Good morning. I'm very sorry that my French isn't so good, so I'll be speaking in English. I hope that's okay for you. I'm Geros Kunkel from Germany, I work with Emanuel Bauer in the Second Generation Department, and for about one year now, I've been responsible for blessing and matching of second generation.

So, now the matching process has been passed on from Father to the parents-I'm sure we've all heard of that-many of the parents are wondering how do we deal with this situation? As there are a lot of rumors going around and many parents are not sure about how to face this challenge I have started to hold parent meetings in several countries to inform the parents of the current situation and to discuss how we as Blessed families can meet this responsibility given to us by our True Parents and how we from the Second Generation Department can best support the Parents and the Blessed Children to fulfill this responsibility.

Jean François (National leader of France) has asked me today to speak to the French church-to you-about this. As we also have second generation here, I want to try to talk to both sides about this process.

I wanted to start with talking about filial piety and the parent-child relationship, specifically of the first and second generation in our movement. Then, toward the end I will go more in detail about the matching, the process, the new directions, and how to practically deal with the situation. Then after Sunday Service we will have a chance to meet and discuss, so if you have any questions, please write them down and ask them at the end. Anyone who is interested in that discussion can join and bring their comments.

I think it's important to know that this matching procedure has already changed in a few ways since Father has announced that parents match their own children in the past year. So, it is a process that is still moving and is not finalized. An important thing to know is that Father really wants the blessed families to take this responsibility. So, we as blessed families share this joint responsibility, it's not just for us and our child, but for us as a movement as a whole to take responsibility for matching the second generation. This includes passing on the tradition of our True Parents, passing on the lineage of our True Parents, to the second generation.

So, first I want to talk about filial piety-the relationship between parents and children. Recently, Father has been doing a lot of things to show how concerned he is about the blessed families. There is the Chung Pyung providence, where Dae Mo Nim is liberating our ancestors, and in Jardim, Father is creating workshops for families to come together in order to re-build the relationship in the family, to once more focus on God, and to experience that family relationship. He's also asked us to pray in our names, giving us as Blessed Families more authority, and the most recent, of course, is that Father has asked the parents to match the children. So, we need to first understand why Father is asking this of the parents and why this is being passed on at this time. So that's one of the questions I want to address today.

Like I said, one of the key issues is really the parent-child relationship. We have to see this as an opportunity or a challenge for us to restore this relationship between parents and children before we match and bless our children. When I ask myself how can we best prepare and how can we best take responsibility, I think that one of the key points is that we need an intact parent-child relationship so that God can work through the parents to the children. This requires of course the responsibility of both the parents and the second generation.

The special thing about the parent-child relationship-according to our teaching-is that this relationship is connected by lineage-blood lineage. Father was asked what was most important of True Life, True Love and True Lineage, and we all know what Father said, right? What did Father say? [Lineage.] Lineage, that's right. When Father was talking about this, many members were surprised asking why lineage? Why not love? And this is a good thing to ask yourselves, why is lineage so precious? Hyun Jin Nim recently at the February blessing workshop in Korea, after the Blessing, talked about this a little bit more. He said that the reason why lineage is so important is because lineage for God is like dominion or claim. So, if we are in God's lineage, God can claim us. And what Adam and Eve lost was this direct blood lineage to Heavenly Father. So, even though people in this life can experience love and, in a limited sense, life, but without lineage we can't really be connected to God in a full way, only in a conditional way like a servant or an adopted child. That blood lineage relationship gives us the opportunity to be in God's claim, in God's dominion. So, God has been working-as we know through the Principle of Restoration-for thousands and thousands of years to restore the lineage. This is for God most important, that mankind have a lineage and have the possibility to once again be connected to Heavenly Father.

In order for us as second generation and first generation to understand the significance of this, we have to be able to value the lineage and what this means. We have to understand what the value of this is to God. So, Father also said that first generation is actually third generation in the sense that God is actually first generation, and True Parents are second generation, and then first generation is third generation, which makes second generation actually fourth generation. So, when Father is explaining this, the point he's trying to make is that this lineage that we have as blessed members, as people who have received the blessing, is a direct connection to God. So, God, True Parents, our parents and second generation-this is our direct access to God.

So, how is it that we are connected to this lineage of our True Parents? It's more like a principle test question-for the second generation at least. Our parents connected to this lineage through the blessing. They separated from their families many times, and gave up a lot, and through the holy wine and through the blessing they became part of this lineage. The Blessing is really a crucial moment as we inherit something from our parents. We receive the blessing to start our own family. In the case of first generation, they inherited the foundation from our True Parents through receiving the blessing, through letting our True Parents make this decision for them and accepting God's decision about their matching, and through the holy wine they connected to God's lineage. They engrafted themselves to the new lineage that our True Parents have created through their great sacrifices. And as second generation now, we have to inherit this lineage from our parents, from True Parents, and this is something that in God's view, this belongs to our identity, our inheritance. Father often talks about this, we cannot choose who our parents are, we cannot choose who we are, we are born, we are created by God and by our parents. Who we are is not something we can choose. We have to be able to accept our identity. In Soo hyung, he's the American Second Generation leader, and son of Zin Moon Kim recently gave a talk in America at the STF Blessing Workshop, which I thought was quite inspiring, and one point that I remember him saying-he's one of the older second generation in Korea-is that his father was always gone and he was struggling a lot with the fact, that his father was always doing mission and often asked himself why do I have to deal with that? Why do we as second generation have to go through that? So, for a long time he was struggling with that and what he's realized throughout this life is that he understood that this is not his choice. This is something that he has to accept and inherit. So, through this experience he could better understand his parents, and have a very direct, personal relationship to Heavenly Father.

