EAT,

PLAY & PRAY CFC FAMILY WEEKEND KICK-OFF (for September 27, 2013 exhortation) In 1992, President Fidel V. Ramos, by virtue of Proclamation No. 60, declared the last week of September of every year as Family Week. In 1996, the same President declared via Proclamation No. 847 the fourth Saturday of September of every year as Family Thanksgiving Day. These Presidential Proclamations were made to focus on the importance of strengthening and promoting unity, solidarity and stability of the Filipino family as the basic unit of Filipino society and for whose well-being all national development efforts are directed. Three years ago, a popular brand took this on and translated it into a campaign that promoted the importance of family meals. This is no coincidence, but Gods-incidence led by the Holy Spirit. More than declarations and advertisement campaigns, we in CFC want to put this into action and we would like to exhort each and every CFC family to do the following activities as a family on September 27, 2013 dinner time to start off our family weekend. In Berni Dymets book titled How to Stop Your Family from Falling Apart, he mentioned 3 basic things we must do to keep our families togetherEat, Play & Pray. Hence, we would like to apply these simple learnings to our CFC Family Week Celebration. Mechanics of the CFC Family Week Celebration: 1. CFC Couples are to set a family dinner with their own families on September 27, 2013, Friday, with their children or even with their grandchildren. This could be done at home or at their favorite family restaurant. 2. Prepare or order the familys favorite dish or desert. 3. Before eating distribute 1/8 piece of paper to every member or the family, and ask them to write down: What do you appreciate most about a certain member of the family? without indicating who is it for and who it came from. 4. Collect all the written pieces of paper and put it in a box or fish bowl or clear plastic bag. You will open and read them later after the dinner. 5. As usual, start the meal with blessing of the food/ saying grace before meals and allow each one to finish eating first before starting with the activity. 6. After the dinner, Mommy or Daddy brings out the box with the pieces of paper and will ask each member, one at a time to get one paper regardless who wrote it and then read each one aloud. 7. After reading a note, the family members will guess whom it is for and who wrote the note. Anyone can make a guess or comment but the one who wrote it must later

on admit it. After which the next member of the family gets a chance to open and read another note. 8. After all the notes have been read, Mom and Dad can ask the family members how they felt about the dinner and the activity. 9. Daddy will lead the family into prayer, thanking the Lord for the gift of family and being together, etc Mommy and the rest of the family can join in the prayer like a household prayer meeting but more focusing on thanksgiving and supplications. 10. After praying ask the family if they want to do this Family Dinner again. Please give us a feedback on what your family experienced during the family week celebration. Please send it via email to cfcglobalcommunications@gmail.com. Thank you.