buy and prepare a birthday present for one of kids’ friend’s party, all these kind of practical things….I just want it to be quick now, don’t want to wait longer. However, this afternoon, I went to the hospital and it looks like we have another week or so to wait until the baby is born.

i thought it was going to come much earlier. …my life is good, there is always a lot to laugh about with Simon, especially about the kids and all the things they say and do.

We still haven’t found a name.

Planning to start writing more often, if Simon helps me.

me and the boys in the British Museum (Simon is behind the camera)

Recently there was excellent cooperation between the brothers and sisters of STF, other second generation young people, Central London church, UPF Secretariat and Ambassadors for Peace, who came together to hold a Blessing Seminar, Ceremony and Entertainment.

Eleven couples were blessed amid a very beautiful atmosphere, even though in some cases only one of the couple could attend. While there were elements to improve for future occasions, it was an important stage in the development of a working system to educate and bless our contacts and Ambassadors for Peace.

One of the joys of having an STF* team present is that they mingled with the wedding guests, brides and grooms, and sang to them to create the nice atmosphere. Chris and Catherine Moloney also sang at both the beginning and the end of the programme … in fact the singing caught on, and by the end of the Marriage Blessing Ambassadors for Peace too were singing and and dancing.

After interfaith prayers from Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Islamic faiths, Bharat Koria, an Ambassador for Peace, spoke to the audience to say that Father Moon is the source of True Love that makes the Blessing possible. The  majority of couples were re-dedicating their marriages to each other, but one couple exchanged rings in what was their wedding ceremony.

Holy nectar/wine ceremony

The Moloneys sing for everyone

Simon Cooper and Robin Marsh gave a seminar on marriage values and the purpose of the Marriage Blessing, and Margaret Ali filled in any gaps in the event and introduced the interfaith prayers. Mr. Marsh was even able to talk about the Marriage Blessing on the radio show of one person who, at the last moment, was unable to attend and wanted other people to understand what it was all about.

The Hayashis – a well-respected elder Japanese couple were the officiators for the Holy Blessing ceremony. Our thanks must also go to Naomi Sato and Ann  Kobayashi for preparing the refreshments, and to Joyce Suda who took care of receiving the guests, grooms and brides.

*STF: Teams of young volunteers, usually on a gap-year.