On September 3rd, Children in Need and the New Hope for Orphans dance group held their first concert in the Celebration of Hope tour around the Bay Area. The performance took place at St. Paul’s Towers in Oakland. The concert was a huge success, with 80-90 people attending. That day, dance group had traveled 8 hours from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and arrived at the place around 5 pm.

At 7:00 pm, the room was all full. When the dancers started performing their first traditional Cambodian dance, the beautiful costumes, beautiful dance formation and beautiful Cambodian music were well received by the audience. The second dance was called the Coconut Dance, after which Children in Need’s president, Cherry Yuan, was introduced by Matt Geppert and performed Gavotte en Rondeau, Gigue in E major by Bach as our tribute to this dance tour. After the third traditional dance, the audience was shown a video clip about the testimony of Pastor Sinai Phouek who grew up in the border of Cambodia and Thailand, a place full of land mines and poverty. Because 11% of Cambodia’s population are orphans, Pastor Sinai decided to begin an orphanage, starting with just 5 children, but has now grown to supporting 350 children.

After the video clip, the dance group performed 3 modern songs. Between each dance, the founder of SEAPC, Mark Geppert, interviewed some of the dancers and asked them about their dreams for their futures. One wants to be a future governor and another wants to be a medical doctor. At the end of the last performance, dancers gave hugs to the audience. Their shyness and natural manners drew a lot interest and curiosity from the audience. Some of them were asked for their autographs. Numerous audience members even asked how they could help these children. This was a great night with lots of energy and support.

On the next day, September 4th, I met with the dance group at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. We were honored to be chaperoned by people who work at Google. First we had breakfast at their cafeteria, then we toured the compound. After that, we all sat down and chatted with our speaker about what Google does around the world. It was a very special experience, and we would like to thank Google for giving us this wonderful opportunity.

Related photos: http://www.childreninneedclub.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=15078329