1994, Inside the Kigara Shores

I am the River that carries your dead.
Fermenting in your banished decay,
billowing from my sides onto your reddened shores,
with bodies hated, their insides gored.
I see your incalculable severed humanity
choking on me as I fill their slackened throats,
where screams of terror were silenced -
at the climax of your butchering approach.

Now my veins fill their veins
where a soul once coarsed through.
I can still hear them -

I still hear you.

Nothing but wretched wrenching evil
wastes along my ruptured waves…

Don’t make me wash away you filth
branded on these bodies of bloodhsed!
I am not your judge for salvation -
I choke on your inescapable sin!
But more damning than Hell, for you, I pity,
in such quakening quell
is the horror of your deeds
consequencing in you
forever to dwell…

-ELP

Here’s What I Say When I Say Nothing At All

Most times, living alone in Seattle, I’ve felt as if I were suspended in cold water and I literally almost lost God’s hand.  “Sometimes, God’s love feels like betrayal” said Aaron, a friend of mine.  Often know what love really means.  God does.  Other times, I’ve felt so much utter joy that it could not be contained, because I discovered the joy of God using me, even in a place that is so dark, heavy, chaotic and crazy.  But despite all of that I’ve found life.  The few times God has used me, He has more used my circumstances and difficulties to grow me, even beyond my own realization sometimes.

God did His own little miracles in my own life.  I asked God to help me find choreography and for two months I couldn’t sleep becuase I had so many ideas running around in my head. Since then I have been so restless to create!  I’ve been wanting to get in touch with a christian professional film producer to try and get some ideas of dance on film.  I also had no film equipment of my own.  The next day, my friend Annie found an add on Craig’s list from a professional Film producer that said, “…looking for other christian artists in the Seattle area who want to use the art for God on film…”  We met with this man and discovered about his plan for Seattle’s first Christian Film Festival (SCFF) in the spring!  He also has film crews that he offered for me to use!

God has so much planned for Seattle.  Me and Annie, my friend and fellow YWAMer and artists who also lives in Seattle, have been discussing and praying about all of the vision that could happen in the future:

There is vision and also plans set in motion for Seattle’s first Christian Film Festival in the spring, inviting not just Christians to use their art for God’s purposes, but also for non-believers, in hopes that we can learn from each other.  This is also a chance to really unite all the churches in the Seattle area.

There is vision for a 24/7 House of Prayer.

There is vision for a “Hadassah House” where single women, called to be “Esthers” live in a house that will be a place for anyone to come anytime if they need help, or prayer.  It will also be a place for Christian artists to freely express themselves, paint on the walls, write music, dance and be with God, who is the Original Artist.  It will be a place for YWAMers after they get off the mission field to come and live and transition back into everyday society.

There is vision for a YWAM base with a Discipleship Training School to start in a small town just outside of Seattle.

Finally, there is a HUGE vision for God to provide the means to create an Arts Center, inspired by the Original Artist.  It will be a place where anyone can come and learn about dance of all cultures and styles, and for musicians to develop their sounds, for artists to paint their visions, and for film producers and choreographers to create.  The vision is that it will be a place where each and every artists can integrate with artists of other genres to support their creations.  As students support the center financially, so will God support the professional artists who will go out into the community, churches and the world to bring life and Truth wherever they go with their art.

These artists will use their art to join with God in redeeming people back to Him.

There is vision for the Arts Center to have a cafe where people can sell their art and writers and actors can share their works for feedback.  It’s impact on the community could be elemental as it is meant not to be close minded but to open all its doors to those who are searching, and christian artists who might have otherwise had their expression been stifled by the church.

God is redeeming the arts back to Himself, and He is doing it with this generation of young people!

Even now, God is building the foundation as many christian artists have this same dream, and this same vision for Seattle.  Many we have already met.  These are not dreams to be taken lightly, but must be taken step by step in prayer and we must always be on our knees before God.  So many miracles must happen for any of this to take place, but I believe that if we submit wholly to God, and remain faithful, it will happen, God willing.  I’ve never been more excited about anything in my life.

