Chad Martin’s Testimony

By Chad Martin

1111 North 31st Street

Billings, MT 59101

martinfam10@gmail.com

My physical brother, John, is my spiritual parent. Starting in 1973, once a year for five years, I attended three-day Divine Principle workshops in Montana. I studied the Divine Principle black book. I had a critique and counterproposal to the Divine Principle, including a Hindu doctrine, spiritual practices and I belonged to another organization (Ananda Marga). My father commented, “How could I raise two sons who joined crackpot religions?”

In January of 1978 I visited my brother at the Boston Center as I was on my way out of the United States to go into training to become an Ananda Marga Teacher (Acharya). I began attending the Boston workshops, fundraising and witnessing. At the beginning of March, 1978, I had a revelation that it was primary that the basic unit of society is the family, not the individual, which Christianity and Buddhism promote. My response to God was that the other religious systems that were family-centered were Judaism and Confucianism. I then decided to pursue the Divine Principle and the Unification Church.

After two years on the Mobile Fundraising Team (MFT) I was selected to attend the Unification Theological Seminary, which was an extremely rewarding experience for me.

Then Rev. Moon matched me to the love of my life, Fusako Miyagi, from Okinawa, Japan. We were Blessed in 1982 at Madison Square Garden, next to my brother and his wife, Chris. I worked for church businesses in Oakland, Chicago and New York for the next ten years. For these ten years and more, I worked with Sunday school and youth programs, including with our four sons.

In 1993, we moved back to Montana where my family was very helpful in many ways. Billings had a nice church building. Four other Blessed families were all actively involved in everything. In addition to the Sunday school, I developed a youth band that performed weekly and at public venues. We also had seasonal church campouts and retreats where the youth and others gave Divine Principle lectures. The youth developed friendships that will last a lifetime. Most of the adults and youth attended Camp Tongil (elementary) retreats and T-2 (Junior High and High School) retreats in Washington state, which gave them a greater vision for the future. Most of our youth participated in Special Task Force (STF) and Generation Peace Academy (GPA), including an overseas component. These programs helped prepare our youth for taking responsibility for our church after graduating, including preparing for the matching and Blessing.

For the past 17 years I have been teaching high school and junior high school science in Lodge Grass, Montana on the Crow Indian Reservation. After school, Monday through Thursday I offer after-school programs for kindergarten – 12th grade students doing Legos, competitive robotics, catching up on school work, and the Christian Club. The experience has been very rewarding for me personally. I have developed deep relationships with staff, students and members of the community. I frequently have three generations of a family in my classroom, including children of my former students. Our church has done many Blessings on the Crow Reservation. I have given out many of True Parents' biographies and some Divine Principle books to the school staff and administration.

I am presently writing my testimony and have several church members editing it. One of the photos include me piloting a 50-foot sailboat in Hawaii.

photo credit: Chad Martin

The other photo includes my wife, Fusako, my youngest son Robert and his wife Eiko, my second son's wife, Camille and their children (my grandchildren), Miles and Eleanor, and my brother's wife, Vandana, before our sailboat ride.

photo credit: Chad Martin