Padova, Where God Does What He Wants.

Padova, Italy proved to be challenging in a different way. The spiritual heaviness wasn’t so bad, rather God wanted to teach us humility and perseverance. After 13 hours of sleepless travel overnight, we arrive in Padova and found the church where we would be staying, called International Christian Fellowship. We sat down to discuss our plans for the next 11 days with the pastor, but unfortunately no matter what we told him what we could as a group, from workshops, or dancing in schools, or prisons to dancing outside in the city squares he would tell us that it was all impossible. We would never be able to get into any of the schools and we can’t dance in the squares unless we had a permit which he said was impossible to get. He said the best we could do was hand out tracks for his church like all the other short term missions teams who come and that we could clean the church’s huge windows. We thought we had come to the wrong place and the next day, they led us out to the park handed us hundreds of tracks, told me to lead everyone in worship on a bridge and told us to start dancing as well and hand out tracks. I for one do not like to lead worship to attract attention to hand out tracks and my entire team is not one who works well with tracks. That’s why we have dances and testimonies prepared! We realized however that we needed to submit to the authority we were under and to understand that maybe they’d never had a team of our kind come and help. Handing our tracks did not last very long with our group anyway. After humbling us and making us realize that tracks do work in some places, we also learned that God will reach His people regardless. The tools He gives us are for our ease, not His, whether they be dance or tracks.

Even though it was Easter weekend, possibilities opened up everyday. We did what we were told was impossible. We began to dance in multiple squares of the city without a permit. The police did not stop us but rather watched with the rest of the crowds. We were also able to get into a school and dance and teach as well as tell some testimonies. We found that being a dance team helped us get into places that our contacts could not. We met many people and we also danced at the church and taught the children there. Many people even came to the church because of the tracks we had given them while dancing in the squares!

One time, I was handing out tracks very self-consciously still wary that this kind of evangelism would be looked down upon by society, when I spotted a young teenager that I felt God told me to give a track to, even though he had arrived after we finished dancing. So I went over to him and gave him a track and told him that we would be dancing in the same place the next day. He went on to tell me that he too was a dancer! He was very excited to come back and see us and he gave me his email. From then on, he came to all the rest of our performances and many of us randomly met up with him on the streets in between ministry times. One night, Jackie and I, got lost in the city trying to find the rest of the group, but instead we met up with this same guy, Daniel, and he walked us back to the church where he met up with some Christian guys his own age. He hung out with us all evening and we were able to talk with him about many things. The next day he came to bible study and church. He paid close attention to everything and one of our girls prayed for him during the service. He said that Jesus was already “in his heart” but with tears in his eyes he also said, “No one has ever prayed for just me before.” It was hard leaving him, but he says that he would love to come to Montana and learn how to use dance better. He said to me, “I love being around all of you, you are always so happy. Your dances make me feel very peaceful.” It was so encouraging to see one boy’s life effected so much. I often think how glad I am that I obeyed God, for if I hadn’t, Daniel might never have met us. Fears amount to nothing compared to the result of obeying God voice.

An incredible miracle happened as well. Jackie, from Rwanda, was wanting to pray for her father one day while we were in Padova. Her father had been involved in the genocide in Africa 14 years ago and solders had broken his back so that he would suffer, but not die, He has not been able to walk since then. Annie from Seattle was with Jackie praying for her father when she felt to dance for him too, as a prayer. So she danced and she said that she was thinking of Jackie’s dad the entire time. Now, I always thought God would just answer simple prayers by word of mouth, but it hadn’t really dawned on me just how much God uses dance in the spiritual world, as warfare and intercession. That night, Jackie’s dad was healed and was able to walk for the first time in 14 years. In Padova, Annie danced a prayer. In Africa, Jackie’s dad was healed by God. Annie of course is still blown away by it! Dance is more than just an art. It’s a prayer language.

Upon coming home, I got an email from a girl I saw at the park one day. I had spotted her lying in the grass, and instead of dancing as we usually do, or hand out tracks like we had been told to do, I felt as if I should write a poem for her. So I did, and in doing so prayed for her. I walked over to her, gave her the poem and she was encouraged by what it spoke to her. “Why did you pick me?” She had asked. “Because God told me too,” I said. The email she’d sent me when I got back to Montana said that to her, that day not only was she wishing to practice her English more, she was having some very hard questions about religion and that I had been like an angel to her. I look forward to corresponding with her more about having a relationship with Jesus. This made me realize that God works in more ways than we could ever imagine. I didn’t know that what I wrote in that poem was God speaking, but I suppose now that it was. I feel so blessed to be used by God, in ways that He has gifted me. I can’t imagine my life being any other way. He certainly doesn’t have to use us but He does anyway.