IF YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO CAN HELP US, OR ARE AN ARTIST WHO HAS THIS CALLING ON THEIR LIFE AND FEEL A TUG ON YOUR HEART TO GET INVOLVED, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US!!!  (Erica: ericapisarchuk@gmail.com or Annie: freebird210@gmail.com)

I’ve come to a place when description is not enough.  When words can’t hold all the expression that’s about to burst from inside.  When you know that no matter what you say, or how you say it, no one will ever understand you.  When you say nothing at all, but wanting to scream everything all at the same time.  When too much has happened to understand any of it, only that it happened.  I’ve tried to describe in sum what I’ve been experiencing with myself and with God while at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle these last three months, but really what is written below says it best.

Here’s what I’m saying when I say nothing at all:
“I love you.”
Oh round, and breath
Release and feel my pain -

Believe and feel what You see me move -
Wounds and words of movement prove -
Circles of endless cycles repeated,
and stillness chooses me frozen…
You choose.
Choose to love me -
Even though I made You want to hate me -
Forgive me.
Stretched and spread, pulled and I go
Down to the ground rolled, but no
I have to break the flow
Because I messed up, skipped on broken ankles,
lopsided knees, ripped up hips and twisted backs,
lungs of lost air, somewhere inside sucking me in -
Failure to tell You what I could only say with spins -
Oh bending air of carved space
Invisible life supports I grab from the skies
poisoned by an electric self-induced longing…
Beaten and rolling by wind enfolding
and i cover my eyes to surrounding light
too dizzy because I spun
till I was alright
till I was alright.
—-
Gasp and pull to release it all
as if the clouds invited me rest
and though -
You didn’t say a word to me.

I’m still,
You have my head, my heart,

Me.

Curled, and folded, tenderly knowing
warmth seeps into my hand.
And up I fly, parting from cold underwater skies,
feeling the unreeling
unraveling the being that hides what’s inside.
Spinning Spinning Spinning
Faster over and faster
again and again and begin all over
and it’s all a blur, one heavy white Light of stars
glistening brightly on for silver glistened hours
emitted lavishly from an Elemental Power.
Unravel me from this Footstool You stand on
Spinning again like circles draw my lifeline -
beyond below, outside above
Freely liberated from conditioned Love.
Sprung is me in a field of green
In grass that grows with miles between
me and everything -

So it’s only You I breath
when I run out of breath
and I can no longer stand and sing -
You’ve enlivened my heart and it sings from my chest
as up I go and go and go
till my feet no longer know what’s below.
Till You’re all I breath.
You’re all I know.
You’re everything there is to know.

I open my eyes to be enfolded, immersed in Light
Spinning Spinning Spinning -
till I’m alright
till I’m alright.

Yet, in light of all the amazing things God has been doing in my life, many too in depth to be able to describe, I’m finding myself at a very high cliff in which God has already asked me to jump, and I have.  But it seems as if I will land in a place other than where I thought I’d land.

I do not have the financial means to finish my last two years at Cornish to earn my BFA.  Even if I worked full time for a year, it would not even be enough to cover one semester’s worth.  As one of the best dance schools in the country, I was privileged to have been able to get in the school, and to be able to attend there for one year.  I’ve learned more at Cornish in the last 3 months than I have learned in the last 10 years at any school.  Even though I will hate it greatly, I am faced with the decision to transfer back to a school in Georgia.  At first, I was heavily upset about this, because it meant that I would not be going to as good a school with all the connections I had made with the people.  Nor would I be surrounded by a city full of opportunities for a young artist.   My hopes for reaching my highest potential as a dancer and choreographer for God’s glory, was lessened.  But a dance program is what you make of it and I always try and be proactive wherever I am.  I still pray everyday, that God will find a way.  In any case, I trust that He knows what He’s doing with my life.  I can always return to Seattle when I am finished to help continue what He’s starting there.

But I still pray, everyday, that a miracle will find a way so that I can stay.  And I like to keep in mind what Isaac, a friend told me, “Learning to trust Him(God) rather than our interpretation of what He means is a huge learning curve.”

So I’m going to squeeze all the life I can out of Cornish if this be my last semester there.  I am student producing a dance show, choreographing a 12 minute piece, and was chosen for a solo, duet and group performance, not to mention having a full schedule of classes everyday, part time work, and being on the committee for Seattle’s first Christian Film Festival!  God has blessed me with many, many opportunities to let Him work through me, and I plan to soak in every moment of it with all my strength.

