The idea has fomented in the old melon that perhaps there's a poor soul out in the wasteland that is simply dying for a drop of solid gold news as to what this gal is doing this summer. Well, I'll tell you a thing or two, though I'm not inclined to go into detail. Besides trotting about places like Georgia and Maine as well as soaking in a few days of solitary vacation, this body has so far been sporadically dedicated to completing her summer work, more or less. And, I'm happy to announce, that as of last Friday night I have successfully completed this year's summer work duty!
My final week of summer work, however, was not just any week of summer work. It was my first experience of actually working during the Family Convention. What joys of mixed pleasure and stress! My physical work was extremely minimal, but my mental work was fairly considerable. One day I'm at my wits' end and have no idea what I'm doing, and two days later I'm feeling almost guilty for having so few responsibilities. You see, I had the privilege of leading the youth in their drama activity, and although I was greatly blessed with the assistance and moral support of the expert Aunt Sharon, the responsibility and overall ideas and direction lay on my shoulders.
The first day wasn't so bad. I had decided that I didn't want to take the "throw a huge script at you" approach but wanted to do drama with a more laid-back, "let's ad-lib, have fun, and do some REAL acting" approach. So, to prepare my actors, I decided to hone their creativity skills by playing some acting games that required lots of ad-libbing. This seemed to go well, but as the games wound to a halt I realized with horror that I still had no idea what we were going to do next. I had hoped that some inspiration would fall from the sky as they worked out their own little skits, but none came plopping down on me. Unless my thick skull was too impenetrable to see them. Not quite sure what to do next, I let them play a certain game that they had liked again and then dismissed them.
Now what?
About half a dozen ideas were swimming around in my head, but none of them seemed to click. This sounded too dumb, that sounded too complicated, etc, etc. I sat down after dinner with a couple of the older guys (Ryan and Daniel, plus David since he happened to be around anyway) and bounced my ideas off of them to see what they thought. They were relatively neutral, but pretty supportive.
"Which idea do you like best?" my cousin Ryan asked me. Surprised, I mentioned one or two of the ideas that seemed more appealing. The basic gist of what he conveyed to me next was that I was the leader and he'd be happy to do whatever I wanted them to, and he was sure that whatever they did would turn out to be funny either way. Wow, talk about loyalty . . . or something. Perhaps what I was most concerned about was coming up with something that they didn't hate acting out, and his assurances pretty much dissuaded my fears.
But that still left me without a clue.
So I decided to go to the youth meeting. I had a lot of work to do to figure out what I was doing, and I was even on breakfast the next morning, but I decided that being supportive was worth it . . . especially since I was misinformed so that I thought that my brother was having the meeting, when he wasn't (it took me about a third of the meeting to be convinced of that though). As it turned out, going to that meeting was just what I needed. In the course of the meeting a certain point was brought out: It's not enough to say that you want God. Our wants can change. We have to come to the point where we can say that we need God.
That hit home for me. And it was a grand slam. Not only could I think of ways that this applied to my life in general, but I could very specifically relate that message to the whole drama activity situation. I decided that I needed to pray more seriously about it. Of course I had prayed about it already . . . I certainly wanted God and His blessing on drama so that it would go well, but I still felt like the ideas had to come from me. That wasn't working so well, and I was faced with a certain realization: I needed God.
As I realized how desperately I actually needed God and His help, I found myself turning to Him. And as I found myself turning to Him and seeking Him, a certain phrase came to me from Acts, one that had been quoted in meeting from that morning, "What I do have I give to you." I started thinking about the drama practice from that day. I recalled the games that we had played, certain characters that had been acted well, and certain quotes that were memorable. Ruth had made a first-rate snobby opera singer. How would she do if she were a haughty queen? Timothy had made a classic picture of a dad that kept on insisting that his embarrassed son (aka Ryan) "Had no idea what he was dealing with." Alex had looked like a cool, shady character with those sunglasses on . . . and his emphatic, "Thou shalt not kill," could be very amusing if used repeatedly. What if he were a Secret Service type guy who never spoke unless to utter one of the Ten Commandments? David had made a remarkably great weepy toddler, and his "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request" could be hilarious coming from a little kid. I scribbled down a few ideas, then went to bed, staying awake quite awhile as ideas rushed in. A skit idea had been born.
So yes. The long and the short of it is that my seven-person drama team put on fairly modern version of the story of David (or "Dave," who plays the ukulele and slew the giant robots with his nerf gun) as he met Queen Saulette, fought hard side-by-side with his best friends Jonathan and Hushai, and eventually was chased away by the Queen when she tried to "sic" her pet monkey on him. The final scene was one that was used in the family devotions that week, when David had to demonstrate self-control by not killing Saul. And believe it or not, we packed in the Fruit of the Spirit (which was the theme of the week) and slow-motion battle scenes to the music of Pirates of the Caribbean (one of my favorite ideas) in there as well. I think God truly blessed it, not just because we wanted Him, but because we needed Him.
Now the Convention is over and I'm taking "a breather." What more awaits me this summer? Well, it looks like next month I'm going to be a counselor for a two week teen camp on the other side of the mountain. Now that I finally know that I was accepted I'm a little scared, but I think it will be a splendid opportunity to rely on the Holy Spirit and grow in my relationship with Him as I make new friends in totally new Christian circles.
Other than that, my options are somewhat up in the air. At this point I'm planning on starting into my summer work for next year, so that could occupy quite some time (up to four weeks even, if I do that much). Besides that, my dad and I have been exploring other educational opportunities, like taking a TESL course to prepare me for future short-term missions possibilities, and maybe taking a desk-top publishing course to assist with our church's magazine, Times of Restoration, since Kendra who is currently in charge of production is planning on going overseas for at least a year. But who knows? My summer could still hold very different things.
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