Little dynamite missionaries are on their way! The third and last session of the 18th International Kids’ Village (IKV), “Mission Accomplished” was a kiddie dose of Evangelii Gaudium. Through a short skit, which featured KFC ate and kuyas Sarah, Josh and Dane, some 2,736 kids learned about loving God back, involving their families, friends and KFC community by reaching out to them, and being joyful in loving. Surprising? Hardly. According to CFC Kids for Christ (KFC) International Coordinator Nic Escalona, since 2011 with the Lead IKV, KFC took on the direction of actively forming the youngest missionaries in the community. “Since [then], the tone was like that, we teach the kids to go on mission, reach out to others, to be leaders as young as they are, to set good examples to their friends,” he explained, adding that even the Move IKV of the following year talked about moving to serve others.
With chants, dancing, question and answers, session 3 taught kids thattruly “the word of God constantly shows us how God challenges those who believe in Him ‘to go forth’, communion and mission are profoundly interconnected.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20, 23) With encouragements to “always remember to pray to Him in our bedrooms or when we pass by the chapel in our school or the church near our house”, the idea of a constant prayer time is already being planted in the kids’ hearts and minds. On the other end, the session also showed that prayer should lead us to serve and love others. As Pope Francis stressed: communion with God leads to mission. As Sarah reminded the kids, they can be good models to their friends and invite them to KFC activities. “Finding ways to talk to them about Jesus” is a mark of a “true friend.”
This is exactly what IKV delegate Czarlyn Ariza of Cebu has learned from session 3. “I’ll try to pray [more] so that the Lord will know that we love Him,” the 11-year old said. She also shared that she’ll continue to tell her non-KFC friends about the IKV and kids’ camps. Can we imagine the power of the witness of a child who loves God? In KFC, missionaries start young.
IKV DAY 2 With great excitement to discover more ways to love, the IKV participants actively participated in the first activity in the morning which is praying the rosary and celebrating the Holy Eucharist. Fr. Espiridion Celis lead everybody to the wonderful celebration of the Holy mass and reminded everyone of the importance of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the very meaning of it. Father Celis tells everyone to always bask into the divinity of the sacrament and feel it every time we raise ourselves in prayer and thanksgiving. John Gabriel Nero, ROCK facilitator from Cebu then led everyone to an energetic and affirming worship. After the worship, the kids then proceeded to the second session entitled ‘Discover More Ways to Love’. The session was delivered in a fun way which let the kids enter and have a journey inside the Knowledge for Children Museum. Inside, the kids were led to different exhibits. Kids were given instructions by their surprise tour guide, Jesus Christ. They were also given a puzzle to solve which they can solve and find the answers inside the rooms of the exhibit.
The first one is the bedroom exhibit where the kids saw a room filled with new toys, big images and life-size structures of superheroes. The altar, which is different from the other stuff in the room, was found by the kids to be dusty. It gave them the realization that to be like Jesus, we must love Him and to love Him, we must respect Him. We can do this by always remembering our duty to pray to Him every day and giving more time to pray than just playing. Celebrating their first victory, the kids were united to pray the Our Father. Exhibit two was the dining room were the kids entered with eyes wide open because the dining table was filled with foods to eat. It was like a feast. What the kids learned from that room is that we have to willingly share our foods and our blessings to one another especially the poor. Being able to have enough, we must find a way to also extend our helping hands to our less fortunate friends because loving more is sharing more. The next room seems to be everybody’s favorite. This is where the kids always have a sure fun time. The Playroom exhibit was packed with new toys – big and small ones, story books and a whole lot more. With these things in front of them, the kids were reminded to take care of the blessings that God has given them.
The Living Room exhibit awaits with an image of the two parents, but the kids were shocked when they saw that they had no faces. They then remembered the parents that they left in their homes and asked themselves on what feeling they give to their parents. Some said that their parents might be frowning because they have not been good and for others, they thought their parents are sad because sometimes they are not obedient. What is great is that, from these realizations, they were able to acquire another lesson for them to complete their puzzle and that is to always see their parents’ love for them that is constant even if they do something wrong, they still continue to forgive them. Therefore, they must obey, listen and respect their parents. Next to the Living room exhibit was the Library exhibit which gave them the reminder that we are all God’s children. Being given this identity, we must never stop from learning and we must always give importance to education. After that, the kids entered the Chapel room. It was not like the chapels that they always enter. The room was left with iPads and cellphones which is making them see how sometimes, our attention is being divided when we attend the mass. The kids were then victorious in winning the next puzzle piece because of the lesson they got inside – to Love God more, we must listen to Him more.
The Kids’ last stop inside the museum is the Room of Heavy Stones. It was a different kind of room because in there, there were big stones that are really hard to carry. The kids likened the stones to their bad thoughts which are making them feel heavy at heart every time they think about them. These bad thoughts are their feelings of hatred towards their enemies, their fears and their doubts. They have to let go of these things for them to release the weight of feeling heavy. Good thing is that we always have Jesus that is ready to lighten up our loads. The kids were commended for a job well done and for completing the exhibit with the puzzle answers at hand. And because of this, they are now set to discover more ways to love in every area of their lives – in their families, in their friends, their studies and most importantly, in their relationship with the loving savior Jesus Christ.
WORKSHOPS What made the IKV more exciting and full of learning and energy were the variety of workshops offered not just only for kids but also for the parents and for the couple coordinator. Each workshop was attended with a good number. Some of it was held outside the venue to give more opportunity for the participants to share the love. The workshops gave emphasis the areas where we are tasked to accomplish our project to love. The Kids were grouped and were sent off to different venues to join different enjoyable and nurturing workshops which include the Love Project for God, the Love Project for my Family, and the My Love Project.
The duration of time for the workshops were also maximized by the senor kids by joining the Love Project for the Poor workshops which includes an Open Kitchen Activity, Craft making with the Orphanage, Loom Band making and Bottle Bank Making. Proceeds of the activities were contributed by the kids as their way of showing love to our brothers and sisters in the less fortunate areas of the society. Aside from the workshops that were held, simultaneously, sports clinics were also jam-packed with the attendance of the athletic ones. On the other side of the venue, there were also advocacy villages that gave the IKV participants an array of information about the different principles upheld by the CFC KFC community.