For YOU

This was a significant human experience which I wrote this last June 29, 2006 which I believe that day was Juna’s birthday, coincidentally.

It has been a month and a day since my first, at the same time, the ninth Annual Provincial Conference. This is one of the activities that made my summer worthwhile for the first time ever in my life. My usual summer is to just sleep, eat and watch TV at home and that summer, was the exact opposite. You may wonder why this event is the one I would want to share to you. Now, I’m going to tell you why.

There are many obstacles and realizations that I have learned even before this occurrence. First of which is that, “Where could I ever get money for this event?” I know my mom doesn’t have the money for this. With my allowance, I could never save much money from it within a short period of time. I am desperate to go there, so I prayed to Him and he gave me the best answer. He made me think of going to my brothers and sister and I succeeded. The corresponding realization to this is—“if there’s a will, there is a way.”

There are some competitions for the PYC. Gag shows, Battle of the Bands, A capela and the praise parade. Since the only competition which has available slots is only the praise parade, I have no choice but I just have to join this competition.

Praise parade is like a “Sinulog-type” competition. I was excited for this because for the first time, I joined a team competition which is not under the school. At this point, our second obstacle was—“How could we ever come up with this for just two weeks?”

Fortunately, three from the CNU dance troupe came to the rescue. They choreographed and added spices to our preliminary steps for the dance. We practiced every after Crash Course sessions in Mathematics. We even go home at about six in the afternoon just for this.

We were never thinking of winning this competition because we never knew what to expect and we think that it would be so impossible for us to be victorious. We saw the other teams’ costumes; they were really prepared for. All we knew is that, we are going to dance. Constant praying is the best weapon for this.

On the night of the show time, lights illuminated the battlefield, cheers and howls were what we could hear from the audience. It was like we are a team for a basketball game; it just gave us butterflies in our stomachs again. We were all nervous; we all felt like we were the team which is the least prepared. We can’t back off now, so we just gave ourselves an ultimate tip—smile and do your thing!

We gave our best shot but failed to win the competition. Normally, I would feel bad but, at that time, my smile never faded after that competition. After our show, with big drops of sweat on our faces, we all smiled (type 6!). It was so fulfilling for us. Our team mates greeted us with a surprise because they were so amazed of how we performed. they never expected it to happen.

Lord, after all our obstacles that You gave us, there are many things that could be learned from it. The praise was not just a competition after all, but it was just something to offer to You.