The Yellow Roadtrip: CANA @ CEFAM

I'm only doing this because it is required by SSA

That's my mentality while paying for the CANA seminar. It trimmed a good 4000 from our budget. The price I have to pay for choosing a celebrity-church. aww

First off, let me explain how I ended up choosing CANA seminar instead of the other two pre-marriage seminars accredited by SSA - Discovery Weekend and Catholic Engaged Encounter. I have this reasons -
1. Cost - It is the cheapest of them all
2. Available Sched - Since we only made reservations on the last week of October, our only options were the CEE and CANA. The later fit D's sched better.
3. D's schedule - he preferred a live-out seminar so he can still work after 5pm. What a workaholic!

November 17 We dropped by Mcdo Libis first to grab our breakfast. We saw a celebrity! Coach Rio dela Cruz, the famous afro-haired runner, was dining there together with his gf. I was amazed by how cute his car was - A gray two-door Audi!
We reached CEFAM building of Ateneo Katipunan few minutes before 8am. And surprise, surprise! Coach Rio was there also! Ahh yeah he was in the news lately because of his cute proposal video.

Anyway, let's go back to discussing the seminar. As expected, I was bored. But in all fairness, it was not consistently boring - just one of the speakers. hehe. The first 4 hours of the seminar was just so-so. With a free lugaw snack in between. Nothing exciting happened here. By 12:30pm, lunch was served. I was disappointed. Maybe I was expecting more because of the expensive seminar fee. After lunch, there were again a series of just so-so talks. We were then given our own counselor to talk about our answers to the Marriage Expectations Inventory. We were assigned to Ms. Merlyn. She was ok. Our only comment was that we experienced a lot of silent moments. She seemed to be taking her time processing our case in her mind so she can give the best advise. Most moods were lifted by the sound of the bell and sweet ginataan for merienda! Yey! Then a very funny guy discussed Authentic Love. What a day-ender!

November 18 We arrived a bit late that day because we were waiting for D's mom to arrive so he can ask about his family history. First off - Genogram. I was kinda looking forward for this. And indeed I learned a lot. It made sense that a person's attitude towards life is affected by his past experiences. If the experiences were bad enough, it can trigger some issues in any relationship. Take Ms.Merlyn's example - There came a point when she and her husband fought over food. She was just thinking of ways to save so she only cook meals once a day. His husband reacted badly over this. He wanted freshly prepared hot food all day. It was just that simple issue but it went on for years and eventually branched into more issues. It was only during a Marriage Encounter seminar did they realized the root cause of the problem. They were also tasked to do their Genogram. His husband's parents died when he was 9. Since then, he was looking after himself and his siblings. They received help from relatives. But being just children, their grandmother chose to give them ration of cold food. So when he got married, he expected his wife to serve his most awaited hot food. But boys, most of the times, keep their emotions to themselves. So the problem never surfaced until the said seminar. After that, Ms.Merlyn made an effort to prepare the food his husband wanted. And true enough, their relationship improved. Ms.Merlyn related that story to our story. I have a very serious family issues - which, up until now, I cannot find forgiveness in my heart. This, according to her, might be the reason why I am easily angered by simple things. D, on the other hand, grew up without a physical father. Although his mom brought them up well, he might have some difficulties raising up his own children. Knowing that possible triggers, I believe we were made better equipped of what's gonna happen.

After a cinnamon turon, we were called back to do the Family Planning seminar. As expected, being a Catholic Church organized seminar, they only advocated Natural Family Planning. I was surprised that even withdrawal is considered against the Lord's teaching. Oh well.

Lunch was better this day. After the sumptuous feast, we were tasks to group according to gender for our Man-Women role. Very nice activity! We learned what the opposite gender expects from us. After that, we were very fortunate to have Father Tanseco, the root of the CANA seminar in the Philippines, to facilitate the spiritual side of the seminar. He was extra witty and jolly for his age. By 4pm, we heard him gave a special mass for us. Then by 5pm our certificates were distributed.

A quick look of the topics the CANA seminar by CEFAM covered: