The Parish of St. Benedict's Youth Alive! is a program of the Missionaries of God's Love. We had our launching last Saturday, January 27, 2007 after the 6 p.m. mass. Around sixty-five youth of all ages, but mostly between 14-21 years old, attended this event.
Who would have known that I would be leading the Chuga Dance in this day and age? The kids said they had so much fun with that action song. Malou and I tried to catch our breath after the many rounds of "Chuga Up" and "Chuga Twist". Then we had games where we asked them, who belonged to different chapels, choirs and ministries, to interact and get to know one another. The youth were most alive when we started praising and worshiping God. It was awesome to sing and pray with them.
Then Fr. Brian gave a talk about "pilgrimage". He said that Youth Alive! has always had a World Youth Day flavor and we in St. Benedict's were no different. He invited the youth to a physical and a spiritual pilgrimage. He discussed the theme for WYD Sydney 2008, which is Acts 1:8, Acts Chapter 1 Verse 8, or Actv8! That's "Activate!" in text lingo, which the Filipino kids arevery familiar with.
The priests and I have always been puzzled at how the teenagers could afford to subscribe to Unlimitxt and send us messages at any time of the day. When I askd them, they said that they set aside a portion of their allowance for this. In my day, if I wanted to stay in touch with my friends, I had to go to their houses. I also used the landline a lot! This is a reminder that I am not so young anymore, I guess.
I happily posed here with Ate Sallie Orbigo, the dynamic woman of Banal na Puso Chapel over at Filinvest Road, and some members of YouthAlive! I would like to thank Fr. Geoffrey Coombe, mgl for taking these photos, and Adam Domingo and Fr. Brian Steele, mgl for uploading them to flickr. You can search flickr for more photos under "youthalive!". Meetings are every fourth Saturday of the month, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
In this post I'm also launching a new label in this blog called "Parokya ni Ella", in which I will be talking about events and happenings in the Parish of St. Benedict's in Don Antonio Heights, Q.C., where I belong to and serve in the youth ministry. We have Charismatic prayer meetings every Sunday at 10 a.m. I loved reading last Sunday when I served as lector, for the reading assigned to me was 1 Corinthians 13.
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