EMPOWER meets UPA Cadets in Tirana, Albania
By EMPOWER, European missionary program
Hey there! EMPOWER is taking over today’s HJYA Blog 😉
The EMPOWER program (if you didn’t know already) is EUME’s year-long missionary and faith development program for young adults ages 18-30 designed to help participants find and live their life of faith in the Unificationist community through fundraising training, witnessing, participating in service projects, and going on a pilgrimage in South Korea to grow their hearts and character towards Heavenly Parents, True Parents, and others.
EMPOWER has completed 40 days of the witnessing portion of the program. We have one team in Fier, Albania, and another in Pristina, Kosovo. Participants have had the chance to get accustomed to their country, reach to people on the streets with “Anketës” (surveys), host exciting cultural and language courses (in Spanish and Korean!), and teach the Divine Principle. It has been a busy 40 days and a very meaningful time learning to work together as a team to support one another.
We gathered together for a midterm witnessing workshop in Mullet, Albania, to take a breather and assess how we are doing. We spent time reflecting, debriefing our witnessing experiences, having heart-to-heart sharings with one another, receiving inspirational witnessing guidance from Martine Masner, and even hosting our vigil prayer in the evenings! Vigil prayers were a core component of our workshop, where we heard testimonies from each other, sang our hearts out, and prayed together as we launched into the next 40 days of our witnessing program.
Upon a sudden turn of events, EMPOWER went to Tirana to attend the Sunday service and welcome the Albania UPA team! EMPOWER performed the song ‘No Matter Where You Are’ (which sounded amazing, by the way 😉 for the community.
EMPOWER participants Kristian and Alena shared their testimonies about their witnessing experience in Fier, Albania. Here is Kristian’s part of the testimony:
“In witnessing, whenever I honestly and sincerely wished for my witnessing partner to achieve great results, they could approach people who would come to our center and receive the lectures and, in some cases, even keep coming back. I would like to share an experience while witnessing with Alena [my witnessing partner]. It was right after a long night of True Parent’s birthday and Holy Day celebrations online. Alena and I felt incredibly grateful and joyful on that day for connecting with True Parents because of their birthday and the celebrations.
That day, I could feel a sincere desire for Alena to bring a guest back to the center who could be maybe even her spiritual child. At the beginning of that session, we set a clear intention to bring one person back to the center. One of the first people we approached was a girl named Estrela and her friend- and they came to the center! And I was given the opportunity by Alena to give the Introduction to her, which was an extremely nice experience. In one moment, she also taught me about the Divine Principle in some ways, which was amazing. I’m very grateful for this experience.”
We felt energized and honored to greet the 6 UPA missionaries, including Shinchul Moon and his wife, Jiwoo Jang who will be doing a mission in Tirana for two years! Together, we will be a wellspring of pure flowing water: inspiration and hope for our True Mother, who has so much hope for the upcoming generation. Now, EMPOWER is off to its final 40 days in Fier and Pristina.
If you or someone you know is interested in participating in EMPOWER 2024-2025, our application is now LIVE!
Check out our social media @ Empower Program on Facebook or our website for more information: http://empower-eume.org
Stay tuned for more updates!