I think this is important to understand that this is part of our identity-who we are-as second generation. Of course we can choose to ignore that, or try to find our own identity somewhere else, even so in God's eyes this is the foundation we stand upon. I know many of the second generation have difficulties with their parents and with first generation, and they don't understand so well what they've gone through. It's not always easy to identify with that or connect to it. However, when it comes to blessing preparation, it's an absolutely essential point to understand where our parents are coming from. This way we can also give value to the lineage, to the blood lineage, what that means to us and in our life. How can we inherit this precious gift from God if we do not understand its meaning and value to God.

So, in order for us to understand this, I wanted to talk a little bit about the first generation and what that means. I mean, we know that history has been a long history of suffering and it has taken God a long time of suffering to reach the time we are in now and to have True Parents who could establish a new lineage. So, even though our True Parents are here and we have some foundation through them, sometimes as second generation we often don't reflect on what that really means. We know that our True Parents went through an incredible course in their life to indemnify a lot of things. We know that when True Parents finally were victorious in being able to go out and find people to follow them, that God prepared many "John the Baptist" figures to follow him. And we also know that all those people that were prepared to follow True Parents failed, Christianity as a whole failed, even though it was prepared by God. In Korea there was Sigmun Ree and many politicians who were prepared to follow Father that also failed. And in America, there was a lot of foundation prepared to connect to True Parents that didn't. The only people who followed True Parents are the first generation. I think for us as second generation we really have to see how precious that is for us, especially if we have difficulties with our parents, and our parents are maybe not very faithful or maybe not very good parents, in God's eyes they are really the elite and in the time where all the people that God was hoping for failed, they followed True Parents.

Our first generation, when they decided to follow True Parents went quite a difficult course. Often they had to disconnect from their physical families, because they had to deny the fallen lineage and really engraft themselves-at least spiritually-to True Parent's lineage. And this meant pretty much giving up all the surroundings that they were in. Their parents weren't their parents in the sense that they could be their true parents. We as second generation are very lucky because we are in the situation that our physical parents are also our spiritual parents. So, we don't have to disconnect from our physical parents, on the contrary, we have to connect to them because they have the foundation and they have inherited Heavenly Father's true lineage from our True Parents. Even if our parents were not able to create much of a family life or a financially stable family, and even if our family wasn't anything like a normal family, our parents have-no matter what-given us something that no other parents can give their children, the gift of God's lineage-a direct connection to God. So, when we as second generation go to the blessing it's important for us to realize that and really feel that no matter how lacking or difficult our relationship with our parents is or how close we are to our parents or how strong our relationship to our parents may be we have to inherit this lineage. For most of our first generation-I don't know if you've heard testimonies from them-it was pretty much a long way and a difficult way.

So, how should we behave towards our parents as second generation in this blessing issue. When I spoke to ETF about this topic, I gave a short testimony about my father. I don't want to go into details, but I just wanted to mention a few points because it might help to understand. It was very valuable for me in the past few years to reflect about my parents. I mean, my father-my parents are one of the oldest members in europe that joined in the early 60's. My father left the church about 10 years ago. He also started drinking and getting angry at the church. At home it was very difficult, and for many years I was very angry at my father because he gave us a very hard time with his bitterness and anger against the church, especially when he was drunk. It got so bad that after a few years we moved out and since then live separately. Anyway, since I was separated from my father, I've had some time to find out about what he went through and why my father became like that and about his experiences in the church and also before the church. Overall, I came to the conclusion that my father was one of the early members that really helped to build up the church in Europe. I could name many things he did which contributed to establishing the movement in Europe and to create a foundation for our True parents. But when I reflect, I don't even remember having one deep conversation with my father, because when I was young he was on mission, and then I was in Korea, and when I came back it was already very difficult. Judging by my point of view he was a terrible father.

So that time when I was 16 or 17 I was very angry with my parents. I mean, I'm sure that many of the second generation had a similar experience and don't have a very close relationship with their parents. So, through other members and through other members telling me about what happened and what my father did in the past, it was really easy for me to love and forgive my father. In the many years in the church he had to make many sacrifices and he experienced little comfort. He was a simple man, never a big leader. Seldom did he experience gratitude for his sacrifices. He was often misunderstood and judged, even by other members. Nevertheless he faithfully followed our True Parents for almost 30 years.

