Last Saturday, we had our first outreach program for the year. It was such a great and heart warming experience when you know you helped less fortunate people and share them your blessings.
We went to Tahanan ng Pagmamahal in Oranbo, Pasig that takes care of 12 girls who were abandoned by their parents. Well, some of them are in temporary custody because their parents can’t raise them well considering their financial status. If in the future, they can prove that they can raise their child, they can bring their child home with them again. I hope they do.
Anyway, I’ll just share you what had happened that day with them.
I arrived there a little bit late and found them enjoying watching cartoons. I later found out that they are just allowed to watch tv on a Friday night and the whole Saturday. Talk about discipline!
While waiting for the others, Cristina and I decided to make some balloons for the kids. I was planning to decorate the whole place but I can’t do it given the little time I had. I brought my balloon gears and made balloons for everyone. We also played volleyball and badminton while waiting for them to arrive. Finally after an hour or so, we were complete!
We gathered them inside and they introduced themselves to us. In fairness, they already have a routine on how to do that. They know who will introduce first and who comes next. Now, talk about systematic approach! Hahaha!
After the introduction, Wheng had her welcome speech and gave them the instructions for the day’s activity. They are to draw anything they want in a 1/4 illustration board. Similar to those activities we had in our elementary years that we have to submit our “masterpiece” to our Art Teacher. They all had fun creating their artwork. Some of them used watercolor and others used crayons.
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After the artwork was the gift giving. The gifts were supposed to be given to them last Christmas but due to some schedule conflicts, we decided to give it after the Holidays. The gift giving was in lieu of our yearly exchange gifts in the office. Instead of giving gifts to one another, we decided to pick one child from the orphanage and give them gifts for Christmas. Since we are 15 in the team and there are only 12 children, the remaining 3 contributed for the grocery package including the donations from Sydney office. So apart from the individual gifts, we had also given them grocery package to last hopefully for a month or so.
After the gift giving, they had their Lunch breakfast. =) It was lunch time but they were eating hotdog and egg meal from none other than Jollibee!
As for the finale, we gave them the balloons and they sang a Thank you song for us. They were all grateful for our presence and so are we. We are planning to do a regular outreach program to them, hopefully it can push through.
This experience showed us that there are lots of abandoned children in the country and we should share and extend a helping hand to them. It is always nice to share our blessing to those who are in need. I hope that someday, these kids will grow up and live with their real parents.
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