Testimonials
DONE 2022/23
“As a Second Gen, I have always been curious and wanted to learn more about the history, spiritual aspects, and traditions of our church. I wanted to understand my parents’ life course, too. DONE provided the education that I always wanted. I learned so much about the history, principles, Matching & Blessing and heart of God and True Parents.
Another big realisation was the value of my relationships with brothers and sisters. We came to DONE for different reasons, being different personalities. We came to grow and learn with an open heart. We could support each other on our spiritual journey as a family. Finding a true friendship with someone who is also serious about the spiritual growth and going through similar struggles with you is hard. I could find my companions of faith on DONE. And I am forever grateful for that. Team success is way more fulfilling than personal success. It is my privileged to offer these victories to God and True Parents.”
Participant from Hong Kong
DONE 2022/23
“Going into DONE, with the simple reasoning of “I trust it is a good way of growing further” I had no idea of the immense value it was going to hold for me. Even with all the challenges and confrontations experienced, I gained so much more than I expected. We were able to create such depth and harmony by deciding to invest, being sincere and choosing vulnerability over comfort, and by supporting one another. It allowed me to see others with more clarity and establish unique connections, to gain more understanding of myself and to recognize my own self-worth. I was able to experience God’s love and see what it feels like to create a space where He can truly dwell and experience joy. DONE left me with an immense sense of gratitude and privilege. It is a reminder of the direction I want to walk and a reminder of a duty I carry to honour God, True Parents and my own ancestors, through my actions and life decisions.”
Participant from Portugal
DONE 2022/23
“DONE was genuinely one of the best and happiest times of my life. It helped me build a strong foundation for my faith through the content and the experiences I had, which I had been uncertain about for some time. I really want to live a life with God, and I’m committed to care and live for the sake of others. The relationships I made on DONE I feel couldn’t have been made anywhere else. Having that constant support and the precious bonds I made with people really inspires me to keep growing and pushing myself to be the best person I can be not just for myself but also for God and those who I really care for. Being with such caring and supportive friends helped me remove some layers I was hiding behind and see the qualities I had which I was unaware of. Being able to be truly free around others and to just be myself was a big accomplishment for me.”
Participant from Ireland
DONE 2022/23
“My fundraising experience was quite magical for me. The most valuable thing I learned was trust and faith. Being able to trust myself, have confidence in myself. To be able to overcome my own struggles and challenges. Most importantly trust and faith in God. Faith that I’m being guided in my life. Faith that I will succeed, and I will be safe. Building upon this relationship with God centred on this faith was powerful and is a strong foundation for my life going forward.
When I look back on this period of my life, I think it will one of the most important and decisive moments in my life. The connections I’ve made here are invaluable. Each of us has a support network to rely on when were in need. I’ve truly found a family here. Thank you for this amazing opportunity to grow. Grow closer to God. Grow closer to the Blessing and to being a better person.”
Participant from Ireland
DONE 2022/23
“If I had to describe my DONE M1 experience, I would compare it to skydiving. Granted, I’ve never been skydiving, but I think the analogy works. The first five weeks were focused on FR. And this was like how it is when you first jump out of the plane when you skydive. It took a while for me to adapt, but then I felt comfortable and started enjoying the fast speed (metaphorically and intensity wise). What made it incredibly meaningful was the team. We always supported and encouraged each other, and after every day, it felt like you were coming back to your family after a long day of work.
In the second part we had a week of education from Uncle Armando, and I saw it as the time you spend falling with the parachute open. Taking in information and processing everything, which was a nice period where we could ‘take in the views’. And finally, in the last week, we had a ‘long graduation’, we went to the mountains and prepared to go back to our day to day lives. And I would compare this period to when you prepare to land, ending with actually landing.”
Participant from UK
DONE 2022/23
“I’m grateful for all the couples and families on DONE. Seeing them happy showed me what I am working towards and why I was on DONE. I realised after seeing different people playing with Kolya and Siena that I want these people to be involved in my life and when I have my own children, I want my DONE family to meet them. They are my companions of faith from now on.
