Outstanding Family of the Year 2018 Award

Every year since 2016, the National Ministry Team honors outstanding families who have shown notable devotion in our communities and present them with an Outstanding Family Award. This year, the Outstanding Family Award was given to two families who have been dedicating since 2015 to bring young second-generation students from Japan to pilgrimage tours in America.

Luca and Janine Sawada, who just returned from Japan after visiting communities and preparing participants for the next program, and Mark and Marie-Elise Beaudoin teamed up to show young Japanese students the great foundation their parents helped build. These two families mobilized themselves to give back to the Japanese Movement, which has supported the American Movement for many years.

Every few months a group of Japanese students comes to America for a few weeks. The Beaudoin’s act as hosts and plan a program for the students which normally includes a tour to East Garden and Belvedere where they hear testimonies of those who served True Parents closely for many years. The students also visited the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS), the University of Bridgeport, the Manhattan Center and the New Yorker Hotel where they have the opportunity to meet Regional Chairman of Family Federation North America, Dr. Ki Hoon Kim and President of Family Federation for a Heavenly USA, Rev. Richard Buessing. The Beaudoin’s also take the students to visit Washington, D.C. where they can see the Washington Monument, visit the Washington Times, and other national memorials.

Throughout these tours, the Sawada’s also arrange Divine Principle and True Parents’ Life Course lectures by prominent lecturers in Japanese, such as Director of HAS-UWC Kodan Rev. Hiroshi Inose, and Dr. Theodore Tasaaki Simmyo who served as President of UTS.

Mr. Sawada has made it his initiative to help the younger Japanese second-generation appreciate their parents’ long-standing support for America. Through these pilgrimages, many of the Japanese students were revived and felt appreciation for True Parents, the Unification Movement and their own families.