Sorry for this post was late for 2 days.  Our church, Free Christian Church of Alabang, is traditionally celebrating Christmas just like any other christian churches in the Philippines.  The service proper started at 8:15 AM and lasted for one and a half hours.  After the service proper, the celebration began which we had games, awarding of prizes sponsored by some of our generous church members and of course, chow or eating time.  At 4PM, leaders and workers headed to Nuvali, Sta. Rosa, Laguna to have a good time and eat in a fine a dining restaurant.

I don’t want to be detailed narratively on this post but I want the pictures below do the further talking.

SERVICE PROPER

Praise & worship led by me.

Angel on "No Sweeter Name" by Kari Jobi, first song of our praise and worship line-up

Mama and my 2 sisters and our churchmates during the praise and worship.

Kuya Ron on welcome and announcement.

Jemimah Belarmino sang "Come As You Are", original by Mark Portman. The lyrics was changed to an evangelical way.

Bro. Mike (Awitan, not Velarde), our speaker, shared a message with a theme of "Who Jesus Is". Pastor Rex can hardly speak due to sore throat.

The raffle prizes at stake.

Special number rendered by selected children from Sunday School.

Kuya Pete, our assistant pastor, led us to closing prayer.

GAMES, RAFFLE AND CHOW TIME

I still don't know how to name this game. Mentos In and Out?

Awarding of raffle prizes to the winners.

Inside the van while waiting for another van to come before we headed to Nuvali, Sta. Rosa.

Whattapose by my dear!

My first step on Nuvali, Sta. Rosa.

Nuvali, at last!

This makes me sing, "I want Nuvali, Nuvali but you!"

Chow time at Conti's.

Picture-taking before order-taking inside Conti's restaurant.

I’m getting tired of posting pictures and putting captions one by one that’s why I inserted gallery of photos from my camera, instead.

I and my Dear were very thankful for yesterday’s blessings we received.  She’s sleeping now in her boarding house in Makati because it’s already 2 in the morning.  I didn’t tell her that I’m gonna post a blog about this.  Let me share to you 4 of those many blessings.

First blessing and this is not so dramatic.  We’ve just seen a wound from a broken relationship got healed. This is about two women who once have been close but suddenly became cold to each other due to some circumstances and finally after ten months they become OK again, as if nothing happened.  No exchange of sorries or apologies but I believe prayer and the love of God bind them again.

Second, Talentadong Pinoy texted her in the afternoon and told her that they chose her as one of the juries for their New Year episode.  We’re both excited of this news as tonight at 6pm is the taping for the said episode.  TP also advised her that the attire is strictly formal, means she needs to wear a long dress.  Fortunately, she was able to borrow one from our churchmate.  But how sad for me because I guess I can’t go with her due to my work.  I’m still praying that my boss allow me to leave at 4pm.

Third, my dear got her new phone! A Nokia C3.  Papa bought it for her.  She’s really blessed, isn’t she?  I envy her, hehehe…The image above is not the actual unit she got.  She got the latest purple design of housing with tatoo-like print at the back.

And lastly, we also bought in the afternoon the multimedia projector for our church.  It’s a church project which started only in the second week of November.  We’re so thankful for our brethren who took part and support the project.  In a span of one month we were able to raise the enough fund.  Actually, this is our second multimedia projector.  The first one was bought in January 2006 and we just saw the need to replace it with a new one as the lamp is getting dimmer.  The unit we got was ACER P1100.

There are still a lot of blessings to tell but I guess I need to sleep now.  Always remember, that we should always COUNT THE BLESSINGS that we receive.  At all times, give thanks.

This day is bit tiring but fun as the Singles Network of Free Christian Church of Alabang held their fellowship at La Mesa Ecopark.  We left Alabang at around 7 AM and arrived 8:30 AM there.  A total of 20 singles and 2 “non-singles” (Ptr. Rex and Kuya Manny, driver of Atty Ron) were able to join this event.  Only 3 or 4 among us has been in La Mesa Park so majority is excited to see what’s in there.  We don’t know what to expect from this place except for the things we have heard from other people who have been there and the activities we have seen in the park’s website.

Before we stroll around, we had our program first which started with an opening prayer and a worship song.  I shared a topic topic about Stress as A Passion Killer which I got from Zig Ziglar‘s book entitled “Better Than Good”.  This was followed by a sort of teambuilding game – Tallest Tower – facilitated by my Dear.  We formed 3 groups with the aim of making tall and strong tower out of papers. And guess who won?  All the 3 groups! Hahaha!  Everybody’s happy with the Kisses chocolates as their prize which sponsored by my Dear (ehem, hehehe!).

We started the strolling and picture-taking right after the program and we were really relieved from stress by the greeny scenery of the Lamesa Ecopark.  You’ll see some of the photo in the gallery.  For lunch, we had CPA – chicken-pork adobo. And before leaving, we tried the wall climbing and zipline.  I only tried zipline though this was not my first time.  My first time was in Caliraya Re-creation Center, during our office teambuilding.  My dear did not try either of the two because she reasoned that she had already tried zipline it in her first visit there a couple of weeks ago.

We really had fun this day and I’m looking forward to have this kind of event again within the next month or two.

Please click the image below to see the photo album of this event.

FCCA Singles Fellowship @ La Mesa Ecopark