All the other girls on my team have incredible stories just like my own but I cannot speak for them.
The past six weeks have been so intense and I’ll never forget what people have told us and how God has blessed us by letting us see the fruit of what we have done in each city. I feel so blessed to have been with such an amazingly anointed group of girls and I know that had it not been for every single girl, our time together would have not been the same. Each girl was used by God so much and each of them have their own stories like I have mine. After all, He chose each of us and He provided every contact, divine appointments and all the finances (even the night before leaving He gave us 17,000 dollars, the rest of the money needed to go!) We realized that we are daughters of the king and He provided for our every need. When we counted up the budget and found that we should be more than broke, we’d open up the money envelopes and there would be more money. Where it came from we don’t know. We just know that God took care of us every step of the way. In the end we had over 4,000 dollars extra that came from nowhere! Overall, I counted 80 God stories both big and little miracles combined. We came up against so many possibilities but now I can really believe that with God, nothing is impossible. And it’s not about the numbers and it’s not about the formulas. God doesn’t operate with formulas. That’s why we spent so much time in prayer and that’s why our weeks in Croatia and Italy was such an adventure!

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Split and the Diocletian Palace, Where Christian Martyrs didn’t Die for Nothing

The city of Split was unanimously the best two weeks we had on outreach. We managed to find an apartment for all 17 of us that was within our budget. We made a contact with a ministry from Texas who had a cafe and church in the city. For the first week in this beach town it seemed we could do nothing right and it rained constantly. We spent most of our time serving, repainting and decorating at the cafe. Eventually we realized that the historical Diocletian palace that we were in (built 1700 years ago) was a place of heavy spiritual warfare. Finally we followed God’s idea (a very good idea) covering every street we possibly could in prayer making our shoes and clothes soaking wet and cold.

Oddly enough, it was the best time we had even though we weren’t even dancing. God was constantly keeping us on our knees before Him, to help us be unified with each other, to trust in Him and to know that all of our time was based on what He wanted to do with us. Then God started to work. We met a headmaster of a school who seemed to know everyone in the city and we got hooked up with a dance studio who let us use the studio and teach her students in the evening, plus we were able to teach a professional pom pom team and dance at a couple of schools and a YMCA center. By the second week the sun was shining brightly. One day we visited a music academy where we met a student who asked us to come and work with the chamber orchestra and improvise with their music which would later be performed in front of the school. We also got a chance to perform some of our own dances.

Nada, who let us use and teach at her studio was so sweet as well. We believe that God meant for us to meet her. Her father had died only a week before and her mother recently as well. She said that had it not been for our team she would have closed down and given up. She would say to us everyday, “who are your choreographers? There’s something more to your dances. I watch modern dance as much as I can on TV but there’s something different about your dances – I can’t explain what.” And so we were able to share with her the love of Christ. When we left Split she said to us, “You’ve been sent from heaven, I was about to close down my studio…you all love each other and you’re so united, and that’s the reason for your success.”

At the cafe there were a few boys that hung out and worked there constantly. Our contact said that he wished he could video tape the drastic change the boys had when we started to spend time with them. One of the guys, named Dino was struggling with believing in God and he said that we had so much joy as a team and that “most missionaries who come here just preach but you guys don’t have to preach it – you just live it. That’s the difference.” He also said to one of our girls from Costa Rica, “With your testimony I just might believe.” Dani, one guy from Serbia is actually coming to Montana to do the Musician’s Summer of Service!

We had been advertising for our final show at a theater in the Diocletian palace (which ironically was built by the Diocletian ruler who was one of the top persecutors of Christians). We named our show “Adouma” after one of our dances, which means “life” in an African language. It was symbolic that we were spreading life all over the city. At the end of our time in Split we performed in the Diocletian palace and all of the people we had made friends with and the people we had taught and spent time with came to see our show and hear our testimonies. We were able to talk with many of them afterwards and even met people in later days who had watched us and had more questions about God. We know that had we not prayed the first week the second week would not have been so fruitful.