The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.

You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.

The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.

The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

-psalm 145:14-20

(first sketch drawn by Erica Pisarchuk, second painting done by Anne-Birthe Nord from Norway)

The More I know the More I know that I Don’t Know.

I thought I had it all planned out.  But the more I live the more I know the more I know that I don’t know.

I recently graduated from the school of Dance with YWAM, traveling to Croatia and Italy with a group of girls so beautiful in spirit that now I can only remember as if it were all a dream.  Now, I’ve change the course of my life completely.

Well, not quite.

After going and helping choreograph a show to take to China (which was incredible by the way, email me at ericapisarchuk@gmail.com if you want details and pictures) I find myself in Seattle, trying to readjust to a new world, a new culture, a new apartment, and new friends so unlike the world of YWAM.  I still haven’t been able to find a job but I’m praying the best one will arise eventually.

Some might ask me why I’m suddenly deciding to attend college now after deciding I was just going to be a missionary. The answer is simple.  I’m still a missionary.  We all are.  In fact I think I have been less of a missionary because I have not been living so much in the real world, but have instead been what one might describe as being “in training.”  God was preparing me.  I applaud those people who live their lives in the throngs of the world everyday, learning to love and serve every person regardless who they are, without prizes or recognition of their self-sacrifice for the sake of Christ.

Now, where I live is no easy place.  Downtown Seattle, “gay-central” and where the druggies hang out is constantly keeping me on my toes.  (Figuratively and literally.)  But I am a mishap just as they are.  The only difference is, I’ve found life.

I am going to this arts college not for the reason that the rest of these other young students are going.  I’m going because God told me to be fully alive and dance is part of what helps me live fully alive.  It connects me with people in ways deeper than anything else.  I’m learning to hone my art as the craftsmen did in the Old Testament.  And whatever my hands find to do I do it with all my might.

It’s not everyday that a missionary would seek to use dance to glorify God and reach people, and it’s another story entirely that she would gain the expertise at a secular college in one of the most liberal schools in the country, but one of the best art schools as well.

This is God beginning to close the gap between sacred and secular.

There should never have been a secular and a sacred.

It has been and always will be, humanity.  God didn’t go anywhere.

God told us to be in the world.  How can I do that if I isolate myself with other Christians?  That’s not loving.  That’s choosing comfort and ease.  Stability.  Control.  I don’t want to control my life.  I want God to do that.  He’s much better at it than I am.

It’s not an inexpensive college by any means, and it will take a miracle for me to finish all four years without seriously going into debt.  But I know that God God has a plan either way – and whether I end up graduating here or somewhere less prestigious, or having to endlessly work to pay for it,  I know that God will fulfill His purpose and be glorified by my life regardless.  Wherever I am.  In the grand scheme of things, will I look back at my life and see that I bound myself to it, or that I was free?  Free to do something , or free not to.  It’s a beautiful revelation that still plays out in my life everyday and I don’t quite yet fully understand it.  But it eases the sin of worry like breathing revives the body after being suppressed by gallons of heavy, dark water.  The point is to live fully.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Annie is a little “fireball” who was in my school of dance, and she has the same visions that I had for redeeming art back to God, except she is called to do it in Seattle and The Vision is getting bigger and bigger.  God is divinely bringing together so many of the Christian artists in the city of Seattle and rising up the young people on fire for God to bring life back into it.  I’ve found that the calling that I’ve had for over three years is the same as Annie’s and the same as so many other artists that I have met through YWAM and in artists that are moving to Seattle at this specifically pivotal time.

It sends chills down my spine when I think about what God’s going to do in the next five years and I can’t wait to be apart of it.

To create without restraints of religion.  To be inspired by real humanity and then having an answer for it’s pain.

To tell the Truth in a way that people will listen.

To do what I was created to do. Reflect God with my life.

Going to this college has not been easy so far, but it has made me to go back to God for help everyday.  He’s given me strength.  He’s given me money where I needed it.  He’s given me free furniture where I was living on a hard floor.  He’s given me friends in Seattle that have helped me and He’s given me a cheap apartment right next to my college and a roommate that I feel like I’ve known most of my life.  I know I’m in the right place and I have peace that it will all work out.  As Jeridan, an amazing friend of mine would say, “God’s got you covered.”  It’ll work out.

