Old!
Jenny, one of my 2nd Grade piano students, asked me this afternoon, "When you were a young girl, what was your favorite computer game, like on the internet - your favorite website?"
Me: "My favorite website...? Um...the internet wasn't around when I your age!"
Ack! Makes me feel so old! : P
Wondrous Deeds
“You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.” Psalm 40:5
God has truly done wondrous things in the past few weeks in and around my life in response to your prayers. I hardly know where to start sharing – it seems like the answers to prayers are “more than can be told” and I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a lot of summarizing! In the summary, however, I don’t want to minimize the wonder of what God has done or my amazement at it, so please forgive me for barely scratching the surface!
I guess the best way to “tell of them” would be in the categories for which I asked for prayer:
~ The Middle School concert was 2 weeks ago – the first of my concert madness and right in the middle of the stressful preparations. My students played far better than I thought they would, based on the first dress rehearsal (after which I cried!). God answered my prayers for a really good second/last dress rehearsal in which they were able to see how much they’ve learned and how far they had come over the course of the semester. They played almost perfectly (for them) at that practice and we were all able to enjoy the beautiful music made within our little classroom. I was grateful for this because it helped them to go into the concert with a lot of confidence. On the day of the concert, I was completely wiped out and starting to get sick (I ended up feeling that way for several days), mostly due to stress. At a few points in the day, I wondered how I would even make it through the performance! God provided strength of body and heart that night in an amazing way.
~ High School concert – went well and beautiful music was made. My part in it was very small, but I mention it because that day I sensed people praying as I played piano and my fingers seemed to move more fluidly than normal. Also, I was not nervous and only made a few mistakes, so I praise God for answering on that day as well.
~ “His Story” musical: the 3rd and 4th Graders performed their musical last Thursday afternoon. It’s been a rather all-consuming project preparing for this musical the last few weeks as it took a tremendous amount of work to get it together. At many times, I almost wanted to shoot myself for making the entire thing incredibly complicated and confusing and this past week, I truly wondered if it would all come together – not because my students aren’t incredibly smart and talented or that many fellow teachers were not willing to help, but just because we were running out of time. Also, we had so many sound system and light problems arise (or rather continue to not be fixed) in the days prior to the performance, that the morning of the show, I finally told my principal that we just needed to pray for a miracle: that God would somehow enable everyone in the audience to see and hear the students, despite what the sound system was or was not capable of at that point. God worked that miracle and many others. Every person that I talked to afterwards said that they could understand every word that was spoken and could hear the kids singing! By the time of the performance, the students all knew exactly where to go and stand and move to (again, a miracle considering my confusing communication and poor leadership!) and they performed splendidly! (I was super proud! : ) And the best thing of all is that the gospel message was proclaimed to a very full auditorium and is now implanted in all 100 of those 3rd-4th Graders who sang up on stage. So many people that came said that this was one of the most clear presentations of the gospel in a children’s musical they had ever seen. I continue to pray (and ask you to also) that God would work powerfully through that in the lives of the students and their parents. Amazing musical performances are a great answer to prayer, but my heart longs for something much bigger to come from this – something eternal!
~ Last Friday night we had a good-bye party for some of my dear friends and MTW team members, Andrew and Becky Bronson. The night was a very emotional one for me, as I will miss them both tremendously (they came to Thailand at the same time I did and are now returning to the States to go to seminary); however, two really beautiful, amazing things came out of that gathering. The first is that a woman who has been attending various events and even worship services at the New Community office/church (and mother of one of the teenage girls I’ve worked with at Maahathai) received Christ during the party! I saw her and Kieow (one of the Thai MTW staff members and my friend) enter the room after having been gone for a while and next thing I knew, several of the team members and Thai Christians were huddled around her praying! Kieow was ecstatic, as were the rest of us! Dave told me this morning that she is the first adult from Maahathai that they know of that has professed faith (so far!). (Many of the children have and are now super zealous little evangelists and faithful church attenders!)