I could really see that what I'm inheriting from him is a lot greater than if I had just a normal family that made a little more money and better school and whatever. What Heavenly Father sees in my parents, is not their lacks. He doesn't look at the situation my father is in now, and judge him by that. What He sees is that for a long time, a difficult time, he followed True Parents faithfully. I know a lot of first generation, as the right people didn't accept and follow True Parents, had to go like Moses in the wilderness course, and these 40 years have been very difficult. The first generation was like the Israelites going through this difficult course. You know in this time of suffering there was a very high price for those that joined or were born into the church during this wilderness course. There was a lot of persecution and our church was very small in many countries. It was not easy for them in school to talk about church. This wilderness course had a high price on our church and on our blessed families. God knows that and True Parents know that.

Now that this course is over, True Parents are really trying to heal this. We shouldn't build up resentment or bitterness, because this course was a sacrifice that we had to give to God in order to receive this foundation now. As second generation we have the opportunity-even if our parents lost their faith-we have the opportunity to once again connect to this ideal, this vision they had when they joined with our True Parents. So, for blessing preparation, one key issue is the relationship between parents and child. In America at the STF Blessing Workshop, we had the opportunity to be with the parents and the children. Through the sharing there, a lot of healing could take place. It is important for the second generation to understand why Hyun Jin Nim is pushing for the 2 years of mission before study as a formula course for second generation. ETF or STF is like a formular course for 2nd Generation. Even though it's very short, only one or two years, still you can really connect to the foundation that our parents have build up. I mean, one year of ETF for second generation, that's nothing compared to what our parents went through, right? The formula course for most of our parents was 3 ½ years fundraising, 3 ½ years witnessing, blessing and then another 3 years separation period. So, we're talking about 10 years they have to give God before they could start family life. So, for us we don't have to go this course because our parents did that for us. But through our parents, it's so easy for us to get blessed and start family. So, Hyun Jin Nim is really trying to help us inherit this foundation by having us do at least one year of public mission. Through this the Blessed Children should create their own foundation to connect to the foundation of their parents and inherit it. Going this course, even though it is a lot shorter really helps us as Blessed Children to value and appreciate the sacrifices our parents have made.

So, we as second generation, only know little of our parents-if your 20 years old-for the last 15 years maybe. My father for example is now 70 years old so for the first 50 years of his life, I don't know what happened to him, I mean, I've never experienced him in this time. It would be very arrogant of me to judge him just by the last five years or the last ten years. This is very important for the second generation, don't ever judge your parents or the elder second generation. Never judge your parents! You do not know what course they went and what struggles they went through. Also what kind of internal struggles they had to face.

Now how can we inherit their foundation if we are ignorant of what they have been doing? Judging our parents means ignoring who they are, who they believe they are and also being very arrogant towards them ourselves. We didn't make this foundation in our life; we don't have to go the same course, we can inherit that. But in order to inherit that we need to have the right relationship of a filial son towards our parents. So, we need to first of all be grateful, be respectful to our parents, to have that filial piety. We have to be free to inherit the achievements they have made in Gods eyes, which is the course to connect to God's lineage. Hyun Jin Nim started talking about inheritance when he started taking over for CARP, and I think this is really what he means, that we inherit what our parents have done, what True Parents have done, and inheritance and development, so inherit it and then move on. Don't get stuck where your parents are now. I mean, your parents want you to do more. If they couldn't accomplish a loving family, they want you to have that. Really inherit the course and the basic foundation we have from our church and then carry on and improve it. Don't ever judge it and focus on its lacks and flaws. It is not worth the time.

So, I really think that this matching by the parents is really an opportunity for the blessed families. True Parents are empowering them. For the older second generation he was still matching-like for me and for Emanuel-but now he wants the blessed families to be the medium through which God can work to create his lineage. So, he needs this foundation to expand, and he's asking the parents to do that. This is a responsibility of the parents and the children and both sides really need to grow and to reach the right foundation to be able to do that. So, it's a challenge for the parents and for the children. That's how I experience it. For the second generation it's very much a challenge. They ask themselves how can I trust that my parents know who's the right person. With True Parents it's a little easier, but with my parents I'm not so sure. As first generation, we have to understand that this is, for the second generation, a challenge. We have to help them, as parents, and be able to show them that we can manage this. And as second generation, we have to understand that this is also a challenge for our parents as well, and we have to support them through being a good child.

So, like I said, I really think True Parents want this to be an opportunity for the blessed families to heal. He doesn't want the first and second generation to separate or fall apart. Also Hyun Jin Nim is always talking to CARP about how first and second generation have to work together, to find ways to unite and to work for God.

The challenge is to pass on, or as second Generation to inherit the foundation of our True Parents to the next Generation. This is in general I believe a big challenge for our movement.

