by Mary Ann Santa Ana
As October draws to a close, everyone excitedly looks forward to an event: Halloween. At Good Shepherd Community Church, we look forward to Hallelujah Night. An alternative to trick-or-treating, Hallelujah Night provides a safe haven for parents and children to come together to celebrate in a fun yet safe way.
It was a night filled with fun and games, and quite expectedly, a lot of candies. As everyone started gathering at GSCC’s newly acquired building, where the event took place, swarms of children, young adults and even parents came dressed in their festive costumes. A bunch of nerds, princesses and ninjas, just to name a few, even Woody and Jessie from Toy Story were in attendance to fill that night with a motley cast of characters.
Of course, a GSCC event wouldn’t be complete without food. Before the fun and games began, the adults served their ever-delicious Filipino cuisines to start off the night. Soon after everyone had their fill, everyone gathered into the main sanctuary for the event. J-YA and J-Youth took charge of the festivities and set up games carnival-style for the children to compete in and win lots of candies. Games such as mini-golf, limbo and tick-tac-throw (a game where contestants throw balls into a slot and try to make three in a row) had children scampering for wins to fill their baskets with candies. There was even a game where contestants had Oreo biscuits placed on their foreheads and, with the use of facial muscles, tried to outdo each other to get the Oreo in their mouths. Eliciting a lot of laughter was the spectacle of contestants in various facial contortions as they struggled to move the biscuits from their foreheads to their mouths. Not to be outdone were adults who plunged head on into the games out-shrieking the kids to grab for themselves calorie-filled sweets. Win or lose, everyone was able to fill their bags up with goodies, but for the winners were reserved the grand prizes-candy bars.
This year’s Hallelujah Night was definitely a lot of fun. What made it a whooping success was the children running around with big smiles on their faces, their eyes sparkling in delight, lugging baskets filled with “hard-earned” goodies. The event was not only a time for kids but also for parents who had the time of their lives bringing out undettered the inner child in them. A safe and exciting night it was, where laughter and smiles were shared, where a new set of memories were made- perhaps to last a lifetime.
