Jolene Konkel…the One Who Started it All

Our second to last guest choreographer demanded more energy than we thought we had. Unfortunately I was sick with a cold and laryngitis which meant that my voice was gone and was told by a strict Lotte that I was not allowed to dance despite my pitiful pleadings. But I’m pretty sure I gained more from Jolene’s advice and wisdom than actually being in the piece that she set on us to take on outreach. Her story is an amazing one. She went to a bible college seeking God yet knowing that He wanted her to dance. In those days, dancing was a “sin” and strictly forbidden especially in a Bible college. But God moved where there were no doors and she was able to jointly attend another nearby dance school and eventually introduced dance into the bible college. People saw God in her work and more people wanted to dance and were set free from restraints and a whole new world of praising God and communicating Him to the people was created. Jolene wanted to open doors for more dancers like her, who have a relationship with Jesus Christ but are stuck in a a world between worlds. The dance world did not have anything to do with the Church and the the Church didn’t have anything to do with dance. A split identity is what God is healing in artists. This is why Jolene started the school of Dance six years ago, so that dancers who wanted to use their gifts for God could learn how with excellence and use that for God’s glory. She started in avalanche and each year it grows bigger here in Lakeside. It was a HUGE privilege to learn from her to be challenged by her, and to be inspired by her. As one who continually breaks the mold of tradition to what is Truth, she knows what it takes to make her art speak louder than anything else.

The Formula

“Name please.”
“What’s your social and phone
and postal and email and all other codes.”
“Sign on the dotted line -
Then you will be a friend of mime
Just as long as you follow these rules -
All I ask is that you be -
Perfect.

Perfect.
It has many strings attached.
Broken, flawed, cracked and marred -
seeping floods of weeping and drugs
to blunt the corner
of Reality’s open, ugly door.

Somehow we interpreted it all wrong
Science blinded us to the song -
The one where mystery holds understanding
and love is not a rule book -
where if we’re good we get something like candy…
The powers that be once ruled the world -
But nobody would die for them.
No.
They hide from them.
But Beauty from above
He came with Love.
No strings.
No lines.
No bullet points
or chimes, chants (or even rhymes!)
But poetry where the heart didn’t know what to say
stories, when it couldn’t just be explained,
and a hope that life is full of gray;
There’s no fence to sit on sometimes.
There’s a living death,
or there’s Jesus Christ.

…beyond the book
…beyond our ways
…beyond and bigger than the mysteries of mysteries
of the ancients and today….

(~Ep)

Martha Graham’s Student (and an Incredible Man of God)

For anyone who is reading this who does not know, Martha Graham is a MAJOR modern dance pioneer. Known to be a bit eccentric, I was able to hear stories of her by a very talented and godly man, firsthand. His name is Steve Rooks and he was our last guest choreographer before the Christmas break. He studied with Alvin Ailey in the beginning of his career and later toured with Martha Graham’s company. Never in my life have I met someone so talented and yet so humble at the same time. People used to ask me as a child who my role model was and I of course would respond with the the usual expected answers which are not wrong nor less sentimental, I just never knew of a person who inspired me as much as this man.

We would begin classes abruptly and everyone was at attention in his classes. Nobody wanted to miss a thing. For warm-up he didn’t need any music to keep time, he simply sang himself! He’s one of those teachers that one learns more from in one week than what would normally take months to learn. The minutes would fly by in his classes. I learned not to be afraid of movement, which is a silly thing, considering how much I have been dancing. Movement should be the thing I am least afraid of; He taught us that when one moves without fear of their body or others around them, no matter the skill of the movement, the dancer’s dynamic takes on a whole new dimension. And it’s true. God created us with such amazing bodies. The problem with getting people to dance is that they’re afraid of their own two feet and what others might think of them. What if we were to dance uninhibitedly and in freedom, imagine the liberation that would take place!

Steve set a piece on some of us that was one of the most physically demanding pieces since the beginning of school. (This may change since we have many more guest choreographers coming). Steve chose Bach’s English Suite with three movements. The choreography is to be sure genius, especially since most of the time he made it up on the spot. It is full of gestures and quick movements, some of which require a certain fearlessness of movement which many of us are still trying to master. It is an ongoing effort. One thing Steve made sure to mention to us about this dance was not that is has some “evangelistic message” or some hidden picture of the gospel but simply that it glorifies God.