Now I'd like to talk a little bit more in detail about the matching process and the practical aspects. I prepared some handouts with some points about the meaning of this matching process and an explanation of the formal process-how to do it-and a testimony from one mother from Spain who has recently matched her child, and the address of the Second Generation Department. All of this is on our homepage, we have a second generation blessing homepage-www.2ndgenblessing.com

The True Parents have now said that this is the age for the parents to match their own children. This means that they have the right to match the children, but not yet to bless their children. I'm not sure if in the future that will remain so, if it will always be like this, I'm sure in the long run parents will also be able to bless their children, but for right now Father's giving the parents the right to just match their children, and take responsibility for choosing the spouse of their children. The question is, how do we deal with this, or how do we take this responsibility. It's important to remember that we do not take this change lightly. Also, remember that this is not something so difficult that we cannot manage it as parents. True Parents always give us things that we can accomplish, if we give our 100% effort. So, we shouldn't be afraid of this and say, "Oh, I can't do this." This is a responsibility we have to take. Something we have to keep in mind is that this is not just the responsibility of your family, but of all blessed families. Especially since there is another blessed family involved that you are matching your child with, we have to really see that this is our responsibility as brothers and sisters, as one family, of the first generation, to match our second generation and pass on this lineage and foundation that we have to them.

The process of True Parents handing on this authority is, like I said, a process that is still changing. Of course, in the ideal world, we would be perfect and our children would be perfect by the time they receive the blessing. As we are not in that situation, we cannot just freely receive God's direction as to whom to match our children with, so we have to work hard to receive guidance and at least lay a condition for this choice and for God to work in this situation. So, we really have to make an effort to understand the process, follow True Parents guidance as they asking of us as a condition for God to work, and renew our faith as part of the experience. Of course we should always check our heart and motivation as we do this, because we really want God to be a part of this. We want God to be the base of the family we are creating through matching our children. We are creating a new blessed couple, a new family, and we want that to start up with God at the center. This goes especially for the second generations, who have to take the responsibility of creating a couple. Father also said this is not only the responsibility of only you as the parents; it's also the responsibility of the lineage. Your ancestors are involved because you are connecting two lineages through this matching, affecting them as well. We really have to see that this is something that we are doing for the whole lineage in order to quickly restore and bring our families back to God.

Both are responsible for the success of the blessing. When True Father says that the parents are responsible for the matching, I wouldn't understand that as a legal statement, meaning that in the case of a conflict, the parents have the say. Of course, some situations might be difficult in which the parents have some idea and the children might have another idea. The parents shouldn't say, "Well, it's my decision, so I decide this." Therefore, I wouldn't understand True Parents saying that the parents can match as a legal empowerment to the parents because if you are in a situation where the parents and the children conflict, you have a problem anyway, no matter which decision goes through. It's really a joint responsibility as parent and child. As a parent to really be responsible not only means to find the right person and make the right decision, but to guide your child to accept that decision. After all, he or she has to fulfill the responsibility of creating an ideal family, but if he never accepts the decision then you will make that very difficult for the couple.

In an ideal world, the parents would have the right attitude to find the right person for their child, and find ways to convey this match to the child so that he or she can accept it. The children should listen to the decision of the parents and consider it. Both would be working to allow Gods guidance to prevail in this process and they would thereafter take responsibility to create an ideal family together.

Of course, in the long run, the parents are the one that God wants to work through to make this decision. On the other hand, if there is difficulty, then I think it's much more important to work out these difficulties and work on the trust relationship between the parents and the children then to force through a matching or to push something through. It's really a process between parents and child.

On the other hand, the parents also shouldn't push this responsibility on the children and say, "Oh, I don't know what to do, who do you like? Oh, you like him? Okay." They shouldn't push the responsibility on to the child. For example, when I was with STF, at their Blessing Workshop, they asked the candidates how much say they wanted to have in the matching. And many said, "Oh, no. I don't want to have any say; I don't want to think about this." In a sense, this is a very young attitude because you should have a certain maturity and be able to deal with this in a God-centered way. On the other hand, for young people who really want it centered on God, it's not so easy to stay focused and keep the emotions out. So, it's important for the parents to be trustworthy in being able to guide them and help them with their emotions, to really find out if this is God's choice or not. If the child takes initiative, that doesn't mean that the decision is wrong. The parents have to be responsible with the child and guide them through this process. In general, True Parents have said that the parents have the final decision, so it's truly a matter of the relationship between the parents and the child wherein the parents carry the main responsibility. Having the responsibility doesn't just mean making the right decision but educating and guiding the child to accept the decision, as it is the child who has to live with the decision and is responsible for creating and ideal family from there.

Please also try to understand how the second generation experiences this matching process. For them to really unite with God and True Parents was easier when True Parents were still matching, because True Parents are the messiah, and they will take care of us. All we had to accept was that True Parents are the messiah, and then we could trust their decision of the right person. Now, it's a little less certain, and the second generation need their parents to be responsible about this, to also be very open, prayerful, and humble, and feel that the parents really want God's will.

