The Abba’s Orchard School presents SUN and MOON: A Miss Saigon Adaptation

Sorry I've been gone lately.  There's a very good reason I've been very busy and unable to blog.  It is below.  Here's an article that I sent to one of our media partners.  I'm also publishing it here (with minor modifications).

The Abba’s Orchard School Erdkinder (high school) program, in cooperation with Mahoe Mahogany, Sunbee Travel and Tours, and Homechoice Planners and Construction Corp., proudly presents its second musical play, SUN and MOON: A Miss Saigon Adaptation, this coming March 7 and 9, 2013.  Both shows will be gala performances at 7pm, with tickets selling for P250 each.

Back at the director’s helm is one of Cagayan de Oro’s most beloved directors, Ms. Anita Q. Santos, who has worked with the school in all of their plays, all garnering great success.  A true master of her craft, she successfully took a bunch of inexperienced Erdkinder students and transformed them into musical stage performers worthy of a rousing standing ovation in 2011’s I Dreamed a Dream: Highlights and Images of Les Miserables, The Abba’s Orchard’s first ever musical play.

She intends to deliver the same excellence with this latest project.

Enjoying intimacy in your marriage

photo courtesy of intimacyinmarriage.net

Here’s another post for couples, in honor of Valentine’s Day.  Like the previous one, it’s an audio broadcast from Focus On The Family.  This one, though is about enjoying intimacy in marriage (so, obviously, this blog post is not for younger readers).

Today’s lesson is brought to you by a regular on the program, Dr. Juli Slattery.  She very effectively ministers to married women in the area of intimacy, being a psychologist and author of several books (a particular book, No More Headaches: Enjoying Sex and Intimacy in Marriage is the resource for this particular session).

Can CDO-based teens find out about true love? Yeah, if they attend these.

If you’re a teen living in Cagayan de Oro (or you’re like me, a parent of a teen), you need to check these  two events out.  Two great events that would teach on a subject that is very confusing: true love.  It’s confusing because society has warped love so badly that many people, especially young people, get lost in all the static.  As any teen what true love, one that honors the other person, really is and you’ll probably get a blank stare.

May these two events help in junking all the counterfeits about love.

If you’re teen is in high school:

If you’re teen is in college:

CCF-CDO

Feb. 14, shouldn’t be a big deal for teens if they know what true love is.  However, Feb. 15 or 16 should be.  I will be a virtual school bus on the latter, since my 13 year old daughter, Lynn will bring lots of friends.  Hope to see your teen there as well.

The New JZone Center is right next to CCF-CDO.  If you don’t know where that is, it is right across the street from the Mallberry Car Park Entrance.

Oh, you might wanna also view two of my blog posts on my advice for teens:

• A great example of a great boyfriend
• Teens talk about finding Mr. and Ms. right

(This blog site, Lessons Of A Dad is mostly about parenting, marriage, and other topics aimed to develop the reader’s mind, body, and soul.  I’d consider it an honor if you’d follow or subscribe to this site.  You can also go to my Facebook page here, and I’m also on Twitter at @lessonsofadad)

Put fun back into your marriage — a hasty pre-Valentine’s Day post

It’s now February, and you know what that means…LOVEY DOVEY BLOG POSTS!!!

I wish…

No, no, don’t get me wrong; my marriage is fine.  Thing is, I will not be able to write content-rich blog posts this month.  This is the busiest year I’ve ever had at work, and this would probably be the busiest month of the busiest year.

The next best thing I can do is to deliver marriage-related posts with audio content from one of my favorite sources, Focus on the Family.  The cool thing about these is you can just press play and you can do something else while listening, as it’s only audio, not video.

So here’s the first one of those.  Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, we husbands have to think of something special for our wives.  I'm scheming to do something especially embarrassing for my wife this year (we take great joy in embarrassing each other every Feb. 14; it all started when I had flowers delivered to her right in the middle of class way back in college, giving specific instructions for the delivery boy to interrupt the professor’s lecture to give the flowers…and we’ve tried to get each other back ever since).

Thing is, the stress of everyday living, and plain and simple familiarity, can make even the mushiest of unions turn bland.  Valentine’s Day gives us husbands (well, the ones who care) a chance to reignite the flame of romance, if just for a day.

TGIFriday’s now in Cagayan de Oro. OH YES!!

I’m not a food blogger (check out www.foodanddesserts.com, www.tastecaster.com, and www.morefoodadventures.com for great Cagayan de Oro food blogs), but I am a huge foodie.  I like to eat and I eat a LOT.  Plus, having grown up in America, I have been exposed to many different restaurants and types of cuisines, and therefore I often have something to say when it comes to good eating.

Speaking of America, one of my favorite casual dining restaurants during those days was TGIFridays.  I loved the great food, the variety of their menu, their huge servings (that’s a must), and the chill-out atmosphere.  As you would expect, when I moved to the lovely provincial town of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines a decade and a half ago, I went through some serious foodie withdrawals.

Fast forward to 2013, and, thank the food gods up above, TGIFridays is now in Cagayan de Oro City!!!  At Ayala Centrio Mall to be exact.

All photos courtesy of my new friend, the owner of www.bogieswonderland.com

Do you know how happy that made me?

Cain and Abel with abs? This is gonna be the funniest Sunday yet!!

This next Sunday will be my Lifeshaper team’s turn to serve our 7-12 year old children in our Kids’ Church (it’s our turn every 1st Sunday of the month).  It’s gonna be an awesome Sunday for sure.  Or, at the very least, it’s gonna be a hilarious Sunday.

I mean, Cain and Abel with abs?  This is gonna be the funniest Sunday yet!!

Our lesson

We use a lot of techniques to get the children’s attention and to make them imbibe the lesson.  In 1.5 hours (the length of our worship service at CCF-CDO), we use object lessons, dance/action songs, memory verses, videos, skits, and small group discussions…all in an hour and a half.  My team is famous (infamous?) for being the team that puts an extra dose of hilarity in our skits.  It can sometimes get ridiculous, to the point that the children’s howls of laughter or our general noise-making are so loud we can sometimes be heard in the main worship area.  It helps a lot that two of probably the funniest, most animated people in the entire church are on my team.

And this Sunday, we’re gonna have two of our guys wear shirts with abs drawn on them, because that’s how we roll (and that’s probably how Cain and Abel rolled, too, knowing how perfect the weather was back then).  Note that one of them has a really huge tummy.  HAHAHA.  This is probably gonna be the funniest Sunday in all our funny Sundays…I just hope we don’t get ourselves excommunicated.