Korean’s gift of music brings Sunny days to Parañaque slums
NOTES FOR THE SOUL Since October last year, Korean missionary worker Sunny Park (with hat) has been holding a music class for children under a tent in a slum area in Parañaque City. JUSTINE FAY REFUERZO/CONTRIBUTOR
Every Saturday morning, Sunny Park wakes up around six for a weekend task far from typical.
A Korean missionary like her husband, she goes on a 40-minute drive from their Muntinlupa City home to a poor coastal community in neighboring Parañaque, and mentors children using an “instructional material for faith” that she knows best: Music.
With the help of an interpreter, Sunny holds music classes as part of her work for Manila Hanbit Presbyterian Church. Her classroom is a tent and her incentive system consists of a bag of oven-fresh bread.
Her excited students often greet her by playing the portable keyboards and xylophones she herself donated. They know the drill the moment she stands in front of them and raises her hand: On her mark, they start singing the day’s songs of praise.
“I feel so happy every time they greet me. It’s a feeling beyond compare,” Sunny said in an interview at the site, a cluster of about 25 shanties along Cavite Expressway and facing Freedom Island. The slum community doesn’t even have a name; people refer to it as just the place near the city jail.
About 25 pupils, or half of the children living in the area, attend her classes regularly. To motivate them, the music professor—who earlier spent 15 years teaching at Dong Eui University and Kyungsung University in her native Busan, South Korea—gives impromptu exams and rewards fast learners with the bread from her bag.
She’s always quick to say “Good!”—one of the few English words she uses in class— to keep them inspired. “If they have talent in music, it will show,” she said.
But she said her mission goes beyond telling them how to read notes or develop an ear for melody. “By helping the poor and teaching them music, I can change something (in their lives).”
On other days, Sunny, 48, handles another class made up of fellow Koreans who worship at Hanbit church (which means “one light” in Korean) in BF Homes, Parañaque.
“We came here for church work. Some of our fellow missionaries introduced us to the place because there were no other missionary work being done there, unlike in Payatas (a slum area in Quezon City),” she said, recalling how she and her husband, Pastor Choi Hak Jung, started their ministry in the country in 2009. They now live in Alabang with their two daughters.
She started holding music classes for Filipino children in October 2012, welcoming them to her tent regardless of whether they are Roman Catholics, “Born-Again,” or from other churches.
Manila Hanbit has also been high on charity work in the community, donating food, medicines, clothes and school supplies. At least 14 high school students receive P500 each as monthly assistance from the mission, which also plans to support college scholars next year.
But it is Sunny’s music class that gives her church a regular presence in the community.
“Helping other people doesn’t really require you to be extraordinary. You just have to have a helping hand,” Sunny said. “Education means changing people using many ways, and music is just one of them.”