To what end I don’t know.

But that’s not wisdom that I need to know just yet.  I know God has an incredible plan in mind, as slowly, the artists of this city join together and take it back for God and with art that, instead of following culture, leads it, like it should.

Artists are often the prophets of society, leading culture.

Sometimes I feel as if I’ve lost the passion for dancing by focusing so much on the technique of it in school and it drains me.  But I can remember an important thing that Randall Flynn told us on the School of Dance in YWAM:

“We perfect our technique so that our bodies will not get in the way of what our souls want to express.”

This is why I am studying dance in an arts college.  So that wherever I go as a dancer, God can use me more effortlessly for His purposes as a choreographer and a dancer, in worship, in performance, in creativity, in communication, in prayer, and even in pure entertainment for the sake of bringing someone joy or even just setting them free from bondage and to heal them and deliver them.  Yes, God can use dance as a tool for even that.  I’ve seen it happen.

Ultimately I will always be a “missionary”  wherever I go.  It’s called living life to the fullest.

If it weren’t I couldn’t call myself a follower of Jesus Christ in the first place.

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!

To view more pictures click on the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericalp/sets/72157604471852460

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.

To View more pictures click on the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericalp/sets/72157604471852460

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:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/60288137@N00/xvao60

HUGE MIRACLE. This is the God we serve!

Our school was in an impossible situation. The School of Dance in Montana needed 48,000 dollars to make it to our tour and field assignment to Croatia. This was before Christmas. We had faith that somehow God would provide. We also needed visas for two of our international students but that looked like an impossible situation too. A week before we were supposed to leave, many of us we getting anxious. God had already given us thousands of dollars since Christmas, and we were so thankful for that. But we still needed 26,000 dollars more. Can we get that much money in one week? Some of us hardly believed it possible. We still had two visas that the Croatian embassy were not processing. On Valentines Day we prayed for four or five hours asking for a miracle.

That night the rest of the school collected $4,300 for us.
The next morning, the Croatian embassy made an exception for us and sent us the two visas and they arrived the next day. All of us nearly cried for joy and it was only a matter of time before He would fulfill what He promised, that we are all in this school chosen by Him and we are ALL going on this field assignment to dance in teach workshops and spread joy and inspire people. If one girl doesn’t have enough money, it’s everyone’s dilemma becuase we had become a like family.

It’s Saturday night and we still needed $17,000 dollars. We were all packed and ready to go. We were going to anyway, knowing we only had enough money to survive in Croatia for 2 weeks. But we were fully prepared that God was going to provide everything before we left at 4 am the next morning or while we were in Croatia. God told us to walk on water, and live on the edge. This is what it’s all about. God was giving us the opportunity to be faithful and to be courageous. That week despite all the worry and the stress I’ve never been so joyful in my life, and I knew it was God. Because we knew that God was going to show us and everyone what He can do and that when the situation is impossible, it’s God who comes through. He was going to keep His promise and we were going to Croatia. We just knew it.

Saturday night at about 8 PM, a man called from one of the girl’s churches back in her home and said that he would pay for ALL the remaining tuition and fees. $17,000. Seventeen thousand dollars!

God is seldom early, never late and always on time. We were prepared to go without, and would survive on faith. But God said we didn’t have to. Every penny was taken care of. THIS is the God we serve! We wouldn’t be here in Croatia if it weren’t for Him!

Now we are in Croatia and so many more miracles and exciting things have happened in God’s name. I will send more stories when a I get the chance.

Not What it Was. Not Who I Was.