(Note: video of the piece to Bach’s English Suite, choreographed by Steve, will be posted here as soon as possible)

Bach wrote some of the most ingenious pieces of music from which the world of music has used as its foundation. As a result musicians have created all sorts of revolutionary music. Bach was and is famous for his work but he never credited it to his own glory. Signed on each piece of music that he ever wrote was “S.D.G.” which he meant in Latin, “For the Glory of God.” We dance for the glory of God.

Isn’t that our entire purpose as humans?

To glorify God?

Steve is not just an amazing dancer. He spoke into all of our lives about the responsibility it is to dance for God – to invest our abilities for Him. Since the beginning of his career in his twenties and when he gave his life to Christ, people have been telling him to “stop dancing so he can ‘truly’ start serving the Lord.” But he didn’t. He did not fall capture to the fear of man. He was in God’s will. God wanted him to dance. He knew that he knew that he knew, or as he says, he was so close to God’s will for his life it was like he could “hear God’s heart beat.” I want to be in that very place someday. I know that God is bigger than simply handing out tracks, or evangelizing on street corners. God is an artist too and I know He gave me this passion and skill for a reason. I cannot bury it or else I would do God wrong, like in the Parable of the Talents(Matthew 25). But one thing I also know. God is bigger than dance. That is what I learned from God through listening to Steve’s wisdom. God’s bigger than all of that. Dance is merely a tool. Art is merely a tool. Skills, are merely tools to finding the heart of what really matters. The Spirit of God is what does the real life changing work. Steve kept saying what an honor it was to come to YWAM. I knew that I would seldom get a chance to be taught by one as anointed as him. To us, it was an even bigger honor to have him come to us.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God“(1 Cor. 10:31)

It’s the World We Live In and the Price Paid

“On early Sunday morning (US time), a lone gunman entered a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) training centre in Arvada, a suburb in the city of Denver, and shot four members of the staff who were then taken to the hospital where two later died from their injuries…”

To read the full articles click on the links below:
http://www.ywam.org/articles/article.asp?AID=502

Related articles:
http://au.christiantoday.com/article/ywam-forgiveness-for-murderer/3533.htm
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iQm8JdqoFSdQ6BqX4qhyMs-Mv8JAD8TE8N1G0
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=30096&cat=15

Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM said in a speech preceding the shootings at the YWAM base and church in Colorado, that less then a dozen YWAMers have been killed since its beginnings. That is a HUGE amount of protection considering all of the dangerous places that many YWAMers go and all of the bold and risky things that they do just to get God’s love across to a dark world. In fact the whole history of YWAM is interwoven with such miraculous feats that only God could be credited for doing. Yet Loren said that in this next year, the protection will be waning. It will be a time of martyrdom and persecution for Christians all over the world. But we are not afraid. We’re glued together for something worth more than ourselves and we know what we’re living for because we’re willing to even die for it. All that has happened after these terrible events has made me re-think my first passion and why I even decided to go into missions in the first place. That all my selfish dreams mean nothing compared to living for God and spreading His love and Word. It makes me re-think what I am living for and what I am willing to die for.

“To live is Christ. To die is gain.”

The gunman was shot himself, later as he attempted to do more damage in a church and in a mall. He could have been anyone. Anywhere. He was someone’s son. He was also God’s son. And God was crying for him just like God cries for everyone who is lost like he was. If we could even imagine crying and caring for what God cries and cares for, it would be an insuppressible sorrow that would break our souls into too many pieces to count. And that I believe is a gross understatement.

