Ocean Challenge Part 2

James W. Kovic
January 2008

Jean Francois and I were on a roll. A couple of days following the landing of our first tuna we caught another one, roughly the same size; could have been his brother. And then that was it for us.

One day the weather got really bad and so the fleet stayed in. For some reason or another I started thinking about Makiko again. I thought back to that letter I got from her a couple of months ago. It really started to irritate me. Why did she do it? What was going on with her? Where was she? Could the letter have been mistranslated somehow?

Well, there was one way to find out for sure. In New York City at the World Mission Center there was this place called The Japanese Office. Kind of a vague name for an office but this place and the Japanese members who worked there were like a clearing house for all information concerning all recently blessed Japanese members.

I spoke to a young woman and I told her my wife's name and any other information that I had about her. She put me on hold for a minute or two and then she came back on the line.

"Hello, James." She said in a nervous tone of voice. "I'm sorry but Makiko left her mission in Japan. There is no information about where she went. Perhaps she went back to her home. I'm so sorry, James."

"Isn't there any way for me to get in touch with her?" I asked her. "Are there any records of a phone number at the church center where she worked? Isn't there anything you can tell me?"

"I'm sorry but I cannot give you that information."

"You have her phone number but you won't let me call her?" I said angrily. "She's my wife. Don't you understand? She might be in some sort of danger. Why would she have left unless she was coerced into doing so by someone somehow? Can't you tell me anything?"

"I can't. All that I can tell you is the information that the Japanese Church has given us. I'm so sorry, James."

As I hung up the pay phone I sank down to my knees filled with despair. This was some kind of nightmare happening to me. Most of all I felt so powerless. There was eight thousand miles that separated Makiko and I and I just found out that she has gone out of my life, just like that.

Several of the Ocean Challenge members had commandeered a van to take into town to do some shopping so I went along just to get away so I wouldn't be alone. Then I got to talking to this guy from Japan. He was one of the few Japanese people I knew at the time who spoke very fluent English and he was also even tempered and very pleasant person to talk to.

I started telling him about what had happened to my wife. When I finished he got very serious and adamant in his tone of voice.

"You have to go to Japan and get her!" He said. "You're her husband. No matter whether you think this is it, the case is closed. No! It's your responsibility to go after and rescue your wife."

"But how?" I asked him.

"I don't know but if you are serious enough and if you pray hard enough for guidance then God will show you. You have to do this, Jim. Don't delay. The longer you wait the more this opportunity will slip away for you to save her."

I didn't know what else to say. I was confounded to hear him say this. You see, it's kind of a rare situation in which a member of an organization like this decides to take the initiative to go out on his own in a search and rescue mission which according to my vehement friend of mine this seemed like it would be.

The Unification Church, for the most part, is a very bureaucratic organization. There is a very definite chain of command structure which allows many things to get done in a very efficient manner. Individualism although a prized human trait is often discouraged in favor of obeying this chain of command. It has also, in my observation, been the source of thwarting an individual's personal connection with God from guiding that person.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I feel that this chain of command structure that was ingrained in me from day one as a member of the church prevented me from taking action to find out what happened to Makiko. Although it seemed hopeless to try to find her in a country in which I could not speak the language and especially with that dream I had hanging over my head a month before the Blessing, I still feel that there was this window of opportunity to take action. She was my wife but she was my sister as well. She was a woman I had been, even for brief moment in time, fairly intimate with and I had gotten to know her. She might have needed someone and the opportunity might have been there if I would have had the courage to find it but I didn't feel it was right because of the nature of the organization I as a part of.

Was she in danger? Just by virtue of the letter that she wrote me it seemed that her decision to leave the church was rather premeditated. And I had no information about her. The only address I had was the church center where she worked before coming to New York when she met me. I didn't have her home address or phone number. I had nothing to go on. I actually ended up doing nothing and feeling miserable for the next four years.

As I discovered during the time I spent in The Unification Church was that allowances are made for those members who like me had been previously married whose spouse had decided to leave them, the church or both. The term used is Reblessing and I was reblessed to my present wife in 1989 after being matched to her in 1987.

The thing that is so cool about when I wrote "Tamara's Journey" is that part of the story was written as an autobiography. When you read it you'll find that I used the character, John Kevlan in order to do the things that I wish I could have done in reality. John and Michiko are matched and blessed in 1982 but Michiko's Archeology professor creates a ruse to make it appear that she has left the church as a result of her parents kidnapping her and having her deprogrammed. So, John finds out, like I did, that his wife left the church. However, John eventually finds a way to get the money he needs and travels to Japan to find Michiko. He never actually does but the two of them just happen to meet each other serendipitously on a street corner in Yokohama where she lives near the University.

One very important thing that I found out very early on while I was writing "Tamara's Journey" was the reason why I met Makiko in 1982. You see, Makiko is one of my soul mates. Yes, a lot of us have more than one. I have known Makiko -- or Tamara which is her soul name -- throughout many lifetimes. In this lifetime she needed me to help her with something and that's why I wrote "Tamara's Journey: The Purging Of A Tyrant". It was to help her to work out some karma she had accumulated in a past life. Now, after meeting her in 1982, she made herself known as Tamara early in 2005. Eventually she told me that we met each other in 1982 not to be husband and wife but to make herself familiar to me again so that in 2005 I could begin writing her story through the medium of a fictional story.

That was the beginning of a very close and profound relationship between her and I as I wrote "Tamara's Journey". Every time I sat down and worked on the manuscript I would pause in prayer to summon her spirit and then begin writing. It was like automatic writing. Most of the time I had no idea what I would write or where the story would go next. I just let myself go and be guided. It was profound, mysterious and so much fun.

But it was through writing "Tamara's Journey" that my heart could finally heal from the trauma that I went through in 1983 and the years following that.