What about my current family? I’ve definitely improved my patience being on DONE. I want to be more open to my family going home, based on what I’ve learned on DONE. I want to create a good environment at home that my family and I can be proud of. I don’t want to force anything on my family or be critical of the bad things that can be improved. I want to work to build on the good things that we already have.”
Participant from UK
DONE 2022/23
“DONE and DONE M1 have both considerably helped me to deeply anchor my life of faith. Through experiencing the incredibly detailed and tailored content on the programme, along with the genuinely considerate staff, I was able to grow internally more than I could have thought of before applying for the programme. Being in an environment where everyone is intentionally choosing to take their faith seriously, on the programme we developed not only just friendships for life, but a family. The way the schedule works, allows for realistically evaluating aspects of your life that need to be improved or nurtured, whilst it also actively challenged me to exceed my perceived limits of my character. DONE creates a space for honest sharing that defined my experience and continues to encourage me to reflect and be more internally conscious in my everyday life. There is so much value in choosing to take time out and dedicating it to God, and having been on DONE, I feel so much more confident now contributing to my community back at home.”
Participant from UK
DONE 2022/23
“DONE was providing me with an ideal environment to grow. For growth you need to have freedom and be trusted but also you need guidance and support and on DONE I got all of it. DONE showed me the potential that I have as a brother and son of God. I needed a little push and confrontation in my spiritual life and in how strong my values are. I would say that I became a different person. Much more confident and clearer and able to discern and confront right from wrong much better, both within myself and in others. Despite all the values, guidance, and education I experienced an incredible, unbreakable bond to every single participant and that is really something remarkable and something that I will remember my whole life. Certain things I experienced I cannot explain because they are not in my head but in my heart.”
Participant from Germany
Summer 2022
“There is something so special about connecting and sharing things deeply with people who are striving towards the same ideals and who share the same roots. One of the key take-aways for me was to realise that we don’t have to and actually also can’t achieve these ideals as individuals, that we do need companions of faith in our life and that community and connection are of significant importance.”
Participant
Summer 2022
“I found the content to be really refreshing. I had quite an emotional experience during that last reflection activity before our final group discussion. I felt a deep sense of belonging at the workshop and with that community. It was something I was unsure of before, do I belong here? Do I fit in? Could this be home for me? And bit by bit my doubt was washed away through the WS and I can feel a profound sense of “I belong”. Which meant a lot to me as that’s often what we all want deep down, a sense of belonging and place where we can be ourselves and be real.”
Participant
ODP+ 2022
“The ODP+ was a great experience. The atmosphere was so high-spirited and I gained a lot of clarity on what I should do next on my life journey. Sharing with people about our beliefs is so meaningful; it’s the only way we can create the holy community we want.”
Participant
Summer 2022
“This workshop was life-giving. It’s like I came home to family after a long journey. I find myself more inspired and with new confidence to grow.”
Participant
Summer 2022
“I feel renewed, uplifted, recharged. In this workshop, I’ve gained insight and clarity, which has made me reaffirm my identity and my relationship towards God and True Parents. I have a sense of new determination, focus and zeal to pursue my goals, happiness and original value. It has been a spiritual boost that will undoubtedly propel me forward in my journey.”
Participant
DONE 2019
“DONE’s approach to spiritual education is something I’ve never experienced anywhere else. Their content is powerful, honest, supported by facts, non-fanatical, confronting, meaningful, deep, and relatable.
I love this quote from our HDH booklet: “Faith does not mean seeing the world as you would like it to be; it means seeing the world exactly as it is, yet never giving up the hope that we can make it better by the way we live.” I think that the content on DONE is very similar to this. You don’t hear about fairy tales, but if you give your effort you can gain a lot of faith, strength, and hope from it. It always comes down to personal responsibility.
DONE helped me realize my relationship with spirituality and I could build a strong foundation. I felt a tremendous amount of love, support, and understanding from everyone during my year and it also contributed a lot to how I received the content.”
