A guard welcomed me. “Tuloy po,” he smiled, quickly opening the steel gate. I smiled back and curiously looked through the front yard, where the voices were coming from. A woman in her mid-30s approached me. “Welcome po sa Children’s Joy,” she said, leading me to the house’s receiving area.

At the sight of an unexpected visitor, the children stopped playing and gleefully waved towards my direction. “Hello, Ma’am!” they greeted in chorus. I waved backed at them and smiled. Those pure, happy children, tall and small, dark and fair-skinned, wide and chinky-eyed were the countenance of unmistakable joy.

The Birth of JOY   

Ms. Elizabeth Delez, or “Ate Bebot”, the woman who met me at the gate, is the Project Coordinator of the Children’s Joy Foundation Residential Care Home. She has been with the foundation since its inception in the late ‘80s.      

She said that the foundation began when a goodhearted Davaoeño began sending kids to school for free. The ‘Good Samaritan’ not only gave free-education to indigent children, but started feeding, clothing, molding and raising them as his own. He was Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy, Executive Pastor of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the Name Above Every Name. He wasn’t a business mogul or a tycoon. He was neither a rich scion nor a philanthropist. He was just an ordinary person with a big heart for poor, neglected, abused and abandoned children. He wanted to make them happy. Thus, he began the Children’s Joy Foundation, Inc., which would bring joy to thousands of destitute children in the Philippines.

 Painting Smiles on Kids’ Faces 

Starting with only 15 beneficiaries, Pastor Apollo and his Davao-based congregation put up the CJF Residential Care Home in Davao City in 1989. This became the second home to kids who were adopted because their families could no longer support them. A few years later, the CJF began community-based projects such as feeding programs, free medical and dental missions and giving scholarship grants to poor but deserving students.

From Metro Davao, the foundation reached other areas in Mindanao, followed by Metro Manila, where it established its second Residential Care Home in Project 8, Quezon City. Eventually, it expanded toward Greater Manila’s neighboring provinces, and then in the Visayas islands. It was only in 1995 that the group was formally named Children’s Joy Foundation Inc. In June 15, 1998, it was officially recognized by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in the Philippines.

The Love of the Father

More than 15 million children in the Philippines are malnourished. Due to grinding poverty, four million minors are in child labor. Thousands of Filipino children don’t have access to formal education.  Twelve million children are living in extreme poverty and thousands of them die each year, either in an early or a slow death.   

“Pastor Apollo saw all of these; and he couldn’t just stand there, doing nothing,” Ms. Delez explained. “Being an evangelist, he realized while touring the Philippines that the children were ‘sorely neglected’. He noticed that they were treated like mere commodities.

“But Pastor Apollo said that when you have the love of the Father in your heart, it’s impossible for you not to do anything for these innocent beings,” she added.

	He was just an ordinary person with a big heart for poor, neglected, abused and abandoned children. He wanted to make them happy. Thus, he began the Children’s Joy Foundation, Inc., which would bring joy to thousands of destitute children in the Philippines.
Pastor ACQ with CJF beneficiaries in last year's Christmas party.

Since then, the Children’s Joy Foundation, Inc. has not stopped bringing joy to children through its services, which have expanded to livelihood projects for the beneficiaries’ parents, supplemental feeding programs and residential care home services to destitute kids nationwide, and reconstructing and renovating schools in remote areas. Geographical barriers were never a problem, for anywhere in the country, volunteers in what the ministry calls its ‘Kingdom Locale Congregations’, work behind the CJF’s outreach programs  in far-flung towns, sitios and barangays.  

After 10 years, the CJF now has thousands of children under its auspices. In Davao City’s Residential Care Home alone, 550 in-house academic scholars are provided for with their basic needs. The same goes for the 300 beneficiaries in the Visayas and the 500 resident-scholars in Manila. Three-month Supplemental Feeding Programs are continuously being carried out in the country’s depressed barangays, where thousands of children suffer second-to-third degree malnourishment.

Aside from its major programs, the foundation also provides leadership training for the youth and music lessons for younger children, especially for its in-house beneficiaries.

Angels in Haven     

The kids in the CJF abode are properly trained and molded as though they were in a real home. “They have their daily schedule of activities,” Ms. Delez explains. They have chores to do after school; like watering the plants, baking pastries (for fundraising) and cleaning the house. They also have strict prayer schedules every morning and at night. Pastor Apollo wants to instill in them the values of discipline and responsibility at their young age.” The same training is replicated in all CJF Residential Care Homes around the country.

Exceptional Kids

I noticed a photo gallery at the brightly-lit receiving area. “So, they play the rondalla and violin?” I asked, pointing to the picture of the children performing and playing musical instruments. “Yes, like real professionals,” Ms. Delez replied jokingly.

The CJF Banduria

True enough, the CJF Rondalla has built quite a reputation among exclusive subdivisions and offices in the National Capital Region, regularly performing in social functions during the holidays, and in big company gatherings. The group has even appeared on several television programs in Manila. One of the CJF Rondalla’s unforgettable performances was in December 2005, when they played before the President and her Cabinet at Malacañang Palace.  

But these kids are not only musically-inclined; most of them also excel in the academics. Their grades are strictly monitored and it helps that the CJF has in-house instructors and tutors to help them with their lessons. This extra effort has eventually paid off. In March 2006, many of the children were at the top of their class. “One of the kids even received a scholarship grant in one of the prestigious schools in Quezon City,” Ms. Delez added.