First is preparation, and then matching. So, first go through the qualification to become a candidate and then start matching. Don't just start matching and send in the forms later. I'll explain the forms in detail, but the important thing is that preperation comes first. This matching decision is really something we need God's guidance on. God has prepared somebody. Also, second generation still have to deal with indemnity. They may not have original sin, and they may not have so much providential indemnity to pay, but we have ancestors, we have problems, and the blessing is really a tool we use to restore and to help us become closer to God. God has prepared somebody that would be suitable and helpful in this case. I know that in England, True Parents once asked three members to match themselves, and they came to Father and Father approved two of them and the third one he said, "If you get blessed with each other your lineage will be a disaster." So, of course he can choose, but he of course decided not to. We don't always know the family background and ancestral situations, so we really need to trust in God's guidance. I think God really does prepare and find ways to speak to us, but we need to lay the foundation to listen. So, first focus on the preparation-strong faith, education about the blessing, an absolute condition of purity, a standard of heart. One thing that's good to think about is that as parents we have to learn to love other's children more than our own. This is always been True Parents way of thinking, to love Cain more than Abel, to love the members' more than their own children. We have to know that when we are blessing our child, we are not just receiving someone in our family; we are giving our child to another family. We also have to think of the other person and think if our child is the right person for them, if our child is prepared enough to really accept the blessing. A good condition would be for us to serve other children, perhaps children in need, so that we can develop this heart. In England, when I mentioned this point, Mary Franklin stood up and said that the best opportunity for parents to get to know other blessed children when they feel like they don't know any is to do what she did. This past summer, she volunteered for the European HARP workshop as a cook. So, she cooked for 100 blessed children, and she really felt that was a good opportunity to get to know other blessed children, and to be inspired by their spirit without having to meet them in terms of the blessing. I know from Emanuel that we always need people to help, so it is often a good condition for parents to serve the second generation. It's also good for second generation to see that first generation is involved and cares about them, so for them it's something nice. I was grateful that Mary shared this practical example of how the first generation could get to know the second generation in a normal context without having to touch on more difficult issues or ask, "so what do you think about blessing?"

Hyun Jin Nim also said that we should have the desire to marry our enemy, which is Father's thinking always as well. That doesn't mean that as French we all have to marry Germans now, although I have no problem with that. But what it means is that we have to have the attitude that we have to be able to marry the least likely person. This counts especially for second generation. It would be a big problem if we as second generation understand this new process as "Oh finally I have the chance to choose who I want." That would be a big misunderstanding. On the contrary, this is an opportunity for us to more strongly connect to God's will. As second generation we have to be able to marry the most difficult person. This is the same preparation as when True Parents matched. Before I was matched it was a long struggle for me before I could really accept anybody-even the most difficult person that I know. It took a long time for me to accept that. Of course, I was lucky, I got the most pretty wife. Even now, as second generation, if your parents come to you and say, "I think this is the right person," and it's the worst person you can imagine, just because through the parents matching you have more influence doesn't mean you can just choose who you want. So, you really have to trust that God works through your parents and even to be ready to accept the most difficult person. With this kind of attitude God can most easily show you the right person. That's why I think Hyun Jin Nim's words of being willing to marry the enemy is quite important for us to at least understand the meaning of the matching. You shouldn't have any enemies anyway.

Once the parents have found the person, and matched their children, then they go to the blessing and the blessing is finalized. There's something that True Father has said about this that I feel is very important to understand very clearly. There is no re-blessing. So, in the past, when True Parents were matching and blessing and it somehow didn't work out, True Parents took responsibility and were able to rebless the person who was left by their spouse. Now that the parents and ancestors take this responsibility there is no re-blessing. So if you as parents, your ancestors and your child go in front of God and pledge to Him that this is a person that you want to spend the rest of your life with, then God connects these lineages and this is inseparable in any circumstances. And Father will not bless any blessed child who has been blessed before that the parents have matched. Because it was a sacrifice that we gave to True Parents, then True Parents could take responsibility. However, we as blessed families, blessed children, we cannot take responsibility for a broken blessing. Once we promise in front of God, we have to mean that this is eternity. So, there's no re-blessing anymore, which means that as parents we need to have extra care to make the best decision and to really help our child at least through the first few years to get the blessing going. So, True Father said this very clearly that there's no re-blessing anymore. That means practically that if the relationship doesn't work out for some reason, that in God's eyes they are still connected, so if they don't live together it will be a very difficult course. If they marry other people and are still connected as one lineage, still God cannot break that up. Of course, individual circumstances may vary; you never know what exceptions may come. But it was always our attitude at the blessing that this is for eternity. I know many first generation couples lived together for a long time in a difficult situation because they valued this saying, "we're not going to separate." Even though we have to pay the price of not having a fulfilling relationship, in God's eyes it's inseparable. So, we really have to know as second generation that this is absolute and final in God's eyes.