Participant from Hungary
DONE 2016
“When I talk to other people, it’s impossible not to refer to time as “life before DONE” and “life after DONE”. I think this expresses very beautifully and accurately, how big of an impact the programme had on me. Taking time, while I was young, to practice being present internally, learn about God, life and relationships gave me a huge advantage. At a defining stage of life, DONE helped me get my priorities sorted out, and have a compass that guided me on the journey of growing up. And on top of that, becoming part of the DONE family created a love-net around me that has supported and taken care of me ever since.”
Participant from Hungary
DONE 2014
“DONE helped me build a life of faith that is built on thinking for myself, taking responsibility for my growth and learning to make my own healthy life choices. Since DONE, my relationship with God and others is therefore more genuine. It also helped me develop a ‘normal everyday’ spirituality, that is sustainable. It made me realise that being a good person doesn’t necessarily mean doing crazy, epic things; even in our ordinary daily life, we have the potential to be good people, by choosing to care for others and invest in goodness.”
Participant from Belgium
DONE 2015 to 2018
“One of the attitudes I gained from DONE is that whoever I am now can infinitely improve; I can be more loving, sensitive, balanced, stronger, and more in tune with myself and others. I also learned that God created me to be on this boundless journey of growth, and that this is what makes life infinitely interesting and exciting. It also makes life reassuring because no matter where I am, or the mistakes I’ve made, I don’t have to stay there and feel stuck; things can always improve and get better as long as I put in the necessary effort.”
Participant from Australia
DONE 2015
“My time on DONE was a formative stage of development in my spiritual life. Wanting to seek, learn and grow, I learnt how to cultivate a perspective and lifestyle that has given me clarity to this day on how to navigate the challenging and complex path of life we have ahead of us. I shared this process of growth and learning with fellow BCs who I have become very close with and I’m grateful to have been a part of it all.”
Participant from New Zealand
DONE 2022/23
“When I look back on the last two years of DONE, all I can say is that I am grateful for how it aligned the beginning of my life with stronger values. How accurately your direction is tuned makes a decisive impact of what destination you reach, and I believe that both years of DONE helped me with exactly that: knowing my direction (instead of destination), and learning the skills and tools needed to keep it. This doesn’t mean that my life will be a straight line from now on, no. But when I do miss a mark, I can be sure that this incredible network of companions of faith (my fellow Doners) and a competent group of older brothers and sisters in mentoring positions, will offer the exact support I need to find my way back to a life for God. It takes effort, and won’t always be easy, and that is exactly why we need communities and strong environments.”
Participant from Germany
ODP+ 2022
“This ODP+ felt like exactly what I needed right now to centre myself more and re-connect to God and to my spirituality, and also to gain confidence in myself and my values.
I felt lost spiritually and overwhelmed, not really knowing why or how to work on this. I feel I have genuinely gained confidence here. I have been able to re-connect to God. I am finally moving towards where I want to go, instead of feeling stuck and stumbling in the dark. I am now on my way and I feel relieved and excited.”
Participant
Summer 2022
“I never expected the content to impact me so much. The lectures spoke to my soul. It was confronting and comforting. The key message for me was understanding God’s love. It opened a new path and opening in my heart, that is allowing me to heal and commit to goals I now believe I can achieve.
Another key take-away was on the Blessing. Before now, I was so caught up by the overwhelming vocabulary and the specific steps and order, which honestly made it hard for me to connect to. I felt like I was so far from achieving that level. But the way the Blessing was talked about here, makes it sound so beautiful and actually exciting and something I could actually work on. I ended up feeling so light and liberated. I am so grateful for all the core staff who have made this experience an absolutely life-changing, incredible time for me.”
Participant
DONE 2019
“I would describe the education I received on DONE as realistic, applicable, inspiring, hopeful, and grounded. It confronted me and at the same time brought me peace. The encouragement and push to grow and the honest portrayal of the challenges that may accompany that, really pave the way for sustained growth.
