To the Highest Level!

No preparations. No training. No input. Nothing at all! Yet,we still managed to get through it! Congratulations to us for another remarkable experience!

Last week, we were invited to be facilitators of the ACSAT-NSTP 12 Spiritual Retreat, together with Rev. Hidita Castrodes-Villas. It was held yesterday, January, 17, 2009 from 8-11 a.m. at the Antonio Co's Beach Resort in Bacong. Unfortunately for us, we were not able to meet during the week. Perhaps because of the lack of communication? or maybe not all of us were informed. But the obvious reason could be that gathering the group has been one of the hardest thing to do ever, for our fellowship! Sad to say, only a few PKs are committed to the fellowship. Although we understand that others are busy, but aren't we all busy?! Anyways, that's not even the point but we are working on how to solve these flaws in the fellowship.

What I will be saying is how surprising PKs are! So, there, we were invited and all that, but because we did not meet as a group, not until Friday at least, we ended up being unprepared for the activity. We were supposed to be "oriented" Friday night but since my mother (Rev. Villas) was busy that night, she just gave us a brief scenario of what we will do. We did plan on what sinspirations to use, but thats all! We just ended up watching "Moulin Rouge" on HBO instead of planning! hahaha...

You could ask, How hard is it to facilitate anyway?! Well, it may be pretty simple, if your facilitating a small group and if your well-experienced, but what really concerned us was not only that some of us were not experienced, but also of the number of participants. Try 200 students, and there was like only 8 of us to facilitate them! That's like more or less than 20 people for each of us! To top it all up, as I've mentioned, we were not at all prepared!

Saturday came. We arrived at the location earlier than the participants, thankfully! (In case you don't know, punctuality is yet again another problem of our fellowship that we are struggling to solve!). Anyways, when the participants started arriving, we started to get a little bit nervous. We started a few minutes after they arrived. We were introduced to the group as their facilitators and at that point, perhaps, our nervousness started to calm a bit because they welcomed us warmly. A warm welcome could sometimes be an enough reason not to be nervous, that we learned (or maybe just me...). We started to wake the group up by singing some songs then we played a game called "Human Evolution". After that, the group was divided according to their birth month and we started with the retreat.

As the big group was being divided into small groups, we PKs all looked at each other with the same question in mind, What do we do now??!! We all asked the same question all over again to Rev. Villas! Thankfully, we were all provided with a written guide for us to follow for the retreat.
As the groups started to settle down in their chosen areas, it started to quiet down. Time flew as each individual reflected on the given questions, and internalized as to who God is in their lives. At that moment, all you could see were the students, all writing their reflections in their journal. All you could hear were the waves of the see, the whistle of the wind, and the singing of the birds. It was a solemn retreat. We oursleves, PKs, realized that it was not that hard at all. As long as you keep focused and put your trust in God, everything will be smooth and okay. The rest of the morning turned out very good. All the students participated well in the activites. We all learned more about God, at the same time, we all had fun! It was a great experience for us, and hopefully, for the ACSAT students also.

As the retreat ended, the students gave us a warm "Thank You!" and we all said cheerful goodbyes to each other as we parted ways and went home.

Now you see how surprising we are! We were not prepared, and yet, we went throught the activity smoothly! But of course, we wouldn't have done it without help from Rev. Villas, Ate Ripe, each other, and most of all, God!

Indeed, to the HIGHEST LEVEL!

We hope that there would be more activites like this for us in the future because for us, sharing the word of God is very fulfilling! But next time, we will be prepared, hopefully! haha...

Thanks for participating:

Hannah Leizl Kadile
Arisitine Molave Marcelino
Karlo Gerren Villas
Edsel Gene Golosino
Winahrev Golosino
Ernest Hope Tinambacan
Norman Marigza
Jethro Joshua Marigza

Until next time!

-kgv