Dance today is not what it was. Of course it wouldn’t be because time is an endless moving changing thing. Whatever it is. And all of life seems to be trapped in the cage of time, so everything is influenced by its momentum. Dance today is raw, rusty, broken and imperfect. And in its imperfection lies its perfection because it shows what is real, what is desperate, what is dark, and what humanity hopes for. Even when some do not realize it. So we who dance, or have anything to do with dance are done with fantasies, fairy stories, myths and legends. We’re through with the pretty ballerina living in a fake world on a stage where she dismisses reality – and might even run from it. Today, reality is the stage. Stark, sweaty, bold, bloody, real, transparent, full of hate, full of desperation, full of longing, and full of love. Dance today has grown into itself. It has finally grown up from its dreams and realized the stark reality that one cannot know beauty until it knows the ugly. That joy is not joy until it knows its sorrow…Dance today has realized that its more diverse, more different, more pliable, more bendable, and becuase of that – unbreakable. Dance has discovered that it can’t escape the fallen, broken world but it can embrace the beauty in the dinginess, now that dance has accepted its grit, its mud, its war, its sorrow and its blood. There’s no other way really. But not to love it for what it is. But what it was supposed to be. What it will be.
No.
Not to love it.
Only to be discontent with it. That in the eyes of the dancer who breathes in this smoke, that in her very stillness, she moves in the darkness as if to sing of hope instead. Dance today is not what it was.
I am today not who I was.
Look past the movement and see the soul of why we dance. Why we all dance. It’s the same reason for why we all continue to live. Today, we stop being hypocrites. We will face what we hide, we will face what we fear. This resurrection is very near.
No. I am not today, who I once was.

Miracles…and more…

Before Christmas, I must admit that many of us were lacking in faith. Would God provide? It seems that He likes to wait until the very last minute. This past week has been amazing. Our last guest artist, Randall Flynn (Director of Ad Deum Dance Company) came (I’ll tell more about him later) and prepared us for the future more than we can say. The Holy Spirit has been moving in the whole base and we leave for outreach in no more than two weeks. Several miracles have happened and we know more will come. Carla, from Costa Rica feared that she wouldn’t be able to complete this school, but just this past week a supporter from the base gave her four thousand dollars, enough to cover her remaining fees and her outreach fees! Not only that but another girl, Sene from Samoa has been missing her visa and nobody knew when it would come back from the embassy. It had been gone since before Christmas and if we didn’t get it back soon then she too would be held back from outreach. But yesterday, we got the news that it had come back! Now, all we need is money for Jackie (and her passport and visa back) from Rwanda and for Heather from Texas and for Alissa from North Carolina. We know it will come. Before Christmas the entire school as a whole needed 48,000 dollars. Now, we only need 28,000 dollars! All of that money came trickling in from God’s very hand.

We’re praying for another miracle. Lotte, the head of the School of Dance had injured her foot a while back. She is an anointed dancer and when one watches her dance, something moves within. But she has been held back by this foot injury that has had surgery and yet has never healed. We all know that this is not God’s will for her. We pray for her foot all the time. This week, the guest choreographer, Randall Flynn set a duet on her and another staff member, Crystal. Lotte cannot dance all of it full out, but as we watched her dance it, all of us were moved to tears because we could see her heart and see her longing to dance and we could see God’s grace in her movement. We don’t know what it feels like for her to sit out and watch us dance, wishing she could do the same. She’s going to be healed on outreach. She’s going to be healed and then she will be able to dance that duet full out, without restraint and without pain.

We’re working harder than ever with Anatomy finals coming up, two concerts to prepare for including all the dances we’ve created so far (around 25) plus all the dances that each student is creating on her own for our composition final. Outreach is in two weeks and we get more excited by the day, knowing that God’s going to do amazing things.

“Servant Artistry. Your dance is your towel. Now go, take you towel and wash feet.”
-Randall Flynn

Captivating Dance

I’ve arrived at a humble place
A place where evil is tortured it its stay.
In Divine Purpose there is Vision.
There is no competition
There is no division.
It’s as if Heaven speaks from our feet
Jumping at this joyful song
Sweeping at this sorrow along
It’s like God said to free us
And to free those who will believe us
And we all heard it.

We see a world in grave darkness
And reality becomes our stage
We know a Light, a different way.
And this light reveals the stage:
Breath of God blown like wind to our limbs
Emotions begin and inspiration gives in
To movement, to noise,
To silence, to stillness.
It’s like the ground were always shaking
So we cannot stop moving
Speaking such poetry words would fail to utter.
The entire Being is drawn into its trance,
Given to God – a beautiful, captivating dance.

(~Ep, December 27, 07)