Concert for blessed school

Tomorrow night, the Union Church of Manila Chancel choir, led by its conductor, Carminda Regala, will hold a benefit worship-musical starting at 6 o’clock. Sponsored by an all-male group of professionals called "The Promise Keepers", the concert will feature the choir’s unique rendition of My Utmost for His Highest, a cantata inspired by the themes and insights from the devotional book of the same title written by Scottish minister Oswald Chambers (1874-1917). Mr. Chambers had advocated a life of faith and abandonment to God.

It will be an evening of praise, worship, challenge and rededication, featuring the special participation of outstanding guest Christian artists as Audie Gemora of Trumpets and Carla Martinez, with Gus Aldeguer as director.

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This will actually be the second time the UCM Chancel Choir will present the musical, the first time being last December 2001 during the dedication of UCM’s newly completed worship and ministry center in Legaspi Village. The second time around the choir, which by the way meets every Tuesday evening for Gospel study, mutual support and service, the beneficiary will be the Riverside School of Technology and Training Foundation Inc. in Bgy. Afusing, Alcala municipality, Cagayan province. The school was founded by Atty. Doming Capili, who by the way is a member of the UCM Promise Keepers.

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Tom Matic, the Promise Keepers’ coordinator for the project, said that the presentation is a "marriage of two mutually enhancing forms of worship, both of which are needful and honoring to God — the choir’s artistic form and the men’s practical form of worship."

The concert’s beneficiary — Riverside School – is the product of a Christian couple’s gratitude for God’s abundant blessings. Atty. Domingo Capili and his wife Vangie had both been richly blessed in their professional careers — Doming as a practicing lawyer and Vangie as an insurance executive. Since becoming members of the Union Church of Manila in 1989, the couple came to a realization: that their joy in the Lord would not be complete unless they shared their blessings with others, especially with the poor.

The Riverside story is told by Tom Q. Matic III.

The Capilis took their first tentative steps in this direction by filling their pick-up van with goodies for distribution among Doming’s poor townmates in Alcala, Cagayan during Christmas time. This has become the Capili family’s regular yearend activity for a few years when something else came up, a Christian pre-school in the town threatened to close down due to lack of funds. The couple bought out the school and kept it open. Soon enough, running a pre-school and being involved in education made Doming and Vangie even more keenly aware of the plight of their poor provincemates. The town’s secondary schools would produce several hundred graduates every year but poverty would prevent the great majority from obtaining any higher-level training. On the other hand, urbanization is spreading even in the provinces and opening up job opportunities related to changes in people’s lifestyles. There was an increasing need for services in automotive mechanics, air-conditioning and refrigeration, fixing of electrical appliances, welding and fabrication, all the way to encoding and computer programming.

Doming and Vangie then came to the conclusion: distributing foodstuff on Christmas was fine, but that meant giving poor families food to last for only a few meals. However, by providing them with training in income-generating skills, they would help them feed themselves for life. Combined with instruction in the Christian values of love, diligence, and patience, such a continuing program would be a good way of following the command of the Lord Jesus: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Doming and his very supportive wife immediately went to work to establish a vocational training school right there in their Barangay Afusing in their hometown of Alcala. They would try to keep the tuition fees as low as possible and provide as many scholarships as they can afford.

So for the next couple of years, 1997-1998, a new building was constructed. Every week, Doming would load cement and other building materials into his pick-up and go on a 14-16 hour drive from Manila to the construction site in Afusing, more than 500 kms. away.

During this time, the Capilis were drawing on their personal funds. At one point, it seemed that the project would even take a toll on their lives as well. In one of these long trips, they had such a serious accident, their van was declared a total wreck. By some miracle, no one was seriously injured except Doming himself who nursed an aching back for the next12 months.

Being a lawyer, Doming was quick to draft the necessary documents and to obtain the necessary permits for the new school. He approached friends and professional acquaintances for help and donations to supply its technical training needs — tools and equipment, computers. Etc. In early 2000, the school obtained TESDA accreditation and the assurance that its standards are up to par.

By this time the Promise Keepers Group had taken notice of what Doming and Vangie were doing and decided to give them their all-out support. In April 1999, the men’s group sponsored the musical presentation Rivers of Musical Delight which raised funds to finally enable the school to start operating in the school year 2000-2001 with 38 enrollees.