The family that had been working in the cafe ministry there for five years had not seen hardly any growth in the church and we believe that now, there will be a huge harvest and all of their perseverance will finally begin to pay off. They actually said to us that before they ever left to be missionaries in Croatia that a word of prophecy was spoken over them that “a group of performing artists would hugely help your work.” To think that five years ago, God had our school planned to come and help them!

While we were on a ferry to travel to Padova Italy for two weeks, a man came up to our team and asked us, “Are you the dance team that danced in Split?” We told him yes. He said to us, “When you are dancing, I don’t know what it is, it’s something you have to watch, you’re all smiling and there’s a sparkle in your eye – it’s like a magnetic pull – I was drawn to it!” he said also, “I was only able to watch a couple of your dances but I wanted to ask you some questions.” Then for most of the night many of us stayed up with him telling him about why we were in Croatia and about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Not only was this a miracle but there was a woman who had talked to this man also about Jesus Christ, who was talked to by one of our girls (Jackie) all the way back in Zagreb four weeks ago! It made us realize that if we change one person’s life with the Truth, they will change other people’s life with their testimony and the chain is endless.

Meanwhile we still had two girls from Samoa and Africa who did not have their visas to enter into Italy with the rest of us. The embassy in Zagreb was being very difficult, and everyday it seemed we were praying for those visas. To process them in that short amount of time was literally impossible but we prayed anyway. Finally, Sene’s was processed five days before we left! After being told a day before we were supposed to leave for Italy that Jackie’s visa for would be an impossibility, we got another call soon after telling us that her visa was ready to be picked up. We picked up her visa the same day we left for Padova! There are no impossibilities with God. In Padova, Italy we would soon realize that even more as God would break more and more boxes that we put Him in.

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Zagreb, Croatia; Where Dreams Really Do Come True

If ever a miracle happened it happened in our School of Dance (University of the Nations). Six weeks in Croatia and Italy was more than enough time to give God the opportunity to show off, which He did, nearly everyday. It has been the hardest and yet best six months of my life so far teaching much more than I could have ever expected. What my team and I experienced on outreach these last six weeks can never been confined into one blog update but I’ll try my best one city at a time.

Our first stop was Zagreb which is the capitol of Croatia. There are only three protestant churches in the entire capital, and all other churches are mostly catholic. A “good Croatian” will call themselves Catholic but many don’t have a relation with Jesus Christ, but instead simply have a Catholic way of life. Our team of 17 dancers was blessed enough to stay in one of these small, but zealous protestant churches, who provided all of our needs. We worked mostly with the small U of N base in the city. They had been praying for some help for four years and to them we were an answer to prayer. We traveled around to the different churches and taught workshops, teaching people and their children how to worship with dance, as well as advertising for a few individual shows of our own. We even got to dance in a prison which was supposed to be impossible. We were able to talk about each dance and give our own testimonies. One amazing story in Zagreb actually began before the school even started. One of the girls, Krista, had had a dream about praying in a school. One day, while praying for the city, she actually found the same school that was in her dream! They walked in and met the headmaster and the headmaster invited us to dance for the entire school. Days later, when we were dancing in the main square of the city several of the students had come to watch us and later they had several questions about God and had a lot of the Truth already in their hearts. We were able to teach them and connect them to one of the three churches we were working with.

Next we traveled to a couple of gypsie villages where a families from a small church housed us in their homes. The gypsies were very open to us. We played with the kids and even danced for them on a dirt road! Afterwards, they actually came to the church where we were doing a workshop. This is a huge deal because gypsies rarely come into the society of Croatians. When one of our girls gave a testimony after teaching hip hop, one of the gypsie girls said with tears streaming down her cheeks that “I’ve never known the God that you know” and she wanted to accept Jesus as her savior! We only had one hitch the entire trip. Coming back from the gypsie village, one of the girls had randomly dropped her passport in a bathroom in a restaurant and the police actually found it, contacted where we were registered and called us, all of which happened in one hour. Two girls were able to go back and get the passport before our eight hour train left for the next city, Split, Croatia. God literally took care of us with every detail.

To see more photos from The School of Dance’s outreach in Criatia and Italy go to this link:
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