Middle School Concert
If I wondered at the Prong Jai concert on Thursday morning going off without any mishaps of any kind, I was later to find out that God was just saving them for the evening! I think my part of the Middle School concert will forever be considered in my mind as the "concert of calamities"!
I had to leave Prong Jai soon after the concert was over to come back to a mid-morning 6th grade strings dress rehearsal for the Middle School concert that evening (my 5th graders will play next week). By the time I got back to Bangna, I had a terrible headache which also made me feel sick to my stomach. I pressed on through the dress rehearsal but found myself getting extremely frustrated with out-of-tune violins and a bridge on one of my student's violins which had fallen and didn't want to stay back up (I ended up just letting him borrow the school's violin for the rehearsal, saying that I'd fix it before the evening). I was pretty brain-dead the rest of the school day and tried to get a few things done, then went back to my apartment and slept off some of the headache that afternoon (it didn't completely leave until Friday mid-day). I arrived early for the concert to tune everyone's violins again, but didn't get there early enough. The one student's violin bridge fell another 3 or 4 times before it finally snapped in half! "Well," I thought, "I guess this means he'll be using the school violin for the concert!" 15 minutes before the concert was to begin, I realized that my music and all of the student's music that I was keeping was in my apartment! I had accidently taken it out of my bag with a stack of other things. To make matters worse, I had lent my apartment keys to a friend so she could use my shower before the concert (since I live on campus), so I had to go find her, walk with her to her classroom (in the 2nd floor of another building) where she had put my keys, rush up to my 4th floor apartment to get the music and run back to the auditorium (all in high heels). I made it back before the concert began but the whole thing made me flustered and rather sweaty (it was a
hot evening). Our plan was for my violinists to sit together on the first row and then walk up to the front of the stage in their chamber groups at the appropriate times, but right before the concert began, when we tried to slip into the actual auditorium, we discovered we were locked out! So we stayed backstage for the first 1/3rd of the concert and had to change our approach for walking on the stage. Then as the first group (the "Indian boys quintet" and me!) were lining up to walk out, we realized one of the students wasn't there! In the chaos, I hadn't realized he was missing and had assumed earlier that he was in another room practicing with the choir. So for the concert we were the "Indian Boys
Quartet" and Miss Catherine.
As to the actual performance, the students' pieces held together (for some of the groups, a miracle in itself!) and all in all sounded better than they had in the past, although not where I wish they were at this point. I played with two of the groups (to help hold them together) and was rather nervous as it was one of my first performances on the violin! The students were pleased with the way they played, I think, so I guess the important things happened, but what a trip to get there! It was the kind of night where I could either laugh or cry at all that happened - and this time God gave me the grace to laugh! : )
Prong Jai Christmas Concert
This last week has been a very hefty week, climaxing on Thursday for my first two (of three) Christmas concerts at ICS. God answered so many requests concerning these concerts that I wanted to write and tell you about them and say thank you for supporting me with your prayers!!
The first was the Elementary Christmas concert at the Prong Jai campus. I don't think I've written about Prong Jai yet on my blog or ever posted all the pictures I meant to post, but it is the smaller, downtown campus that I travel to once a week to teach music. Prong Jai was the original campus of ICS where Elementary and Secondary students attended until the school way out-grew it and built the much larger Bangna campus 2 years ago. Now there are only 65 K-5th Grade students there and after much prayer and many meetings of the administration and school board this past fall, it was decided that Prong Jai will be closed after this year. Even though I've only taught there now one semester and am only there one day a week, I was very sad about this decision. I love Prong Jai. Because there are so few students there, the campus really has a "homey" feel and the students and faculty are like one big family. The teachers there work together so well and I really enjoy being with them and fellowshipping with them. And the campus itself is very beautiful (I'll post the pictures soon), with a beautiful garden/play-ground in the center of campus. It's also very peaceful there, even though it is in the middle of town. I love my Thursdays because I get to travel out to Prong Jai to teach.
Prong Jai does not have an auditorium or classroom large enough for a concert, so our Christmas concert was on platforms they set up in the outdoor cafeteria. We had it first thing in the morning (7:30) because by 8:30 or later, it would have been too hot to be enjoyable! The kids did a combination of songs from a collection called "The Signs of Christmas" and a play called "Green at Christmas" which we edited to make our own and is about 2 aliens that are trying to figure out the meaning of Christmas (it ended up very funny and cute!). The kids did fabulously and sang out so well and really seemed to enjoy it. We all worked them very hard with extra rehearsals, but they pulled it off wonderfully. I was so proud! In fact, so few things went wrong that by the middle of the program, I wondered what was going happen because
some big mishap
has to happen at every concert, right? We had one sound glich and that was it.
One exciting thing about this concert was that because I am only there once a week, putting it together was really a team effort of the teachers and staff. And they all gave so freely and worked as hard as I did on this concert. It was neat to see everyone's gifts being used on behalf of the children.
The two highlights (and answers to prayer!) from that morning were:
1) a conversation I had with one of my second grade Indian students before the concert. I was praying and reading my Bible alone in the music room before the concert and Dhavani came in a sat down and started talking to me (made me miss Rachel Mitts a lot!). After a minute she looked at the open Bible on my lap and asked, "Will you tell me something from the Bible about God?" I think my mouth must have dropped to the floor as my mind raced, thinking "Where do I start?!" She must have known what I was thinking because she said, "Tell me what you were reading." So I read her some of Psalm 113, sharing about the greatness and yet condescension of Christ, relating it all to Christmas and the gospel. Before I knew it, she was sharing the gospel right back to me (Dhavani has and has had excellent teachers at ICS the last couple of years!). Later she said, "I want to go to the Promised Land." I agreed with her and said that one thing I was really looking forward to was seeing people from all different nations (India, Thailand, America...) all worshipping God there together. She asked if there were going to be many Indians in heaven but when I said that I thought so, she got really sad and told me that she keeps telling her Hindu family that Jesus is the Way and Truth but that they just won't believe. I prayed for her family with her. Later when I told my good friend Amber about our conversation (Amber was Dhavani's teacher last year), she said that Dhavani's parents almost didn't let her and her brother come back to ICS this year because they were/are so opposed to Christianity. What a difficult thing for a young child and young believer to deal with! Please pray that God will sustain and grow Dhavani's faith and that her parent's eyes will be opened to the truth of the gospel!
