by Rev. Kyoung Hyo Kim-Kiev, Ukraine
From October 26 until November 5 the first "True Family Nights" took place in eight cities in Ukraine. Even though there was not much time to organize, it was a very good start of the following up program for the pre-blessed families. We could find out many possibilities through our first challenge and get the confidence. As the best result first of all we could contact thousands of blessed couples again. Many of them were so impressed by our re-contact. They were so glad that we did not forget them. Everyday all members visited 3 pre-blessed families and additionally made many phone call. To visit pre-blessed family is now becoming custom in our activity. It is an almost invisible activity but a very beautiful campaign.
We had already many good contacts which we got through door to door blessing. We could get very nice place and invite even good artist without any charge through these contacts.
Around 1,500 pre-blessed couples with many children watched our program. The program was very simple and humble. Our young member( pioneering center leader) showed at first a slide lecture presentation about family values. Next the other young member read Father's speech "True family & true universe centering on true love," and after that I introduced True Parents to people. The culture event took place after Father's speech.
Somehow what I felt through watching these events was people were so sincere and very much prepared. Actually many of them did not know who is the founder of FFWPU. They listened quite carefully and kept the seat until the program finished even though the program was very simple, furthermore many places were so cold. We put 10 posters of the Unification movement near the entrance. In Dniepropetrovsk we presented TP's calendar of 1998 to the participants. In Donetsk and Kharkov the media came and we made the news.
As the reflection of this first event we felt so sorry to the pre-blessed families because we could not organize so well. However it had very meaningful value because we proclaimed Father's word in each cities. I deeply appreciate to Rev. Chung, Ukraine National Messiah that he gave us such idea. We will continue and develop this program as one of the new challenge for establishing Shimjung culture and True family culture in our cities. Report about the 4th Japanese Culture Night in Kharkov
From 1 to 3 of November the 4th Japanese Culture Night in 1997 took place in Youth culture center in Kharkov. It was sponsored by FFWPU, WFWP and the Japanese Student Association in Kharkov. The program was very well organized and people could enjoy very much the different culture. Around 500 people came and many media made the interview and news.
This time many young students were invited from the universities. There were many interesting corner displays. The corner of "Kimono Sitschak"( to try to wear the Japanese traditional cloths) got the most interest. There were many sets of Japanese kimonos for adults and children, and decoration things. Specially the artificial Katsura (the wig of traditional hair style) was so funny. All visitors were enjoying this corner and even they had to make long line to wait for their turn. Many children enjoyed the origami corner. Japanese students who took the kimono were guiding them very kindly. All of them wanted to get the Chinese Kanji name written by the traditional oriental pen and the oriental writing style. Japanese students performed a very nice concert. All of them took Kimono and presented Japanese children songs, musical and comedy.
When we made the 1st event in the beginning of this year, it was organized very poorly. But these 4 events in this year brought many good result and experience for us. Specially this program was excellent for the Japanese student to unite . They got very precious joy in their life of faith through this opportunity. Each time when they finished the event they get more strong desire for the next event. In this year around 4,500 people came to this program throughout 4 events in Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk and Zhitomir. Specially it was very big success in Zhitomir where around 3,000 people, almost pre-blessed families came.
This event is creating very good image about FFWPU & WFWP and Japanese. Many times the oriental people are the main target of the street police. This night of the 4th event one Japanese student was caught by police on the street and checked the passport. The police man said " today you made very nice event" and released him.
We will have more professional events in February of 1988 in Kiev, inviting the pre-blessed families. For this we started to register officially the Japanese student association cooperating with Japanese embassy.
Rev. Kyoung Hyo Kim is the regional director for Eastern Europe.