A mix of modern and traditional Samoan and Maori dances was performed by a New Zealand group to add camaraderie and laughter to the Congregational Christian Church Samoa's annual conference (Fono Tele).

Held at Malua, performers from the Manukau Congregational Christian Church Samoa (C.C.C.S.) entertained the crowd of church members after the ordination of Faifeau Samoa. The Manukau district was selected to be the main entertainment provider for this year's conference and lit up the stage on Saturday with mixed entertainment including Hip Hop, traditional Samoan as well as Maori dances.

Reverend Fotuonuupule Perelini, who serves as the church minister for Papakura C.C.C.S and is the secretary for the Manukau district, said the weeks of hard work by their district b practices, as well as enduring airfares to travel to Samoa, was all worth it.

"All thanks to God first for we have come to the conclusion of this milestone for this particular activity of the Fono (entertainment) and it was a success," he said in an interview with the Samoa Observer. It has been a long time since we last performed in front of the whole EFKS church and serve our church through entertainment.

"We were excited when we learned that we will be doing the main performances for this Fono Tele (conference), it has been over 10 years since we last performed and it has been an honour."

He added that this opportunity also provides a lesson, especially for the participating youths of Manukau, to keep their faith in God and become more involved with the church.

"For most of the youths who are participating, this is their first time in Samoa and in Malua so this is a great opportunity for them to explore more about their church and what we are trying to push for is the development of the church as well as their lives growing up," he said.

There are four sub-districts in the Manukau district: Manukau West which is led by Rev. Elder Vaaelua Patu; Manukau East is led by Rev. Alosina Vavae; Manukau North is led by Rev. Elder Iakopo Isaraelu; and Waikato sub-district which is led by Rev. Elder Anatu Reupena.

There are also 20 various churches included in the Manukau district and the last time they performed for the annual conference was in 2007. The Manukau district spared time off their work and school for six weeks to practice.

Elena Alao, 17, from Otahuhu C.C.C.S said this opportunity paves the way for Manukau youths to know more about their church and become more revolving with their church's development.

"This opportunity does not come very often and we hardly get it and now that we're here in Malua, we're really happy to be able to perform in front of the church where all our faifeau (church ministers) are educated," she said.

"As a youth and a youth representative for our district, the highlight of our journey is all the practices that we had, even though it went up to midnight, we would still be at our churches trying to practice and learn all our moves for each performance, the songs, and hymns.

"It was also a good bonding time as well among the youths, I think that strengthened our bonding as a sub-district and then our choir practices that we had here in Samoa with the whole district which we were able to mix and mingle with one another, it was an amazing experience."

About 10 items were performed by churches from the Manukau district.