Before....

...and After

Cleeve House Youth Program (CHYP) England is designed to give you the most creative time of your life. Based on your personal interests you can spend time achieving what you barely even dared to dream before.
CHYP has come about through the understanding of the need for our church youth to do a year of public service and to provide them with a wider option of programs to take part in, while at the same time giving them the opportunity to contribute to the movement at large especially in a creative way. CHYP provides a transition period between Family life and college challenges. It encompasses the components of internship, study and volunteering.

The program consists of 4 elements: Internal Development, Event Management, House Improvement and your Interest Development Project. It provides a unique opportunity for participants to challenge themselves and grow internally while being supported by a caring family structure.

“CHYP helped me a lot with developing my faith and becoming more public minded. I experienced the incredible feeling of working together as a team for a higher purpose. My time on CHYP also gave me experience in the fields of service, house maintenance, and renovation. I learned that you don’t always need a collage degree to make a difference.” –Anna Freeland, former CHYP member.

Cleeve House Youth Program is and ongoing program, so it is never too late to apply.

For more information, feel free to contact Cleeve House staff: info@cleeve-house.com

On Sunday, 20th December 2009, fourteen FFWPU members visited the Westmead Old Peoples’ Home at Westbourne Park to spend a few hours serving our senior citizens during the season of goodwill!

Three cars arrived at Westmead just after 2pm. As soon as we settled in, Marshall de Souza introduced our group and the aims of the FFWPU charity to the residents who were seated around the room, after which we began singing Christmas carols.

We had rehearsed eight carols at Lancaster Gate, under the direction of George Ostapko; however, in the spirit of Christmas, we accepted requests from an attentive audience, increasing our repertoire to twelve – one for “each day of Christmas!”
Around 3pm, we organised ourselves in serving tea, coffee and mince pies (the latter – all 100 of them – an offering to the home from FFWPU). Following that, we took time to talk to the residents, even going downstairs to meet those who could not make it to the hall above! Naomi Sato prepared a small gift for each resident; also, we all signed a Christmas card for each of them.

I really feel that this was a lovely thing to do – offering our love and service to our elder brothers and sisters in the community. In fact, one of the residents is a former Korean War veteran, and good contact of David Franklin. The manager mentioned that she would like us to come again, perhaps to have a talk and discussion on a pertinent subject. We left feeling happy and uplifted!

(Report by Marshall de Souza)

During a conversation with Chieko over a cup of coffee last week, the topic of homeschooling was mentioned. I have to be honest and say that I’m not a big fan of the idea. I’m not against the idea of getting an education at home, but rather the idea that parents need to “shield” their children from the evils of the world that irks me to no end. I was raised on the principle that “your children are not for you but for the future world.”

One of the most defining pieces of advice from my childhood that my father gave me was “What do you think it means that Jesus was in this world but not of this world?” At the time, I had just returned from a Unificationist boarding school in Korea and was thoroughly convinced that everything the “outside” world had to offer was evil, from shorts to interacting with the opposite sex to school dances, thanks to the theological interpretations of 12-year-olds. The 8th grade dance was fast approaching and my father had insisted that I attend with my friends (the only condition being that I didn’t slow dance with any boys).

I thought he was crazy for insisting such a radical thing. Most of the parents of my church friends were bribing their children not to go, and here my father was trying to force me to go! But when I asked him why he wanted me to go, he posed that question about Jesus to me. When I answered that I wasn’t sure what it meant, he proceeded to explain the meaning of it: Jesus was a part of this world. He did things and participated with other people in things, but he had a different motivation and purpose for everything that he did. By gaining such experiences with the view to relate to others, he was better equiped to help them. Of course, he also never lost his standard while being involved in such experiences, but that’s not the point. The point is: By isolating ourselves from the common experiences that everyone goes through, we’re less likely to be able to relate and build the good influential relationships we need to help others.

In science, antiviral drugs like flu jabs are made from a piece of the actual virus itself. The virus and the cure share something in common but behave differently in the body. If our children are born to help the world, then it’s vital for them to experience the hypocrisy and some of the evils in the world and be able to overcome or see through it. How can we learn to love others who hurt us if we avoid situations where we can be hurt? (“…the most beautiful thing is to forgive your enemy, move forward with a loving heart and be embraced by God.“) How can we teach others to do the same if we haven’t experienced the difficulty of it ourselves?

I hope that Matthew and I can always raise our children with the purpose of teaching them how to serve the world and help their fellow man as best as they can. That is what inspires me most about this religious community: that we live for the purpose of serving the whole.

Besides, from my experience, Unificationists tend to be strong-natured people. And when a strong-natured person lacking experience with the “outside” world is first thrown into it (like at university), there can be something of an explosion – and not in a good way, like when you drop a Mentos into a bottle of Coke and put the cap back on.

Some people don’t find Sunday service inspiring. So they stop going. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t want some spiritual inspiration every now and again.

So out pops Refresh – a project started by me and Steven.

Are we a service? Are we a small group? Even we still aren’t too sure about the answer to that. All we know is that we try to think outside of the box.

