In Memory of Kim Barry(1955 - 2015)

Kim Barry was born Kim Pickard on January 5, 1955 in Mexico City, Mexico, to American parents, Gary and Lee Pickard. She moved with her family to Phoenix, Arizona when she was seven. Kim joined the Unification Church in September 1975 in Phoenix while a student at Arizona State University. She spent two and a half years on National MFT and also did considerable witnessing activity.

In May 1979, she became engaged to Mark P. Barry in the engagement ceremony held at the New Yorker Hotel. Shortly afterward, she started a pioneering witnessing activity in Huntington, West Virginia with Jamie Sheeran Maniatis. In 1981, she continued her undergraduate studies at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, where she graduated in late 1982. In July of that year, she and Mark participated in the 2,075 Couples Blessing at Madison Square Garden.

Upon graduation, she joined the staff of CAUSA International in New York and traveled to several countries in the Americas. During that period, her first daughter, Jennifer, was born in 1984. Also during that time, Mark was an executive assistant to Dr. Bo Hi Pak. Over the years, the Barry family became especially close to Dr. and Mrs. Pak and remain so to this day. They are eternally grateful for all that the Pak family have done for them.

The Barry family moved to Phoenix in 1986, so that Mark could complete his undergraduate studies, and that year their second daughter, Lani, was born. In mid-1987, the family relocated to Northern Virginia so that Mark could complete a master’s degree program. In 1988, their first son, Joshua, was born. From 1990 to 1996, the family lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, while Mark pursued a doctoral degree program. During that time, their sons Benjamin and David were born.

In Charlottesville Kim was most beloved to many members of the local community, in particular African-American ministers and their congregations whom she diligently served and witnessed to. Despite being a mother of five children, she organized several workshops for the young people in these congregations of local churches, where several prominent Unificationists came to give Divine Principle lectures.

After Mark’s completion of his doctoral degree, the family returned to Phoenix in 1997, where he undertook a research position in the Arizona state legislature. After three years in Phoenix, in fall 2000, Kim accepted a staff position in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the New Eden Academy (now Bridgeport International Academy). The family relocated to the Red Hook area in fall 2001 where they have since remained. For several years, Kim served as faculty secretary at Unification Theological Seminary. Most recently, she was a nutrition educator for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County.

In fall 2006, Kim was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a successful program of treatment through the spring of 2007. Unfortunately, after several years of good health, she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in late fall 2012, which affected her bones and ultimately, her liver.

As a loving mother and wife, Kim was deeply dedicated to her faith community and often organized many outreach and interfaith events. Even towards the end of her cancer battle, she was deeply committed to serving her community by organizing donations to food banks and community gardens in the Hudson Valley, and to orphanages in Africa.

Kim is survived by her husband Mark, daughters Jennifer and Lani, sons Joshua, Benjamin, and Shinsung David, and her brother, Michael.