I'd like to talk a little bit now about the formal process of the application and matching. So, to apply for the blessing you have to hand in certain papers. The first condition for the blessing, of course, is purity. In order to confirm that one must have an interview with their national leader. One of these forms is an interview form that the national leader uses when interviewing the candidate. This covers the questions such as "Have you kept your purity?" which gives the child a chance to confess, and then goes through the blessing vows and other points. The national leader fills out this form, and that's the only thing we have to guarantee purity. Of course, it's not a waterproof method, and in the past people have fallen and not admitted it, and gone to the blessing even though they were fallen. But this is the best thing we can do at this point to guarantee that second generation has kept their purity. Basically, the first absolute condition is purity.

So there's the interview, then the personal application form which gives certain information about the candidate, and this is the form that will be made public. Everything you write on this other parents will be able to see. That's why we call it Second Generation Matching Introduction form. Looks like the one we've all done ourselves. So, this form is the application, and once we at the Second Generation Department receive this form, then your child is an applicant, and once we have the full application; your child becomes a candidate. This is important when you look at the homepage. Then there's the family introduction form which the rest of the family fills out-this is just to introduce the family, who they are, what they're doing, where they're living. And this family introduction form and the matching introduction form will be published for all parents to see. The interview form will not be published-all there is to see are the yes or no answers. The confession is confidential to your national leader, so it's a good chance to clear up your conscience through this confession to your national leader. So these are the three forms you need to hand in to apply for the matching as well as two pictures: one of the face and one of the full body. When True Father matched he required these two pictures, and it's the same now. And please hand in big pictures, A4 size, for two reasons: first of all because we put it on the internet, so when we scan it in the quality is better, and second of all True Parents have asked recently that all matched couples be shown to him and approved by him, so we need to have a good picture of your child to show to True Parents. As I said, True Parents now want to see all couples. They want to approve them. So far I have heard that he has disapproved one second generation couple by saying, "No, I don't think this is a good idea." Father is not trying to check on us, he wants to help us and give us some assurance that we've made the right decision. So, when you prepare your application, please reflect and keep in mind that True Parents will also see this.

Then there's the health certificate and AIDS test. The health certificate does not need to be filled out by a doctor, the applicant can fill it out himself, it's just a statement verifying that he's in good health and if there's major medical issue that should be known, you should write that down. Not minor or temporary problems like a broken leg or so, but genetic diseases or other bigger health problems. You know just a general statement of good health. Also, please send in a copy of your last school certificate, whether that's high school or college or technical certificate. Also, to guarantee that they have some level of principle education, some preparation, we require that the candidates attend a blessing workshop and a 21-day divine principle workshop. The blessing workshops we hold twice a year through the Second Generation Department-the next one is on the 20 to the 24. of November in Switzerland, and then the next one will be next year in the spring, so, always spring and autumn. It's always three or four days and includes lots of information about how to prepare for the blessing, and practical guidance about relationships. We have quite good material, and this time Matthew Jones will be there, he's in charge of second generation blessing in the US, and we have elder blessed children who will give testimonies about blessing support. That's why we think it's quite necessary to have a blessing workshop. Also, Hyun Jin Nim has said that it's an absolute requirement to have blessing education before the blessing. So, that's what we provide, two blessing WSs every year, so you can think about that when you want to apply your child for the matching. The principle workshop should be longer than a 3-day workshop, or reading through the book once, that's why we thought we'd require a 21-day principle workshop. We know that these principle workshops don't take place so often, especially not in every nation. We ourselves don't provide a 21-day principle workshop, so you can go to one in your nation, or one in a nation that has them-in East Europe they have them a lot. We also accept other workshops as an equivalent, and these workshops we do provide in the summer. These are the 21-day Settlement Age workshop, the 21-day Mobilisation and ETF. ETF includes everything, including a blessing workshop. This year in the spring ETF will be having a blessing workshop with 50 people, we accept this as a certain understanding of the principle. The point I'm trying to make is that principle education-even if it's just the book and the theory-is important to understand because that is the base of our faith to understand restoration, to understand blood lineage to understand the fall and all this in detail is important, which is why we require this divine principle workshop.

Once you have all that together, you can send it in to the Second Generation Department, either to Emanuel or to me directly, and that person is an official matching candidate. The way we do it is to publish the information on our blessing website, but the candidate information is password protected, so if you go on this homepage, you can get a lot of information and guidance, but you can't see the candidate-which I think is important. It also keeps the trust of the parents and the candidate by keeping the information only to those to whom it is relevant, so only those who also have an application in. Once the child is a candidate, you can see the other applicants and candidates. An applicant is one without the complete application, but that has started to send things in and the candidate has a complete application. This gives you an idea of potential candidates as well.

