Shekinah Ballet's First Successful Benefit Concert!

The sun was rising over the mountains on interstate 81 as I made my way to Living Faith Chapel. My hands were already shaking, and I decided that perhaps the shot of espresso in my Starbucks Frappuccino was not a good idea. Oh well! I was looking forward to getting to the church before anyone else so that I could collect my thoughts, stretch, and find some time alone with God. I needed an added measure of grace certainly this day. I smile thinking how ill qualified I was (and still am) for the gift and amazing opportunity that He gave me in this dance ministry. Young ladies who are looking for a godly example, knowledgeable ballet teaching, and a director who can encourage and enable them to worship God. The idea that God would give me this opportunity is incredibly gracious. I could list some facts about myself that would certainly disqualify me from such an honor, yet God was so abundantly gracious and giving. At first when I thought of the dance benefit concert idea, I did not think it would succeed. I was waiting for it to fail like my numerous other ideas always have, but as time went on, it began to go more smoothly than I expected. For example. I realized one day that I did not have a speaker that would be loud enough to project the music during rehearsals. I also wanted to be able to play my music form my iTunes account on my phone. Within an hour of praying for a speaker, my mother walked in the door with a speaker that she received from the Sprint store. "I have no idea why I just spent $100 dollars on a speaker that we will never use when we are just about broke, but for some reason I just bought it," she explained.
It was at this moment that I knew that God was going to show me His grace in a miraculous way. Soon I realized that the church was going to be $250 dollars. While the cost was not unreasonable at all, I was overwhelmed by the seemingly significant cost since I did not want to charge my students this first time. Perhaps this was the insurmountable hurdle. Of course the show would not happen. Not soon after praying for wisdom in how to deal with this cost, one of the mothers graciously offered to pay the entire cost!
Finding dancers was another matter. I had to find girls who would be willing to worship God through dance. I wanted to have a core group of girls who already knew Jesus as Savior and had gentle, pure spirits so that as other girls came along, there would be spiritual encouragement and an expectation of excellence in conduct. The young ladies that ended up dancing with Shekinah had beautiful attitudes, and were exactly suited to what I was trying to achieve, a godly environment where Christ could be glorified.
In addition, there were apparently some little girls that wanted to take classes. I had no real thought to teach little ones currently for this show, but I set up a time when the mothers could bring their daughters and where I could teach them a basic dance. I was astounded on the night of the first junior division rehearsal to see fifteen young girls all with willing attitudes ready to learn a dance and picking up the parts well!
Now as I sat in the sanctuary at Living Faith Chapel waiting for our curtain crew to arrive and the sound system to get set up, all I could think was "Lord, you have given me an incredible gift! This is the dream and the desire of my heart that I have had since I was in second grade. I have strayed from you in my heart this year. I have been completely a mess in many of my decisions, and yet in the very same year when I make the worse decisions, you have overwhelmed me with a sense of your grace, and You have enabled me to do what I never thought would actually happen. I want to be faithful to serve you and lead these young ladies to You. Please give me the strength to do this."
As the day continued, It was nothing but craziness. Every moment I was giving orders to someone. From 7:00am to 4:00pm I was running like a crazy person. By 4:00pm, I was feeling sick and anxious, yet I had a tremendous support group of incredible friends who made me sit down and stop working, who brought me food, and took my phone away from me and took over everything, so that I could relax, We had seventy people begin to arrive at 6:00pm. The show had no major blunders except that I discovered that I need to work on talking professionally on stage. I was blessed with peach roses. (my favorite) at the end. The show raised $422 dollars for Street Kids Philippine Mission and $422 dollars for Shekinah Ballet Company. All I can say is God is truly good! Rich in mercy and abundant in loving kindness. He has given me a love for these girls, and an incredible opportunity, and I am not going to take this for granted, but I daily look to Him to enable me to take the next step and honor Him in everything.

Rehearsals

We have had at least seven rehearsals, including rehearsals with little girls which we call our "Shekinah Junior Division". We never expected to have so many young ladies with such a desire to learn and dance. They have brought me numerous pictures and have given me numerous hugs to show their gratitude. The last week has been a stretch for me as a director. I have been finishing up a twelve credit semester of school, along with directing the dance show. My semester ends on the 8th of May and the show is on the 9th, so this has been crunch time for me. Thankfully, my classes do not have finals. That has been a huge blessing. I have also had much support from encouraging friends. God has been very good to me. I am not the least bit stressed, although quite busy. Things are coming together, and while we have no idea how many people will actually come, we are trusting God to bring those who will be truly blest by our first worship production.

Our rehearsals have included a short devotional with the older girls, a warm up for the girls, and a time of learning each dance. On Saturday, May 2nd, we are having our dress rehearsal. It's been amazing to see God work in all of these things. I am starting to realize that this desire of mine to share dance with young ladies while simultaneously encouraging them and building godly relationships with them, may actually be a reality! God is so gracious to me, and I am so privileged to be a part of this!

Adminsitrative Assistants and Advertizing Consultants

Shekinah Ballet has a number of knowledgeable volunteers that are working together to make this show possible. Two of the most helpful volunteers are our advertising consultant, Laura Jeu

 

and Miss Brook's Personal administrative assistant, Lindsay Harris. Both of these girls have been keeping up with numerous typing assignments, ordering tickets, getting together t-shirt orders, writing out programs, and supplying much of the work that is involved in manning the ticket table. These girls have put in countless hours and have been a source of knowledge and inspiration with their various ideas. On the night of the event they will be handing out tickets. Please be sure to thank them for their hard work.
As I have been thinking about the tremendous support that our volunteers have offered, I am reminded of Romans 12:4-6 which says, "For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly..." The gifts of these volunteers is a testimony to the way that the body of Christ works together, many different individuals all working together for God's glory.

Preparations and First Steps

The last few months have been a whirlwind of excitement and preparation as I begin to learn what it means to direct my own dance concert. Back in November I was visiting a friend near Philadelphia. We had just enjoyed a beautiful morning of walking the streets of Doylestown and touring the Doylestown Castle, drinking coffee and tea and crocheting while watching "North and South". It was an invigorating and inspiring kind of day. We were preparing for a Masquerade and raising money for Pregnancy Ministries through donations from the event, when it suddenly occurred to me. I could do the same thing with my desire to begin a ballet ministry! Why not raise money for a missions organization while allowing friends of mine who know ballet to learn a production? It would be the first step in gauging interest from dancers in the area, and it would give me more experience, not to mention offer the opportunity of raising money both for this future dance ministry and for the needs of others. Since November I have had many friends, and young dancers who have been supportive and have volunteered countless skills and resources to make this production possible. We will be performing on May 9th Shekinah Ballet's first production "Give Me Jesus" in Shippensburg Pennsylvania. We are excited to have Bloom Dance Studio and Neshema Dance Company join us for guest performances and we are excited to see how much money we can raise for Street Kids Philippine Mission, an orphanage that a friend of mine promotes. Yesterday I acquired beautiful flyers printed by my good friend, Laura Jeu, and last Friday we had our first rehearsal with the younger group of dancers. It looks as if we will have about twenty-five dancers worshipping on the night of the show. It has been a tremendous amount of work, but I am learning that delegation is a huge part of bringing everything together.