Monday, April , 2002
National Messiah List Forum
Dear respectful NM’s families,
I hope you all had a wonderful Easter celebration in your respective missions and fields of work. Since we have this new National Messiah list, introduced to us at Easter by Jonathan Kirst, I was thinking and reflecting, so please allow me to share my thoughts with all of you.
When the NM list started some years ago, I think all of us on this list got very inspired and shared our mission’s experiences and our countless struggles with one another. Once this list started, I felt we are a big family of National Messiahs. I always felt it is my “personal National Messiah list”, were I wanted to contribute and serve.
I guess sometimes I succeeded, other times maybe not. Sorry for the e-mails, which maybe sometimes were not appropriate in your eyes. Once Ralph Jensen told me: The idea of the National Messiahs is new to all of us, it was never pioneered before and therefore all these challenges occur.
I was a foreign missionary for 21 years; in 1975 I left Germany at the age of 23 years, and I felt like Abraham leaving his nation and everything else behind, in order to serve God and True Parents. How I wished, that during the time of my foreign mission we could have had the Internet. It literally would have helped so many foreign missionaries to survive.
How lucky we are now, to have the Internet in NM providence. The foreign missionaries didn’t have the Internet, but they had the two most important things: Heavenly Father and True Parents.
Today, in the NM providence, we have Heavenly Father, True Parents and the Internet.
There were times, when I struggled and wanted to resign as NM for the Philippines. My wife always encouraged me, not to do so. Since last year, I felt that the NM’s list and its members are not responding enough, to make this list worthwhile. I always felt, that this list is different from all the other lists I know in our Movement. I’m sorry to say, but I expected more participation from all of us. Unfortunately, I noticed, that basically always the same NM's were writing, even though we are 150 list members.
One reason for not writing might be that most NM’s are not in their mission country yet, so why bother? But why don’t we share what everybody is doing in his native country? There’s nothing wrong, if you are not yet in your mission country. I’m in the same situation. I live and work in Austria, not in the Philippines. I will decide, when I will go to the Philippines, nobody else. What I know for sure, is that I love the Philippines, and once I have the money, I will go there.
Sometimes I wish we had more "chats" on other topics as well, not just issues relating to NMs, to make this list more “light”, so that other NM list members could contribute as well. Sorry to say this: I don’t agree, when some months ago a NM wrote, that personal messages are not of interest or concern for the public. May be I right, but I noticed since then less mails were written to the list.
I enjoy also the light issues. Therefore, I like the ”Ucafe Forum (before it was Damian Anderson’s list) It is so alive! I hope that our list will reach this level soon.
Whatever the reasons were for not contributing, but for the sake of the “NM’s family community” and keeping the list alive, we should have contributed more. This is the way I think. Nothing has changed much only Jonathan added some more features and possibilities to the new NM list, but the principle stays the same, i.e. only NM’s families are admitted. There must be a reason, why the list changed a bit. Sometimes I wish Peter Kim or Hyun Jin Nim were on the list, to assist us as our elder brothers.
I hope that Jonathan will give us another chance for the list. He is the list master and it takes time and energy to serve this list. That’s why I’m very grateful to Jonathan. Symbolically speaking, let’s give him a big hand….
I would like to appeal to those NM’s families who have never contributed anything to the list. Please don’t consider this list just another list. It is your list too!! And much of the NMs future lies with you on this list. Either we increase or decrease together in the NM providence. That’s why I feel this list is very important and allow me to say, our heavenly Father inspired Jonathan to create the NM list.
I hope nobody is offended by my letter. I’m just worried, that if the list will not make an upward move, perhaps in a year or less Jonathan ,might stop the NM list altogether, and with that we have no more Forum with the power and ability to unite all NM's families in order to serve God and True Parents.
Thank you!
Sincerely yours,
Wolfgang Schawaller
NM Philippines