The reason why we encourage people to use this list and ask people not to find someone who is not on the list is because they are not ready yet, some aren't even thinking about going to the blessing yet. In the past younger Blessed Children have been called and asked about the blessing when they weren't even thinking of going. Some of them felt urged even harassed and unsure about how to deal with that. It can be quite uncomfortable. We have to be very sensitive about this. Those on the list are expecting to be contacted and by applying are saying, that they are looking for a spouse. It's important that we at least respect this, and if you do approach someone not on the list, at least approach the parent and not the candidate, and ask them to first apply before going into matching details. I know some blessed children are more popular than others and some are still very young, so parents think I have to be quick to be sure to get this person. You can imagine that this is a wrong attitude anyway, but we should at least respect the other candidates by giving these guidelines. This list is a joint project of all Second Generation Departments, it's not a European blessing homepage. So besides the European candidates we now have 70 Japanese candidates, about 10 Koreans and 7 from the United States. It is an international site, so as time goes on you have the opportunity to through the website find candidates to match your child with from the US, Japan or Korea. I know that as parents it's very difficult to look at a list of Koreans-with 20 Kims and 30 Paks-it's difficult to choose since we don't know these people. But for God to work it's very important that we at least share this information and through this provide means for God to work and to show us who the right person is. So, you can see this as a service or a portal where hopefully through using it God can help you to match your child also with a Korean or Japanese if that's what He wants. Some Europeans have already been matched to Koreans or Japanese through National Messiah relations, so there are other ways to find out more information about candidates around the world. For them, they always ask about who is in Europe or who might fit with this person. Also, some who are a bit older who has been blessed before and who is looking for someone, can find someone through us, through this website.

I heard a rumor-I don't know if it's true- the rumor is that Father isn't going to approve of any matchings unless they are international. I don't know if it's true, but I do think it reflects Father's heart. He does want us to open more, although in Europe it's not a big problem because it will be international probably, since Europe has so many nations and so few candidates. It's just important for us to keep in mind that Heavenly Father and True Parents want international blessings. This keeps your mind more open than just someone you know, or someone who's close.

Good, so that's basically the process of the matching. We really see our work as the Second Generation Department to support the parents by providing information and giving some guidelines on the qualifications. True Father said very clearly that the matching is the responsibility of the parents. So, we won't intervene in that. Some parents feel that it's their responsibility and why should they have to go through the Second Generation Department. I really want to say that for me we really don't want to take this responsibility from you or interfere in your matching process. Hyun Jin Nim really wants the second generation to have a certain standard-purity is so important-so in order to guarantee this we want to support the parents by giving some guidelines. Also, if you don't apply or your child is not on the homepage, then other people won't know that you're available. It's basically a practical formal thing that you go through this process. But we really want to create as many means and tools as possible for God to work through us as Blessed Families. We really want to just support you in this responsibility, but the responsibility, of course, is the family's responsibility.

Also, let me say that you have to be approved by Second Generation Department doesn't mean that we want to check and say if we think it's a good idea or not, it just means that we have to hear from both parents that they accept this and then we report to True Parents. We'll never say, "I think this is a bad idea," or "you might want to think about this again," because that's not what we are trying to do when we approve, we just want to make sure that they meet the qualifications and then we report to True Parents that these candidates are qualified. We know that these qualifications do not rest just on these forms or these two workshops. The qualification is the whole education they've received in the last 20 years. The main responsibility for this is also not in the hands of the Second Generation Department, but is in the hands of the parents. So, of course we as Second Generation Department, as HARP, we want to provide workshops, sharing, blessing education, everything, but what really matters is what the child has inherited from the parents and family. The level of faith, the love relationships they've received in the family. Education should be your responsibility. This is something that really matters to us. We really care about our brothers and sisters in the second generation, so we really want to provide meetings, because we know that second generation can relate to other second generation very easily about many things. But at the blessing they should have a certain maturity and be able to relate to the parents in a certain way. It's important for a parent to be there for them in that moment.

I started reading this book by Stephen Covey, he wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. well he also wrote one called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. The first sentence that's written is "All families are off-track 90% of the time." So, even if families make a lot of mistakes everyday, the course we're going is the right course. It's centered on God and following our True Parents. So, as long as we follow True Parents then even if we make mistakes, we can give the right education to our children. You know, children can digest a lot, so don't worry so much about the details, but make sure that you are going the right course and showing your children the right way. Educate them through other people, through us, but it's your responsibility to educate your own children. Please keep that in mind for the blessing. And truly believe, that God can and wants to work through you! As Blessed Families we have to support each other.

So, before I finish I'd like to talk about two more things. One is Jacob's children, sometimes also referred to as 1.5 generation. In England I was asked about this because there are a few there, to define exactly what is a blessed child and what is a Jacob's child, and how do we deal with that? The definition, as far as I know, and I'm pretty sure I'm correct, is a blessed child is a child who has been conceived after the blessing. So, not just born, but conceived after the 3 day ceremony has been done. This is when the blessed family has stepped into the lineage of True Parents and thereafter they can create blessed children, right? So, Jacob's child is someone born before the parents received the blessing and according to the lineage they are first generation, but according to the reality of what they grew up in they are second generation just like everyone else. The difference being that like first generation they have to go through the holy wine ceremony at the blessing. But they are second generation. So, we say second generation blessed children, or second generation as a whole. Jacob's children are a part of the second generation. The difference is at the blessing they get blessed to other Jacob's children or first generation, whereas blessed children can only get blessed to other blessed children. The question is how do they get matched? I'm not really sure about this. I asked this question in America, what do they do about Jacob's children? And what they said was that there the parents are also taking responsibility, but they have to choose amongst Jacob's children or first generation. So, we're thinking now of preparing some kind of information, so we're going to try to provide something like our homepage to help couples with Jacob's children to complete this matching process.

