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| Barclay Martin, a Kansas City musician, performs a number with CFCA scholarship students at a concert in the Philippines Jan. 30. |
ZAMBOANGA CITY, The Philippines—CFCA hosted a historic musical concert in the Mindanao region of the southern Philippines on Jan. 30. As many as an estimated 10,000 sponsored children, aging and their families attended the event. Some groups traveled five to seven hours, partly on bus and partly on foot, to see their first concert. The six-hour concert was the finale for CFCA’s first documentary film, expected to be ready for release in mid-2008. It also became a tour highlight for a group of 12 visiting sponsors at the end of the CFCA-hosted Philippine mission awareness trip that took place from Jan. 18 to Feb. 1. Because of terrorist activity in the region, Mindanao is considered by the rest of the Philippines and the world as dangerous and full of social and religious conflict. The film is intended to show the way people in the region not only break that stereotype by working together despite differences, but how their lifestyle is also full of beauty and surprising joy. The concert was designed as a gift to the Filipino people from CFCA to celebrate their rich spirit and cultural heritage. Kansas City musician Barclay Martin arranged the concert music and wrote original songs combining traditional Filipino and modern music. Martin, Paul Pearce, director of CFCA international programs, and filmmaker John Nosack spent January in the Philippines preparing for the concert and taping final pieces for the documentary. Pearce said the concert symbolized CFCA’s work among the poor. “The wooden stage was built by fishermen, carpenters and other CFCA family members,” he said. “The good news is that not one of us has to do it all. Hopefully, what was captured in the film will show people a different definition of wealth. We can be rich by loving each other.” The concert was held on a 4-acre plot of cleared ground next to the CFCA activity center 10 miles from Zamboanga City, which is located on the western edge of Mindanao. CFCA works with families in the region including people of Christian, Muslim and indigenous beliefs. The concert arena was literally carved out of a jungle basin, where about 200 regional volunteers put their muscle and energy into the transformation. The volunteers were mothers and fathers whose children and other relatives are sponsored through CFCA. Community fathers hacked a 4-foot-tall thicket of brush into an audience area and constructed a stage that accommodated groups of up to 20 musicians and 35 dancers. The program featured folk music and dance performers including popular Filipino singer and guitarist Joey Ayala. Ayala’s imitations of Filipino birds and animals during his songs caused the crowd to join in and were a big hit with the children. One of the most powerful performances of the evening was a group of CFCA scholarship students playing traditional Filipino instruments that they had been taught specifically for the concert. American music is highly popular among youth in the Philippines, and the segment was designed to encourage the scholars to engage in their musical heritage. The instruments included the kubing, a mouth harp made from a bamboo strip; the kulintang, a series of gongs in a horizontal frame; and the dabakan, an hour-glass-shaped drum. Martin, Pearce and Bob Hentzen, president and co-founder of CFCA, participated in the event by singing American songs including “You Are My Sunshine.” During the latter part of the concert, candles were lit in about 1,000 hanging lanterns around the concert grounds. “Smoke from the lanterns rose from the stage like incense and like prayers to God,” Hentzen said. To learn more about the concert and film, visit www.zamboangathemovie.com. Sponsor a child in the Philippines.
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