person picking up starfish
Exclusive interview with Guo Yuanfei. Liu Yongling and his wife talk about the ministry of "True Love Couples Camp"
Interview Team/Zhou Weiwei, Fan Renhe, Sun Lihua, Huang Xinhui, Chen Yushan
Organizing/Chen Yushan
A healthy family begins with a healthy relationship. However, modern couples are always busy with career and family, and communicate with each other less and less. When they get along day and night, they often see each other’s shortcomings, and long-term conflicts and problems cannot be solved, resulting in the deterioration of the relationship between husband and wife. They have no time to cultivate feelings, and even more Not to mention dating and talking.
Just like the body needs to be checked, the car needs to be maintained, and the marriage also needs to be managed. As long as you are willing to manage your marriage, face up to problems, and solve them, the relationship between husband and wife can be improved.However, many people think that once they get married, they don’t have to learn or change. Unknowingly, their marriages turn into red flags, ranging from sharing the same bed with different dreams to engaging in extramarital affairs or even ending in divorce, causing great harm and tragedy.
Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling, directors of the East American Ministry Center of the "True Love Family Association", have helped many couples save their marriages and regain the love of their first love by organizing the "True Love Couples Camp".
Liu Yongling compared their couple to "people picking up starfish." She said sincerely: "The relationship between many Chinese couples lacks management, and they are like starfish on the beach, washed up by the sea; if no one picks them up and throws them back into the sea, I am afraid it will They were left on the shore to dry up and die, so we decided to turn the tide and save as many as we could..."
Husband and wife are called together
Before 2000, Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling participated in "couples camps" organized by Chinese and Americans many times, such as "Marriage Encounter". During the camp, they saw more than a dozen couples temporarily putting down their jobs and children to face the difficulties of marriage seriously and frankly in order to take a longer road. They were very moved and hoped that they could also help those whose marriages were in crisis in the future. Chinese compatriots.
Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling have been married for thirty-six years. Guo Yuanti is a chemical engineer who has been developing new drugs in pharmaceutical companies for 28 years before retiring in 1999. After Liu Yongling came to the United States in 1969, she studied education and counseling at the University of Missouri Graduate School. After giving birth to her child, she became a full-time housewife.
In order to serve the needs of Chinese families, in 1997, while still working in a pharmaceutical factory, Guo Yuandi and his wife entered Philadelphia Bible University to receive training and study Christian counseling. Three years later, the couple graduated at the same time, and Guo Yuandi took another year of pastoral counseling (Pastoral Counseling) course and internship.They have a mission to help, heal the brokenhearted and bring them to the Lord Jesus through family ministry.
Across China and the West, inclusive
Marriage counseling originated in the West, while couples camp originated in Spain and spread to the United States and other countries in the 1960s and 1970s. Westerners are open and more willing to share their feelings for each other; Easterners are reserved and need to slowly cultivate feelings in a warm atmosphere.Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling integrated the best of the East and the West, created a set of marriage counseling methods suitable for Chinese people, and taught them in the "True Love Couple Camp" program.
Because they are fluent in both Chinese and English and can understand the cultural differences between the East and the West, Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling not only serve the Chinese, but are also invited to give lectures in American churches, and often have the opportunity to teach Chinese teenagers growing up in the United States. These special backgrounds and conditions make their family ministry span China and the West and be eclectic.
Since 2000, the couple has held many true love couples camps in North America in the form of weekend camps. At the same time, this ministry has also expanded to Kaohsiung and Taichung in Taiwan.
True love couple camp for holistic development
True Love Couples Camp is hosted by the True Love Family Association and is usually held on weekends. There are more than a dozen couples participating each time, mostly pastors and laypeople, and the general public is also welcome to participate. The camp mainly discusses:
* Blueprint for Marriage* Children and Marriage
* Couple communication* Couple sexual intimacy
* Conflict Resolution* Sexual Chastity and Marriage
* Family of origin and marriage * In-law relationship.
* Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship and marriage
The camp specially arranges time for couples to cultivate their relationship, and arranges for couples to go on dates alone to talk, relive old dreams, re-experience the scenes of love and dating before marriage, and cultivate a closer relationship between husband and wife.
During the question and answer time, any difficult problems between couples can be raised anonymously. Someone once asked this kind of pertinent and difficult questions: "When my husband asks for sex when I am exhausted physically and mentally, should I obey?" Or: "My husband likes to hang out on pornographic websites, what should I do?"
