Don’t you think it’s time for us to live with more love, more giving, more joy and more thanksgiving?
It was the last week of November 2019, when one of my sisters in Christ – Jamicah Ferranco, informed us that she is planning to celebrate her birthday by doing an outreach program. I was actually amazed and inspired, at the same time I told her that I am in! Jam as we call her, is about to enter a new chapter of her life and one of her bucket list before getting married is to do this act of kindness on her birthday. The idea is, instead of celebrating her birthday with friends and love ones, she wants to share more love, more giving, more joy and more thanksgiving to those people who are really in need. With this in mind, since we are here in Dubai, she chose to help Overseas Filipino in Distress – (Overseas Filipino who has medical or psycho-social problems requiring treatment, hospitalization, counseling; or problems like labor, immigration and other issues requiring legal representation as specified in Rule IX of these Rules or any other kind of intervention with the authorities in the country where he or she is found. PSA GOV PH)
At first she does not know where to start, there are approximately 200 Distressed OFWs here in Dubai and she will be needing all the help she can get and of course she needs volunteers because she can’t do it alone. But Jam is not new in this kind of service. For the past few years, she’s been part of many outreach programs and somehow she was inspired as well by those services. She knows that as long as God is with her, everything will be possible. True enough! By God’s grace, little by little Jam together with his partner in this service – Mar (Marlo Majaducon) was able to create a service team who are willing to help and give more love to our Distressed OFWs. And with God’s overflowing love, Mr. Paolo Guevarra of Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) wants to do the same as well. So, they worked together and came up with the idea of giving a Christmas Party with a theme “WE SERVE, WE CARE”, to our Distressed OFWs. They’ve coordinated everything to POLO Dubai (Philippine Overseas Labor Office). And truly, with God, nothing is impossible. It was so heartwarming, help came, the donations and pledges we received was overflowing, and volunteers poured in.
It was the 28th of December 2019 when we went to POLO Dubai. With our joyful hearts, we started around 02:30 PM with a prayer and continuously followed the program. POLO Dubai was filled with the eagerness to show love, the value of giving, the willingness to give joy and the essence of thanksgiving. It was in the air and truly you can feel the spirit of Christmas even though it was actually a little bit late for Christmas. After the prayer and some speeches, we gave them some giveaways with mostly chocolates and candies inside, attached is a Bible Verse that they can ponder and the giveaways have corresponding numbers for the gift raffle. We served pancit, bread and juice for their snacks. They played games and we can say that they really enjoyed the games that we prepared for them. We sang some Christmas Carols while they are eating. We’ve found out that a lot of them possessed talents that Filipinos will be proud of. Some of them dance and got some moves of J.Lo! And check this out, one of them sang “To Love You More”, Sarah G version and while we are listening to her, it seems that the Pop-star Princess was actually with us! We ended the program by giving grocery items – wherein each one of them got one and with a closing prayer.
Our goal is to make them happy and make them feel loved and the spirit of Christmas despite of their situations, however, God is really good because it seems that it was the other way around. We’ve enjoyed every minute that we’ve spent with them. The happiness we saw in the face of our “Kabayan” was priceless! On that day, I’ve realized something, indeed, you don’t have to be rich for you to help those who are in need. We, the service team, I’m sure we also have our own problems and struggles in life, but that should not stop you from doing good to others or helping those who are in need. To those people who became part of this program, I salute you! Thank you for your generosity and thank you for your big hearts! Personally, I would like to thank my sister Jam, brother Mar, Sir Paolo, SFC 1B3, SFC 3A2 and POLO Dubai for this wonderful experience! Truly it is time for us to live with more love, more giving, more joy and more thanksgiving because this is what the world needs now. Definitely this won’t be the last! Cheers to more services like this!
If you were inspired and want to do some services like this to our Distressed OFWs, kindly coordinate with POLO Dubai:
Email Address: polodubai@ymail.com
Hotline: +971 506526626
OFFICE DAYS/HOURS:
SUNDAY – THURSDAY
(8:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M)
Location: Street # 2C, Beirut St., Near Al Qusais Police Station، Al Qusais 3 – Dubai
Only service team photos were uploaded. No photos were uploaded with our Distressed OFWs in Dubai, this is because we were not able to ask permission from them one by one for their faces to be posted on this blog.
Credits to Retchie Alcantara for the photos. Thanks!
(Note: Nadatnan nalang namin ang farewell party na nakasabit lol! Tinanggal naman at pinalitan ng Merry Christmas)
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