This year marked the beginning of wonderful possibilities and God-given opportunities. Just last summer, we conducted the First Romance Writing Workshop in cooperation with Lifebooks Publishing Company, to teens and above at ABBA's Child Science School. The new generation today are exposed to different forms of literature and worldly romance stories. We wanted to buffer that by showing them what True Love is all about and introduce the Greatest Author of all love stories: God.
This is so different from the romance writing workshop I have participated in the past. This would include evangelism as a part of the Christian Romance genre, which, by the way, is the main focus of this workshop.
We wanted to provide an analogy that in order for us to write compelling and inspiring love stories, we must first realize how God loves us and sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. For only through Him that we could find and experience not just "Forever", but most importantly, "Everlasting Life".
We have prepared workshop kits and handouts for them to use during and after the workshop. We also have some giveaways and prizes courtesy of Lifebooks. Thanks to Lifebooks publisher and co-writers for donating some books and for sending video messages to the participants.
Here are books donated by Lifebooks publishing company for last summer's writing workshop.
These are the prizes we prepared, including our recycled bottles that served as containers of our candy and notepad prizes. Also, we were blessed with items from donors such as mouse pads and table clip cup holders.
We were not expecting a very large number. Just a few will do. After all, we believed God led them to us for them to learn and to be writers for God's glory. Anyway, here are the topics that will be discussed during the three-day event.
Of course, it would not have been possible without the owner of the school where the workshop was held. And to my team of experts as well. These are the people behind the workshop. God has indeed created us to be unique so our talents would complement each other.
Meet our team:
And here are our participants from all three workshop batches last summer.
Batch One: April 15-17. We discussed the basics of romance writing and incorporated the Christian romance genre.
Sir Je-ar was tasked to share God's word through activities that help students think and analyze the connection between God and man.
We were happy to be part of the lives of these teens as they started their journey and relationship with Christ. We never expected that another batch will follow and this time the participants were more mature than the first. ABBAs Child Science School Foundation administrators and teachers requested to be part of batch 2. This time, we focused more on developing basic writing skills for teachers and how they could improve their writing abilities by expressing themselves in the language they are most comfortable with. Like we usually imply, "Write Without Fear, Edit Without Mercy."
We thought our tasks were done, however, another batch of writers requested to be part of our workshop. We couldn't turn them down because every opportunity is a chance to spread God's word. Thus, we welcomed the third batch. This time, we were back to the teen level.
Hosting the Romance Writing Workshop was a wonderful experience for our team. It helped us become more dynamic and flexible. It also improved our camaraderie and strengthened our faith. As writers, we were able to look at how God carefully write the perfect love story. How He planned the qualities of Men and Women from the day they were conceived, the challenges they have to face and how God uses their weaknesses to bring them closer to Him and to each other. Just like how relationship conflicts are solved with different twists, God gave us the "twist" we needed in order to re-establish a relationship with Him by sending His Only Son to die for our sins. Without twists, a romance story could never have a happy ending. In the same way, without Jesus, there is no Forever and no Eternity.
We thought our tasks were done, however, another batch of writers requested to be part of our workshop. We couldn't turn them down because every opportunity is a chance to spread God's word. Thus, we welcomed the third batch. This time, we were back to the teen level.
Hosting the Romance Writing Workshop was a wonderful experience for our team. It helped us become more dynamic and flexible. It also improved our camaraderie and strengthened our faith. As writers, we were able to look at how God carefully write the perfect love story. How He planned the qualities of Men and Women from the day they were conceived, the challenges they have to face and how God uses their weaknesses to bring them closer to Him and to each other. Just like how relationship conflicts are solved with different twists, God gave us the "twist" we needed in order to re-establish a relationship with Him by sending His Only Son to die for our sins. Without twists, a romance story could never have a happy ending. In the same way, without Jesus, there is no Forever and no Eternity.