2) God answered my prayers that the gospel message would be central to our concert and would be proclaimed clearly. With the ESL student actors, some of the lines in the script couldn't be understood so very well and many of the jokes of the play were sadly lost to our also largely ESL audience, but God answered my prayer that the students would remember and speak clearly those lines that were especially speaking of the meaning of Christmas. He guarded the climax of the musical - when the 5th graders were refuting all the misconceptions about Christmas and boldly sharing that Jesus coming to save us was the real point of Christmas - from feedback from the mics or outward distractions and it led beautifully to one Christian student (Fa - who has the most golden, selfless heart of any 3rd grade boy I've ever known!) singing the solo "Christmas isn't Christmas (til it happens in your heart)." My eyes filled with tears of amazement and joy as I watched the kids share this message with their (mostly) unbelieving parents and then again at the end when the whole student body sang out "Lord, we lift up Your name, with hearts full of praise! Be exalted, O Lord my God - Hosanna in the Highest!" Yes, Lord! Come and save! And be exalted in Thailand from the mouths of these young ones!!
"These concepts that the movies and sentimental, 'warm-fuzzy' stories and so on pick up on about Christmas are all echoes of this story of Christ's birth....But the echo without the source-Jesus-is meaningless. Although it's a lot easier for people to understand and accept, it's lost its significance." (From "Green at Christmas")
Christmas worship and outreach
This morning the MTW team worship was so wonderful! It was the first time since I've been there that we've had communion (which I've really missed - they may have done it this fall, but I just wasn't there) and Dave preached which is always very good and makes me come away wanting to spend more time with Christ. The music was really great today too! Since I arrived, Crystal, Tim and I have been on a rotation for planning and leading the musical worship for the morning services. In the last month, we've also had Ren, one of the Thai interns that goes to the Bangkok Bible College/Seminary, lead Thai songs in addition to the English songs. So our service today ended up fairly long with 6 English songs/hymns (not counting the Doxology) and 4 Thai songs; the usual call to worship, confessions, assurance of pardon and prayers; children's catechism (which is another exciting thing we've recently started to do to teach the kids on the team solid doctrine); a full sermon and celebration of the Lord's Supper. But it was all so good and rich and special that I don't think anyone felt like it was too long.
The music was especially good and special today, I think. This morning it was my turn to plan and lead, but after picking out the songs (many Christmas carols), I asked several of the others to join me to play. For the first few we had me on guitar, Mot (another Thai intern) on Tim's new djembe-type drum and Tim on penny whistle. I combined two of the songs in a kind of medley - and as I thought of how to combine them musically and thematically, I felt like so much like my dad. And though it wasn't nearly as complex or fancy (or practiced!) as what Dad always plans and does at Pinewood, I felt like I had a part of him and a part of Pinewood with me this morning as we worshipped (which is a special gift from God because I've been so homesick these last few weeks!) I also brought my cello for the first time to the office today and at the end of the service, Ren and I played "What Child is This?" (my mom's favorite Christmas carol; this time around as I looked at and cried over the words in the Trinity Hymnal version, I realized why). Ren is such an amazing guitarist and I think having the cello there made many of the team members feel like they were at their home churches, which is what I hoped and prayed for as I know they are all also struggling with great homesickness at this time. It was so good (and
sanuk mak! : ) to make music with other people again - which I haven't done enough of outside of school since being here. Tim and I talked afterward and we hope to do more of that in the future.
Also exciting today was that we had 8 new Thai faces in our midst! Yesterday we all went to the Maahaathai (slum) community that is near the office for a special Christmas outreach. Dave and several others have gone weekly ever since Halley got the doors open for ministry there last spring, but yesterday was the first time I had ever been. It was such a blessing! Many kids came while their parents stood on the outskirts to watch all that we were doing. We played some games, Ren and I lead a few songs, many of the other team members acted out the Christmas story complete with costumes and props, and Dave and Mot shared the message of Christmas (I think! I couldn't understand everything because it was all in Thai!). Then we handed out bags of little toys and goodies and tangerines to everyone that came. The children were so precious, so beautiful! A few of them shared their talents with us as they played traditional Thai string instruments. Dave mentioned yesterday that he'd like to start going over there on Saturday and Sunday mornings with a taxi or truck and inviting any kids who want to come over and join us for JOY Kids and Sunday worship. He did it for the first time today and 8 kids came. They joined us for worship and then we took them out for lunch at the market (where about half the team goes every week) afterwards. It's so exciting to see all that God is doing to build His church here in Thailand!
my string classes
This first picture is of my 5th Grade string class - the most ideal beginning string class in the world! They work so hard and have progressed so much over the last 4 months! Last Wednesday when they played their Christmas piece (a 2-part arrangement of "Good King Wenceslas" - with bows!) as I directed, I almost started crying. My very first string class - that I started! I am so proud of them!
(The second picture is of the 5th Grade girls in my string class; the third is of some of the boys in my 6th grade strings class.)