~ The second thing that happened was A and Fam came with me to the party. This was a miracle in and of itself because for the last 3 weeks since Fam started her new job, she has had to work very late nights and so she thought there was no way she’d be able to make it. But God worked it out and for the first time, both she and A were able to leave work early. Before Friday, they had not ever come to anything at the office nor met all of my Thai Christian friends (although they knew several of the farong team members) and they had never seen Christians pray. As I expected, they were pretty blown away by what they experienced at that party with so many believers present. They kept talking about how friendly everyone was and how there was no difference between Thai and farong (in the sense that everyone loved and talked to everyone). And they asked both Melanie and I if they could come back because they wanted to be around it more! They are just beginning to experience the love of Christ, but I see God drawing them, especially Fam, to Himself. She continues to really want to spend time with me and I was incredibly honored when she told someone else on Friday that I was her best friend in Bangkok! Pray that I will faithfully show her the love of Christ and that God would give me the right words to speak of Him to her and A. And please continue to pray for God’s work in their hearts!!
May
I was talking to my Dad last night, telling him about all of my upcoming concerts and the stressful, busy time I'm in the midst of, and he asked me to write down the dates of each of them so that he could be in prayer for me this month. (I counted them up last week and realized that I have one performance of some sort a week for the last 6 weeks of school!!) I thought I'd also put those dates on my blog, so that others could pray too. I feel a little self-centered in doing this, though, as I know that May is an incredibly busy time for everyone, so I don't at all mean to imply that I'm under any more stress than all of you. My list of prayer requests for friends and family members seems to increase daily as I listen to how much other people that I love have going on and the transitions many are facing at the end of this school year.
But for those who would like to pray, here's my concert schedule:
~ Friday, May 2nd - Middle School concert. I'll be directing my 6th and 7th Grade String classes (the choirs and bands at school will also perform, but I don't work with those groups). I was very discouraged after our dress rehearsal yesterday because they sounded so bad and I felt like such a failure of a teacher. Today was more encouraging though, so I am hopeful...
~ Friday, May 9th - High School concert. I'm accompanying one of the HS choirs! I'm excited, but am not the best pianist in the world by a long-shot, so I'm hoping I don't mess up the students!!
~ Thursday, May 15th - Elementary (3rd/4th Grade) "His Story" Musical. This is the big one for me as I'm organizing/directing the entire musical. Many people are helping me, but there are so many things that ultimately only I can do or decisions that I still have to make. And there are so many details involved! The ironic thing is that my least concern is whether or not the students will be ready: they're SUPER excited and know their music and lines well. I'm very afraid at this point that May 15th will come and I won't have all the costumes, set, props, sound system, lights, program, accompaniment/band or other things in place and we'll have to call the whole thing off!
~ Saturday, May 24th - High School Graduation. My 7th Graders are playing prelude/background music before the ceremony. This is the one class I won't be teaching next year (something that is very sad for me as I've grown to be pretty close with these students) so I'm praying for a really good last performance with them!
~ Tuesday, May 27th - 5th Grade Beginning Strings/Band concert.
~ Thursday, June 5th (last day of school!) - Kindergarten Graduation. K4 and K5 will sing.
So, busy days. Several friends/co-workers have commented that they've hardly seen me the last few weeks, except when I'm running past them on the way to something (usually a rehearsal!). It's been a bit of a roller-coaster emotionally too as I frequently get discouraged with my inability to teach or organize or plan well. Each of these performances seems to bring out specific areas of great weakness in me as a teacher, musician or person. I'm learning to rejoice in those weaknesses as I see them as an opportunity for God to be glorified as He shows Himself strong. He IS working and I find myself standing in awe of Him daily as He accomplishes things that either are beyond my control or beyond my abilities. It's been amazing to carry every concern (however small) to Him in prayer in the mornings and then be able to praise Him by the end of the day after I watched Him truly take care of that issue. He's also showing me (again) the strengths of others around me and helping me (in a healthy way, I think) depend on other people that are gifted in areas that I simply am not. It's beautiful to see a picture of the body of Christ in that.
So thank you for praying! Soon the craziness will be over and I know I'll have one more testimony to write on my heart of God's faithfulness in yet another season of my life.
(Pictures of India will come soon - I promise!)