In addition, the "True Love Couples Camp" also focuses on the balanced development of couples.Even if both spouses are highly educated, have successful careers, and are in good health, they will still feel empty in their hearts if they do not know God. On the contrary, if a couple values God’s words and prays together regularly, their marriage will be relatively stronger.
▲Finding your own love language can make communication between couples smoother.
Turn the tide and go to the Far East
In 2002, Guo Yuanpei and Liu Yongling received an email from an Asian country, asking if they could go and give training seminars to help local family ministries, but they had to pay for their own air tickets. At the time, they were attending a training session with Pastor Graham in North Carolina.
During dinner, an American brother they had never met sat at the same table with them. He said, "God inspired me to ask you, is there anything you need my help with?" Guo Yuandi was surprised, so he told the truth and shared the story of an Asian family. work needs. After hearing this, the brother handed him a check for a thousand dollars that night. Later, someone else gave him the other half of the money, which added up to just enough to pay for their plane tickets!
In this way, God opened the door for them to enter Asian countries and held many lectures and "True Love Couple Camps" in several cities. Later, their service expanded to more cities.
In examples of counseling in Asian countries, they found that in some areas, the proportion of extramarital affairs is 80 to 90%, and divorce is commonplace. The people who come to participate in the couples camp are between the ages of thirty and fifty. Most of them are wives who are willing to participate and strongly invite their husbands to come with them. Some gentlemen joked that they were "cheated" into it. However, after the weekend camp, the gentlemen were very moved and said that it was worth being "cheated"!
▲Writing down your determination to rekindle love can save a marriage that is about to hit the rocks.
There are many benefits to working as a couple
Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling both have the same responsibility, which is to strengthen marriages in Chinese families and become "starfish pickers." During the empty nest period, they expressed gratitude for being able to serve the Lord with their spouses. When they encounter problems, they pray together and truly practice the teaching that "the husband is the head and the wife is submissive."
Guo Yuanping said: "When working with my wife, I often remind myself: As a husband, have I fulfilled the role of a servant - serving my wife? If I am not willing to sacrifice for my wife, how can I counsel others on their marital problems? If I am not willing to sacrifice for my wife, how can I help others with their marital problems? How can we effectively lead a couples camp if we cannot treat each other with true love? Moreover, Yongling has already implemented Mr. Respect’s teachings himself!”
Looking back on the past, they admitted that they spent too much time on their children and neglected their relationship as husband and wife. They hope young couples will not make the same mistakes. In recent years, they often take advantage of the opportunity to go out to lead family ministries and date alone to relax and enhance their relationship and understanding.
Working together as husband and wife also encourages them to maintain balance when serving, whether they are coaching or leading couples camps, and speaking without favoring men or women. In the camp, when more than a dozen couples gather together to share, Guo Yuandi is often the first to confess the story of meeting and falling in love with his wife when he was young.
"I was twenty-nine years old back then, a destitute young man who had lost his love. I still remember that day when twenty-four-year-old Yongling suddenly broke into my long-lost heart..."
In this way, the ice-breaking opening remarks inspired the campers to open up and share honestly. As a result, couples put aside their prejudices, learn to accept each other again, treat each other sincerely, resolve unresolved conflicts with their spouses, and return to the sweet scene of newlyweds. This true expression often makes many people whose marriages are at an impasse moved to tears!
▲The True Love Couple Training Camp can help old couples relive the sweetness of first love and strengthen the wisdom of young couples in learning communication and resolving conflicts.
Outlook and appeal
Another wish of Guo Yuanping and Liu Yongling is to call on the church to see the importance of managing marriages.
Usually, the church places more emphasis on spiritual teaching, without neglecting one aspect and neglecting the other. However, managing a marriage is about applying the lessons of spiritual teaching to life in order to avoid problems in the family that will affect the quality of the service. The joint service of husband and wife is originally acceptable to God. If it can be managed properly and new ideas are added to the marriage life, the effectiveness of joint service will be greatly improved.
"Pastoral counselors must first establish a good relationship with God, and then live in harmony with their spouses. Pastoral counselors must learn not to bear the burden of the counselee on themselves, but to pray, look up to, and trust everything, Leave it to God.”This is their years of coaching experience and their advice to underachievers.
In addition to helping families and marriages, the couple also hopes to train more potential and caring couples to become leaders of family ministry. We sincerely appeal to mature couples with good relationships and life testimonies to come out and receive equipment! After all, the ministry of marriage counseling must influence lives with life and touch true love with true love in order to achieve long-term results.