Dads Bond With Daughters in ‘May I Have This Dance’
The Family and Life Ministry held their first offering of ‘May I Have This Dance?’, a full-day bonding experience between fathers and daughters last March 24. A brainchild of ministry heads Regie and Joanne Polancos with their core team, the Sunday event was participated in by 15 pairs of dads and daughters, the maximum capacity of the program.
Since the event started at 11:30 am, the first activity after opening prayers by Ryanna Polancos and welcome remarks by Regie Polancos was lunch – but lunch with very specific instructions. That is, fathers had to serve the meals to their daughters and vice versa. Which meant that dads – and daughters – had to ask their daughters – and their dads – what food they like and the size of portions they wanted. And the dads had to eat lunch beside their daughters. The attendees were then asked to introduce themselves. Facilitating the whole program was Ilsa Reyes, an award winning motivational speaker, called to share God’s healing love thru speaking. Ilsa is also a co-host for ABS-CBN’s Salitang Buhay with Fr. Bel San Luis and Fr. Jerome Marquez. Ryanna also did double duty as the event’s ofJicial photographer.
The first non-meal activity was for each individual to draw on a piece of paper what makes them happy on one hand and what makes them sad, on the other but they first have to share these reflections with their partner. After completing their respective drawings, each father and daughter tandem were then asked to do a dance – hence the title of the event – it didn’t matter if it was fast or slow, old or new, and then after the dance for both of them to explain the meaning of what they drew. The two most creative pairs in both the dancing and the sharing received a prize at the end of the event.
In the second activity, each individual wrote in a pink heart cut-out what they are grateful for in their father or daughter. Again, fathers and daughters had to huddle privately to first share what they were grateful for before writing them up. They each pair presented to the group one at a time before placing their ‘hearts’ on a large manila paper sheet, with daughters’ hearts on one side and dads’ hearts on the other.
After their afternoon break, the dads and daughters were again asked to huddle privately to share their aspirations, that is, what are my dreams, what do I need and ask from you, and how can I help. Then fathers and daughters prayed for each other aloud. Ilsa then came back in to summarize the learnings from the day’s event and talked through the next steps.
The bonding session ended with participation at the 5 pm Holy Mass where Fr. Jojo Gatdula, the presider, asked the 15 pairs to come to the front where he explained to the congregation what had happened earlier. In front of everyone, the fathers presented their rosary tokens to their daughters and Fr. Jojo blessed the father- daughter teams. The dad-daughter teams teams also read the prayers of the faithful and did the offertory. It was a nice and fitting finish for the day’s bonding event.
