By Jose Fragosa
January 29, 2017
Before the Blessing, I was working for the Washington Times. I was one of the very first people to come to the Washington Times. Actually, before that I was working for the Noticius del Mundo in New York. We used to print the Newsworld communications and also the Noticius del Mundo. I used to go to the Tiffany building from New Jersey to get the negatives, the plates for the rollers. One time I came to New York to get the plates and I saw this huge number of members, a lot of them foreign, very well-looking people. So there was some kind of a meeting, and this meeting was about who would be joining the Washington Times. It didn’t exist yet, and Father was really “Let’s set up this”.
I was very excited to see all of this, and I picked up my plates and went back to New Jersey. In my mind I’m going ‘So exciting! I want to be part of the Washington Times, but you know….” And three days later, after we printed the paper, my central figure came and he said “You and you and you, you’re going to Washington, DC. You’re going to be printing the newspaper there.”
So I went to Washington. We didn’t have a press, we didn’t have anything, we used to print the paper in an Alexandria press, that was the only place we had. And we worked very hard in the morning to distribute the paper to all the Senators, Congressmen, all the political people.
So before the Blessing, my central figure came and said “You and you and you, you’re going to go to New York City, there’s going to be a matching.” At that time, to be honest, I didn’t know what the blessing was all about. Before that, I went through training on MFT, fundraising, witnessing like all of us. But somehow, still, I didn’t really want somebody to choose my wife. But I thought of my ancestors, and now I understood that.
I thought, ‘if I had a girlfriend, a wife, I want to be more like this.’ At that time, I was almost ready to leave the church. After printing the paper, I went back to Capitol Gardens. It was a property that Father bought, it was a nun’s seminary, right above Washington University. So when I got home it was about 3 in the morning, and I was so tired, and kind of confused about the matching and blessing. I was really out of myself.
And then as soon as I went to bed I had a dream. We used to sleep in bunk beds, and I was in the bottom. As soon as I fell asleep I had this dream. I was in a place, like a valley, mountains on the side. And a huge typhoon was coming, a very very heavy typhoon, hurricane. I was so afraid because I was by myself, nobody there. And this storm could be my death. And from far away I saw this human being coming in, walking. And I said to myself ‘Well, I’m not here by myself, so maybe he and I can resist the storm.” So he came and came, and as soon as he came close, I saw it was Father.
As soon as I saw Father – you know how psychologically dreams can change? Father is standing in front of me, and suddenly five sisters are standing in front. It was so vivid. One was white, one was from India, one was from Africa, one Hispanic, and one was oriental. And all wearing beautiful clothes. And Father said “Choose one of them as yours. She’s going to be your future wife.” And at that point, I was so impressed by Father, because he said “You want to choose? Go ahead.” Then I became humble to Father. “Father, please. I am so sorry. You choose. You choose. ”
Father moved his head, grabbed the oriental sister by the hand, put his other hand on her shoulder and pushed her. She came and hit my chest, and at that moment, I fell out of bed. I fell out of the bottom bunk. When I woke up and realized it was a dream, I was very emotional. I got up and went to the prayer room, and really cried. I wept a lot. “Father, what’s going on? What was this? What was this?” I was really demanding this. In that way, this dream really became deep inside of me.
So, to make a long story short, two days later we went from Washington to New York City, and we arrived there about 10 pm. The next day, Father gave a sermon starting at 5 am. Then when Father finished speaking, they said, “All of you, go back to your rooms where you’re staying and change into comfortable clothes and come back, because the matching will start.”
So I was sitting there in the ballroom the whole day and Father was you know whish-whish match, whish-whish match, walking up and down. And I go “Well, for me, it’s like a lottery. I don’t think I will be lucky.” So, around 5 o’clock, I was going back and forth, you know, sometimes I was kind of struggling. At 5 o’clock I went to the restroom. And on the way I looked through the windows at the front of the New Yorker, and two buses came, full of Orientals. Very cute Japanese sisters with huge suitcases. Very cute. They just came from the airport. And I looked through the window and thought “Oh, probably my dream, it’s one of them. I don’t know exactly which one it is.”
So I went back to the ballroom. Then Bo Hi Pak said “All members who work for businesses, stand up and make two lines.” Mostly Westerners, brothers and sisters. I didn’t see any oriental sisters in the front, they were mostly Westerners.
Father went down the line, matching people. Then he came to me. And he walked past. And the moment Father went past, I heard a voice very strongly inside of me, say “You shut up! You don’t belong here. Go! Go! You don’t want to be here! You don’t’ belong here! Go!” I heard that voice inside of me like you’re hearing me now. At that moment, Bo Hi Pak was behind Father, and Father asked “Who wants to be matched to an oriental sister?”
At that moment, standing there, I have a cramp, and my hand went up without even thinking. Father took me, and all the Japanese sisters had come and they were sitting in front, so many. Father stood me in front of them and asked the sisters if they wanted to be matched to a South American man. I was so surprised when, maybe 40 or 50 Japanese sisters raised their hand. But my wife didn’t just raise her hand, she almost jumped up off the carpet. And Father looked at her, asked her to stand up. And you know how Japanese are always very shy, and all that? So Father went to her, looked at her, picked up her arm, put one hand on her back, looked at me straight at my face, kind of smiling, and swung her at me. And she hit me. And my wife said “Sorry! Sorry!”
That moment was a turning point in my life. So, this was my deep experience in the matching, and the Blessing, and just exactly what as you described the loving you feel for your husband or wife. Very similar thing, deep deep inside of me, since then has become a part of my life. I have some debts, never, never can I pay back this gift that Father gave to me. So that’s it, one of the testimonies of the blessing.