What do we do? We’ve tried different ways of inspiring people, from meditation/reflections/prayer to watching short videos (like the one below) and then discussing to testimonies to simply having a round-table discussion about faith-related topics (favorite Unificationist tradition, anyone?). We also try to make things interesting with stuff like outings and end-of-the-month dinners.

Where and when is it? Refresh is every Sunday at 6:30pm. (Don’t worry, we almost never run over 1 hour for the main spiritual guidance.) And in recent developments, Refresh has developed into a roaming service. Can’t make it? We can come to you now!

Be sure to check our Facebook page to see where the next event is. If you become a fan, you can get updates straight into your Facebook News Feed every time you login.

We hope to see you sometime!

Fresh from the press – East London

While the wind was howling outside at our windows we were listening to the message of our youth pastor Francis Foobie on Sunday, 1  Nov 2009.  In preparation we sang some songs together, as seen here.

Our church Service takes place at

the

YMCA in Romford

Yes, I know the song is ‘be thou my vision’, but I am sure I heard a line in there which was ‘our vision’. I like ‘our’ because what’s a vision if it doesn’t go beyond me? Or to put it positively: a vision that goes from ‘my’ to ‘our’ has got to be nearer to God, one would hope so at least.

SO a big thank you to Steven and the choir for putting in the effort and taking up the choir ministry for the Saturday Service. Please have a listen to the low tech iPhone recording; they are not shy cuz they know they can sing, and will sing.

Seeing them in the back room in LG late on a Wednesday night lifted me up, because this is what I hope our worship can be about: coming together to prepare something for God and to move the hearts of others to feel closer to the grace of God.

If any students or anyone from the Saturday Service congregation wants to join the choir, please talk to Steven. As he said when he started to invite people to join in:

“…don’t worry, I welcome anyone to join who has enthusiasm. Don’t worry if you think you can’t sing, I’m in the business of creating miracles. Just feel free to give it a go.”

Thank you everyone who took part in the survey! Your time and responses are very much appreciated! However, we only got 54 responses for this survey. We need a lot more answers to really gain a better understanding of what the community is thinking and feeling and in order to build a more representative sample. If you know of any family members or friends who have access to the internet but haven’t been filling in the surveys please encourage them to do so! The more answers we get the better! Thanks again.

Luly Strait

(Click on images to see full size)

The responses for “When volunteering in the past, what good experiences have you had?” included:

Percentages of responses by region

SERVING OTHERS
“You experience extreme joy when giving to others. Something very simple can make somebody tremendously happy.”
“Simply put, I have met God through serving others”

UNDERSTANDING AND EXPERIENCING GOD
“I have felt God’s guidance and love, through practising my faith, in living for others.”
“To understand God and T.P. heart more than before.”

PERSONAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
“Sense of reward, learning new things, meeting new people, receiving positive energy.”
“To do good for others and relate this internally to God, it always creates that good and heavenly feel., it helps gain new insights and skills, and get to know other people which you otherwise not.”

MEETING NEW PEOPLE
“ I met a lot of new people, and broke through a lot of concepts with people.”

The responses for “When volunteering in the past, what challenges were you faced with? What have been the most difficult experiences for you?” included:

Percentage of respondent’s ages

TIME ISSUES
“That of finding the actual time required, due to family constraints and the freedom to do anywhere near as much as wishing to.”

FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY
“Sometimes the challenge has been within- for example, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to do a good enough job.”
“Wondering if I am really able to do a good enough job and overcoming those inhibitions which might otherwise prevent me from giving.”

DIFFICULT COLLEAGUES
“Most difficult has been colleagues who are unable to communicate and can’t work with others to create something over the long term.”

MONETARY REQUIREMENTS
“Sometimes I struggle to even find the money to travel to the destination, if the project requires a small investment, I very often does not have it even though I am working.”
“The main difficulties for me were the time and money spent travelling to the regular location.”

Percentage of respondents who are and are not already volunteering

LACK OF SUPPORT AND GRATITUDE FOR EFFORTS
“A feeling by some of not being grateful for my efforts.”
“Things are taken for granted after a while (without noticing how much trouble you are going through), lack of support (occasionally).”

BEING ASKED TO MORE
“Volunteering for one project and getting swamped with requests for other projects and being asked to do more than I would have liked.”

DISORGANISATION

The responses for “In what ways would you like to support our FFWPU community more? And how can we help to make that more possible?” included:

OFFERING MORE MONEY IN ORDER TO OFFER SUPPORT, CLEARER KNOWLEDGE ABOUT AVAILABLE JOBS, ROLES, AND WORK IS NEEDED
“By being made aware earlier of whatever is going to take place and what type of help may be needed.”

OFFERING SUPPORT TO FAMILIES AND 2ND GEN
“Create a closer heartistic support among Blessed Central Families and Second generation.”
“To support each person or family’s need internally. By prayer and small group meetings.”
“Would love to support members internally through quiet listening.”

