Written by: Ate C, U! Happy Core Member
During December, we can find the whole nation in the mood of festive celebration because of the birth of Jesus Christ. In the morning of December 20, we took a moment to celebrate a sweet milestone for Ate Bea Gobio as it marks her 16th birthday. Perhaps, what made it so much sweeter is her decision to spend her day, not only with friends and family, but also with 30 children of Christian Mission Service Philippines.
CMSP in Pasig is a community-based organization founded to reach out to children of poor families in depressed communities. Its mission is to enable the needy, neglected, and deprived children to become responsible Christians by providing holistic child care development services; to provide quality Christian education among children in the community, and; to reach out to children in faith communities.
It was our first time to partner with CMSP that day, but the children welcomed us warmly and did not make us feel like strangers at all as they readily engaged and participated in all the activities throughout the program.
We had several activities lined up that morning, so the moment our celebrator arrived with her family and friends, we gave them their name tags and led them to the children seated in groups, so they could mingle and warm up to one another. We gave them three things to share with the group as conversation starters – their names, their favorite Noche Buena food, and their favorite celebrity. At the end of the getting to know session, we found that many CMSP kids love chicken and spaghetti on Christmas and that most of them like Cardo Dalisay or Coco Martin! Each group was also told to come up with a team name – we had team Petmalu, team Victory, team Smart, team Macho, and team Chicken competing to win the prizes that morning.
We played Beach Ball relay, where a pair from each group would hold a beach ball with a given body part while racing to complete the relay. It brought out so much energy from everyone as all teams gamely played to win. Eventually, it was team Macho who emerged as Beach Ball relay champs!
The game served as a warm up for our next activity, which was the bellydancing workshop, facilitated by no other than Ate Jill Ngo, found and head of the biggest bellydance group in the country – Goddesses of Bellydance. While many would get intimidated by the dance form, Ate Jill’s workshop proved to be very friendly to everyone – kids and adults alike. We learned that dance begins in learning how to listen and create rhythm and beats. She then progressed to teaching simple belly dance movements accompanied by groovy music.
After the workshop, we had acrobats amaze everyone while resting from their dance. A bubble show performer proceeded to amuse both kids and kids at heart. For the finale of the bubble show performance, we had pairs of kids and their Ates and Kuyas get the chance to be inside a giant bubble.
When all the performances were over, everyone took the time to bond over a hearty meal. But that was not yet the end of the program because the kids were still in for a surprise as Ate Bea and her friends started distributing their gifts to all the children! The kids were indeed very happy as they received toiletry sets from their Ates and Kuyas. Once done, Ate Bea gave a short and sweet message of her appreciation for everyone who shared this special day with her. We then huddled for group photos to cap the event. The children then went to their Ates and Kuyas to give their parting ‘thank you’ hugs.
Thank you Ate Bea for your thoughtful generosity and for choosing to be a blessing on your special day!
