A two-day workshop at Livingstone House supported UPA missionaries’ outreach efforts, offering fresh perspectives and powerful presentations to over 20 participants.
It was good to hold another two-day workshop at Livingstone House, especially to support the outreach efforts of the UPA missionaries who’ve been working diligently on the university campus.
Originally, I was planning to share the lecturing with Farhad N. and so enlisted the help of my son Allister to help as MC and song leader. However, the missionaries were more than happy to teach and so we divided lecturing responsibilities which freed me up to support in other ways.
In fact, although I initially proposed the workshop, once the missionaries were involved, they really took ownership of it and created a great programme! I was really happy with this and felt that future seminars would be in good hands.
Participants included one Chinese couple and their baby daughter (guests of Bayo and Esther S.), four university students, a young man whom Man-bok and Bea C. met at Speaker’s Corner (whilst protesting about religious persecution in Japan) and four 2nd gens from River South. We were over 20 in all, including staff.
Farhad gave a very enthusiastic introduction in his own inimitable style before slipping away to support the UPF event being held later in the day at the Peace Embassy. This was followed by three presentations based on new materials our missionaries studied at Sun Moon University, covering Creation, Fall and Restoration formats. I gave and overview of True Parents life and works as the concluding presentation. The presentations were all between 30-40 minutes leaving plenty of time for group discussion which is sometimes overlooked in weekend seminars due to time constraints. Personally, for me, it was uplifting to join this schedule with predominantly young staff and participants and definitely exciting to witness the resurrecting power of God’s truth, as always and experience the warmth of heart and familial bonds created. A common experience at such events.
This was the first workshop in the UK in which our UPA missionaries played a major role. It was great to experience a fresh spirit coming from our True Mother’s emissaries. The weekend finished after the Sunday Service, which all the participants joined. They all gave glowing testimonies of their experience and looked forward to joining further activities in our community. – Russell G.
