Recently I was invited to present
a marriage seminar in a town called Ghelmenidsk in Ukraine.
Ukraine, being a former Russian controlled state only has less
that 1% of people able to speak English.
At the day of the seminar, 60 people
arrived with pens and paper ready to blot down all the wisdom
and advice I have to share about a successful marriage.
I started by inviting them to put
the papers away and open their souls to understanding new truths
I want to share. Through an interpreter, I shared my own journey
of discovering the holiness of the space between a couple. I
shared how I managed to gain connection with my wife and what
freedom I gain when we drowned the power struggle.
The decision to demonstrate the couples
dialogue was very tough because I am not able to speak or understand
more than 3 or 4 Russian words. When I asked for a volunteer
couple, I was hoping a couple would volunteer who could speak
English but the couple who volunteered unfortunately didn’t
even understand one word of English plus they did not have a
good relationship. So, with the interpreter, I guided them in
a simple couple’s dialogue. I instructed the interpreter
who in turn instructs the couple. When the couple spoke to each
other the interpreter translated it to me.
The difficulty in this was that I
could not pick up an emotion and feeling through the words they
said, but had to watch their body language and faces.
It was quite a challenge to stop
them and help them remove any stuff (inappropriate comments)
that they drop into the space between them.
The advantage was that they were
forced to stay and talk to each other because they could only
address me through the interpreter.
The process of the couples dialogue
surprised me, because within 30 minutes it creaed a safe space
between the couple that could be sensed by the whole congregation.
The space became so clean and almost
sacred that no one dared to say a word, but all 60 people in
the room cried with the couple. Specially when the woman validated
and gave feeling to what the husband said.
They seemed to forget about the people
in the room and just stared in wonder at the new person they
had just discovered.
This proved to me that every couple
in the world is looking for connections and a safe place in
which to connect with another person.
On that day, I demonstrated the process
with another Russian couple on the stage with similar results.
I proceeded in the following two
days by doing counseling with four couples using the couple’s
dialogue through an interpreter.
The feedback from these people was
tremendous to such an extent that one person described her experience
as having the same value as her experience of being saved by
God.