The last point I want to talk about is fallen blessed children. The matter of fallen blessed children is always a very difficult and serious matter. Father has said many times very clearly that he cannot restore fallen blessed children. Fallen blessed children are in a much more difficult situation than those of first generation who made the same mistake. Basically this means that fallen blessed children are no longer blessed children since they have lost their purity through the fall. Like Adam and Eve when they fell, they created a new lineage, blessed children they are in True Parents lineage, but if they have a sexual relationship outside of the blessing then they are also creating a new lineage and loose God's lineage. So, fallen blessed children cannot receive the blessing like blessed children, they have to go a different course. Dae Mo Nim requested, since she is quite concerned about this, that all blessed children go see her before they go to the blessing. This way she can check their purity. We don't have this opportunity; we have the national leaders to check that, but in Korea they are asked also to go to Dae Mo Nim, to go to the workshop there and then meet Dae Mo Nim. She has said that she would like to take responsibility for blessed children who have fallen, and she explained that if you are born as a blessed child that is your destiny. So, in God's eyes destiny is your position-also a child of God is a position that you cannot lose. But if you fall, then your fate, the course you have to follow, is different. If blessed children fall then they aren't losing their status as blessed children, since they were born that way, but still they have to restore this lineage problem first. So, Dae Mo Nim has said that she will take responsibility for them in the sense that she will match fallen blessed children with other fallen blessed children. So, she said that in the future, it is better to be blessed with someone in the same situation rather than someone from first generation, because in that case they would be coming from different fallen lineages. So, she said the best condition they could lay in order to indemnify their mistake is to at least marry other blessed children in the fallen situation. For the future it will be much easier to restore this problem if one goes this course. So, if there are fallen blessed children then it's really important that this comes out, that this is shared and that they repent for this, and then through Dae Mo Nim they are able to receive a spouse. This way they can live in God's grace even though the lineage might take longer to restore. Father has clearly said as of now he cannot restore this mistake. This means this mistake will need to be indemnified at some point later in the providence. In order to create the best settings for this Dae Mo Nim is guiding these people.

My own feelings on this are that of course through history we know through the providence; through our foundation of True Parents we know it's taken God a very long time to restore this original sin of Adam and Eve. So, True Parents have been able to restore this mistake. If we as blessed children who have been restored through this, we fall, we create a new original sin-a new fallen lineage. True Parents cannot restore this easily; they can't just restore our lineage and forgive that. That must be restored properly in the lineage, that's why this is such a difficult issue. We can never focus too much on how important it is for blessed children to keep their purity, to not lose this lineage, because for God it's so painful if all his foundation-all the people who've died, all the people who've suffered just to achieve this restoration is lost.. We as blessed children we are given this, so it's really important to focus on the purity of the second generation. On the other hand, reality is that blessed children grow up in a very hostile world, it's not very easy, so we have to understand that, we shouldn't judge blessed children, and through their suffering this can happen. So, we have to find a way to include them and help these people. Even though they are not a part of second generation blessing anymore, it's important that we include these children and that they are still blessed children and they are a part of our movement. It is so important that they restore their lineage at some point. True Father once said that when North and South Korea unite, he can restore this, he said many things so maybe it will be very soon that they can restore themselves quickly. I mean, it should be much easier than in Adam and Eve's case since they have the messiah on earth and a lineage to come back to. At the moment, though, True Father said that there's nothing he can do about this. Dae Mo Nim was taking responsibility for these people.

That's basically all that I wanted to say. Tthank you very much for listening, and I hope this afternoon we can sit together and have some questions answered. Like I said it's our responsibility as families, so it's important that we think about how we can fulfill this responsibility and work together as blessed families. Maybe in France-I know in this area-many blessed families can meet by themselves to talk about blessing. For some it may be very difficult to relate to the second generation, so to be able to share with others might be very helpful in order to support each other. If you have a difficult relationship with your child maybe other parents can mediate. It's important that the families are healed-this is what God wants. He wants to have families that he can freely move in. God has given us many tools to heal this, and True Parents are really concerned about this. Because he had to take care of the outside people, he couldn't take care of his own children and he couldn't take care of us so well always. As first generation perhaps we felt very lonely, but as blessed families we have to take care of each other and the 2nd Generation because that's where our tradition will be carried on in the future, if our families are successful. And as second generation try to work together and come closer in order to understand our parents.

Thank you very much.

Let me say a prayer.

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