Percentage of respondents who are not volunteering who would or would not like to volunteer

HELPING WITH WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS
“Workshops, lecturing, research.”
“Help running more workshops, Service projects, Old school fund raising and witnessing.”
“Help events, mobilization to other countries, witnessing and so on.”

YOUTHWORK AND EDUCATION
“Youth work. Give 2nd gen more freedom to initiate their projects, more support and mentoring if needed, but not too much control. More cooperation of first and 2nd gen.”

“I respect and admire all the work 1st Gen have done, and don’t mind so much how they choose to be within the movement. My main concern/interest is the younger generation. i think the education and how we are brought up to understand things are so so important! Learning how to bring TRUST between ourselves and our parents is imperative! The only way the younger generations can make anything in their life (in the way of our movement) natural – is by choosing it THEMSELVES and being SUPPORTED to do so. If we had better relationships with the ‘elder ones’ I believe we would generally make better choices plus have it coming from inside us. Basically, something to do with education for both generations in our movement and how to work together more in SUPPORT and TRUST rather than hope and expectations.”

Do you have one of those new-fangled Twitter account things?

Yes? Well, then follow us @FamilyFireplace.

No? For the more tech-savvy, it’s a great communication tool. You can get updates from the accounts that you’re “following” directly to your phone, even if you decide not to micro-blog about whar you’re doing every minute of the day. To learn more about Twitter, I would recommend tech columnist David Pogue’s NYTimes article about it.

Paticipants meet to plan the work

Every month we shall try to hold a service project.  We held one last Saturday at the Amelia Trust Farm near Cardiff.   That was very good as many members participated – about 10 on the actual project and some others brought their children to the farm for an Easter egg hunt.  The project work was connected with “Valeways” – the Vale of Glamorgan organisation that is responsible for clearing footpaths, styles etc.

Families arriving

Our work involved lots of walking from stile to stile across fields with sheep and cows cutting away the overgrown vegetation around the stile area to make it clear for walkers to pass through.  We had a guest who joined us on the project and who later came back to the peace centre to talk, and he has become quite a regular.   The whole event finished with a Barbecue.  The weather was beautiful and the day went very well except for the photos.  One church member brought the official camera but forgot to charge the battery so the photos I am sending are the only ones we could get before the battery ran out.

Cutting the overgrown hedges

Dear brothers and sister,

Happy Ahn Shi Il. I hope you have a good week ahead of you. I want to report to you. As we all experience, reporting is not always an easy thing to do. However, if we don’t communicate regularly with the people in our life we end up as an island, and that will always be our own doing, not someone else’s. It’s all the more ironic if we live on an island, as you and I do.

As it is over a month since I wrote any communication, please forgive me for missing out a lot of stuff.

Attending the 7 day Divine Principle workshop in September reminded me to always try to be a beginner in my attitude towards learning. I went originally to take some notes from the power point slides so that I can use them more effectively. I also wanted to support what I think is an important project which David Hanna is developing through the education department. However, I realised eventually that actually I was mainly there to participate and to go through my own spiritual journey, which is what happens when we actively listen to God’s word. It helped me to take a better look at myself. If you would like to go there is another 7 days just before Christmas (15^th Dec- 21^st Dec.)It is different.

I have been keeping my commitment to the small group study program some of us hold in our HQs in Lancaster Gate. We study a chapter of Hyung Jin Nim’s new book each week, practice the exercises that he outlines, and then discuss our progress. The advantage that regular study brings is that it allows us to start applying what we learn in our daily life. And if we do that with other people,  we are able to create fellowship in our life: a social experience where we hear God’s gentle voice, and feel his warm embrace.

Last week at Sunday Service I realised how if we don’t have other structures and processes established for our community Sunday can become a hub for all information. I have been researching what Hyung Jin Nim is doing and discussing and planning with our regional pastors how we can establish small group programs where we can share our faith with each other, and also with friends, and neighbours, colleagues, etc. Would you like to feel the church coming back into your home? If not then it is probably good to get out and visit other people’s places of worship. Either way it is important to experience fellowship in our life.

I had my interfaith rebirth experience recently when I was invited to give a talk at the UCL interfaith society, which was pioneered by some of our recent CARP students. Talking to the new society president, who is a Hindu, we found out we went to the same school many years ago, well at least many years ago for me. I had a power point that I had used in Paraguay and many of the ideas were sourced from a talk my genius Muslim friend, Zishan, had given at a Faithlink weekend. I hadn’t realised he had also been invited to speak on this occasion. As I got to speak first I warned everyone that any content that Zishan gave which repeated what I had just said was probably originally from him. What a great way to compliment a friend!

Over all I would like to report one key lesson from the last month or so: I am realising what I am good at and where I experience confidence. I am also much more aware of many areas in which I am weak, lacking, and not confident.  Both these matters are down to things like my character, my experience, my aptitude, etc. But most of all I am grateful for the ability to become more aware and the opportunity that awareness gives me to grow. Thank you to all of you for your kind words when I meet you, your understanding, and encouragement. It is an honour to be part of your community.

I would like to say quite a lot to you about November 22nd. But I will try to do that next time, hopefully v soon. Take care, and God bless you.

Simon