The honesty from the staff and the extent to which they truly care about each participant is so evident from beginning to end and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. DONE really provided me with a lot of support, but also with the tools to support myself and the people in my life as I move forward.
I gained a much more grounded sense of myself, spirituality, and the world. In particular, I gained a clearer image of myself and of how to continuously distinguish within myself that which is from God from that which is not. Another big thing is a much firmer understanding of growth and the awareness that I have the potential and ability to grow, which is not an awareness that I’ve always had. And I gained some of the best friends I have ever had.
Going to DONE was probably the best decision I have ever made, and I am so grateful for the things I have learned there, for it will surely make my life a better one.”
Participant from USA
DONE 2019
“DONE truly has been the “down to earth” programme people have said it to be. The atmosphere the directors and lecturers create; one of welcoming challenging questions and encouraging us participants to take responsibility to challenge our own concepts and understandings has been an important part of my DONE experience.
DONE has given me the confidence to really take ownership of my spiritual life and develop that commitment to higher standards. I’ve realised that there’s always some way I can improve or grow, emphasising the need for me to be attentive to what God is trying to tell me in my everyday life. Ultimately, I am responsible for choosing to grow to be the person I have the potential to become.
Now as a DONE Graduate, I look forward to moving onto the next chapters of my life with the precious friendships and unforgettable memories I’ve made throughout the past year.”
Participant from Ireland
DONE 2016
“After I finished high school, I wasn’t really clear about how I want to go on or how to define my future. By doing DONE, my life of faith was really confronted. The most important lesson that I took from this time is this: in your faith you shouldn’t depend on a certain environment but be able to build your own spiritual environment wherever you are. Looking back, my struggles or challenges in life haven’t change at all, but what changed for sure is the way I look at and deal with them now.
Through DONE, I was able to reconsider how I can adopt a consistent and committed lifestyle for the values that I would like to treasure.”
Participant from Germany
DONE 2016
“DONE was a wake-up call.” I wrote that in my DONE reflection back in 2016 and now, three years later, I still think that. Something I really like about the programme is that the change you experience and the progress you can make is not just a bubble that pops once you return home again. DONE provides you with a lot of tools to be a better version of yourself. And in my case, through applying those tools, it was possible for me to create a much better and more meaningful lifestyle, build a much stronger character, feel at peace, get closer to God and simply be happier. I learned to be better at taking responsibility and to be strong enough to not always take the easy route but to push beyond my limits and my comfort zone. But DONE also helped me to make me think outside of myself. I learned how to be a better friend, sister and daughter and that I can develop a much greater care and love for others once I accept and love myself for who I am. And I believe the friends I found there will last a lifetime.”
Participant from Germany
Summer 2022
“This workshop was very helpful. It was also challenging because it made me look at my personal situation and see some areas in my life that urgently need improvement. I realised that I care about this community. And I want to give something to it. I want to invest my heart for God’s plan A for my life. I want to learn to love and not remain only a shadow of my true self. I believe I can make a meaningful contribution and I want to take the chance to do that.”
Participant
ODP+ 2022
“These last years, life hasn’t been great and I lost the desire to develop a life of faith and a relationship with God – and to put my trust and faith into the movement. ODP+ has lit a flame that gives me hope for myself. It has shown me a side of me that I thought was buried. I feel like a whole person again. This excitement and desire to grow is something I missed.”
Participant
DONE 2022/23
“DONE is a training program, of course it´s not your usual daily life in which you are confronted with maybe more profound problems and struggles; but it´s not a bubble which just simply pops. It is a decision which you make. After coming back home one needs to make active decisions every day: to think life is for or against you, to make commitments and keep them or rather set no goals at all to be “safe” and comfortable, to be responsible in life or to be a victim, to live in the now for the future or to live in the past. To protect your personal dream (or whatever reminds you of why all this freaking work and pain would be worth it) and remember it (which can be unbearably difficult) or to choose to be lost and helpless.”
Participant from Germany
