Before and After I Do's: Behind The Scene

From a behind the scene perspective: Before and After I do Workshop was a miracle. People may ask why a miracle? Well let me backtrack a bit – Before I do workshop was something that Imagine Nation was doing for years but in smaller scale. We target about 40- 50 couples every event and we would do it 2x a year.

It was this year when John and I committed to serve in the All About Family ministry that this event was turned over to this ministry. #All About Family is in its birth pain stages. As we were putting the event together – we found ourselves with no money, very few volunteers and just a faith goal in mind. It was our faith goal to be able to bring families to Jesus and help strengthen marriage as how God designed it to be.

But we pushed forth despite the dim and rough terrain before us. Every step, I felt God move –opening doors and leading us to people who could help us. Our venue initially in CCF was only available till 2pm. We struggled with the fact that this needed to be a whole day event. In the past, we always extended past the 5pm mark. Now the initial challenge, will the 2pm work? We prayed and went to work, making artworks and a 30 seconder video for the event.

We had no flyer – we only were able to risograph our registration form and all we had was three A3 size tarp pasted on sintra to invite people.

We needed to advertise the event. I am so thankful for open slots where we could make announcement in our church. We had a booth during Sunday for people to sign up. But even watching over the booth, we were working thinly – with a handful of volunteers.

We knew that the fee we charged was half the price we used to charge before. So we already knew that if we wanted an upgraded version of the event we needed more support. But God was at the works, he moved the hearts of people.

Our first miracle was when I was talking to Jen (my sister in Christ), our printer regarding our requirement for the workbook, she kept asking if we had budget. I told her we had “budgeted” for an amount. Then she asked me “Is this in black and white or full color”? I told her that we had wonderful pictures from Imagine Nation and colored was the only way to justify to make the workbook look nice. She was so nice to tell me that she would get back to me and quote me. I prayed and asked God to make our budget fit because I was running 20 pages when our creative were doing the layouts of the workbook. The next day, she called and told me that she was impressed by the Lord to give it for free.

Our second miracle again happened while I was having my quiet time, I was asking God to show me which of the wedding suppliers I should tap and invite to the event. I wanted to invite those who believed in the same faith goal we were in. The Lord once again impressed in my heart to call this caterer and ask. So I texted Tita Jet of Josiah’s that morning and asked if they were willing to support our event. That evening, she called me and asked the details of the event, I told her that I was expecting 200-250 couples. She never even made me wait, she asked “what budget do you have? “ I said “P200 per head”. She said “Give me your P200 and I will subsidized the rest.” I felt like crying. I knew that Josiah’s would go all out and was giving me at least a P1,000.00/ head output from my what I initially had.

Our third miracle was with the couple facilitators. We were trying to gather couples from different dgroups to join us to facilitate the break out sessions. We said that we needed at least 40 couple facilitators. With our initial invites and calls only 9 confirmed. We set a Saturday the week before our event for briefing and we were surprised to welcome not 9 but 28 couples that day. The Lord was really showing us that ultimately he was the head of this event.

Our Office in All About Family is not fully functional yet. But God is good, Life Academy lent us a printer and when we needed to push more information, CCF gave us flyer that was placed in the church Chronicle for FREE. The venue was no longer good till 2pm but it was ready for use even if we wanted it till 7pm 🙂

More miracles were coming in day by day – the Lord knew exactly how to encourage us. With a little more money saved, we was able to print out eco bags and pens that were needed for the kit. Wedding suppliers poured out their support. I want to recognize each one because you have been an instrument of blessing to us and to the attendees.

I am also very grateful for the silent workers in my team that worked so hard to make the event happen:

Carlo, JB, Joshua, Jai of Wang Videography – for volunteering your gift of shooting and editing all our bumper videos, testimonies and even our man on the street same day edit.

Janice, Sara, Vanessa, Ella, Paul, Lucci and Belle of Post Ad – for volunteering during the shoot and helping me run the event. For preparing all the ID’s, prizes, certificates and all the other nitty grits.

OJT’s: Richard, Louise, Abigail, Jem, Maureen, Mikko, Philip and Allan– who learned so much along the way as they volunteered their hours with us.

Imagine Nation’s photographers that covered the event and my marketing girls Jhorie, Me-An and Kris for helping out in registration.

Thank you for the couples who shared their testimonies so that more couples who have the same issues may be blessed and encouraged.

Lastly the closest people that we share our lives day in day out, the people behind #All About Family — Hanna, Edric and Joy, Manny and Lisa… we would have lengthy discussions and we would wrestle with ideas on how to make it better, at the end of the day God gets the glory.

All About Family

May 10 – D Day! We finally ran the 17^th edition of the Before and After I do Workshop. It had the biggest number of couples that attended. Over 200+ couples came and I really felt in the room the presence of God. God indeed was in the business of changing lives. There is nothing here that I could say was done by us… It was really all His. Thank you once again for the privilege to serve you Lord. I am humbled at your doing. Before I said “I DO” to serving you… After everything I am still saying “I DO” to everything you
are still going to do through us.