Yet I can feel in my bones that this is the beginning of a new era and a new age for God. The arts is being redeemed back to Him. Prayer is going to be blown out of its dimensions. Evangelism will spread like wildfire and nothing will be able to stop it. It will not only be the young but even the old will find a passion for God that nothing can contain. Satan will attack but with every step He takes, it sets him three more steps back. Because God is light. God is good. God is powerful. God is Truth. God will win. God’s people are seeping in the crack, filling the earth like a flood, like a storm, like light where darkness knows no identity, against disease and against poverty. These people have nothing and yet they are richer than any man ever was. This will all overflow and humanity will burst at the seams with the power and spirit of God brought by those who have no fear; no fear of evil, of violence, or of pain, and yet they embrace suffering like God embraces the sinner, the drunkard, the drug addict, the murderer and the whore. Because Jesus Christ died for everyone. That’s the whole point. The more danger the more these warriors will press on despite threat, in the midst of blindness – because faith are their very eyes – even under gunfire and blood. They are sweeping the earth with a vision birthed like a revelation that WILL come to pass. Their music will reach the soul’s of evil. Their dance will shake the foundations of the earth, of humanity and of the spirits. Their words will pierce like epiphanies and swords of Truth. Their prayers will move the heavens and God’s hand will go where no one has gone or ever will go. People will dream dreams, and see and do miracles.

What happened in Colorado is only the beginning. Because God’s poeple are moving full speed ahead and the darkness shudders and quakes at the very whisper of His Name…

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?…

5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD. -Psalm 27

 

 

One More Week…

Right now I’m sitting in the student center enjoying a day of slowly getting work done. Some guys in the SBS school are playing ping pong and a nice fire is warming up the room. The past few weeks have been anything but dull and it’s in these quiet moments that I find I’m able to slow my mind down to a healthy working pace. There is only one more week of class and the first quarter is finished. They say that the next quarter is even more intense which makes me curious because these past couple of weeks were the busiest I think I’ve ever been in my life. We just had our Christmas concert Friday night and it went really well. We combined our efforts and talents with the School of Worship’s musical repertoire. One last guest choreographer will be coming this last week who is from New York and used to be in Martha Graham’s company. I’m anxious to be able to be taught by someone who was taught by a famous modern dance pioneer.

Besides all of the dancing and work I’ve been doing here I have also been learning swing dance and the west coast swing which I am convinced is the funnest activity I think I’ve ever done. We usually get a group together and go every other weekend to dance to a live band. We’ve all had fun learning new moves together and I find it relaxing to get away from dancing by…dancing! There’s just something about swing dancing specifically that helps me to relax and laugh at mistakes and forget about problems. For me, it’s as if the Jazz music is like the fingers that play the instrument, and I’m the instrument. I can’t help but move to it. It invokes unity in friends, and provides an outlet away from the hours of studying the School of Biblical studies and the dancers do. I don’t understand why more people in my generation don’t do it. When swing dancing began with the beginning of Jazz from the African America culture, they knew what they were about and it was genius. It’s different dance styles like this that make me want to pursue dance even more and see just how much God can use it in it’s endless possibilities…

Yet as much as things are going well here there is a big problem that seems to weigh everything down as much as we all try not to let it. Many of us do not have enough money to pay our tuition fees. As all of out money comes from supporters many of the the girls who are not from America do not have enough money. It does not help that dance is just beginning to be redeemed back to God and many people do not think that dance even has a place in the church. (That is a lie fed to us by culture, stereotypes and history.) As it is, our school owes the base a considerable amount of money and if we do not have the money by the time Christmas comes, some of the girls will have to go home and not complete the school. That means less people will go on outreach with us. That means their lives as it is moving in this direction will be put to a stop. That means what we thought God wanted is maybe not what God intended. Or maybe this is another way for Satan to keep this school from fulfilling God’s purpose for it. I can’t even think about some of these girls going home after all these weeks. It’s almost like we’re family and it wouldn’t be the same without them. As I’d mentioned earlier, I’ve never known any group of girls, any group of dancers, to be as sold out for God, as loving and as special as these girls. There are family problems and they dance. There are many bruises an soreness and they dance. They have nothing and yet they give everything to God and to those who need help. They have no sleep and they dance. There is no more energy and we study and study. Some know they might not be able to come back yet they give their all. Much prayer is needed and lately I find myself going to talk to God and plead with Him to finish what He has started. And I know that He will. What extra money any of us has, is given to the group to do what we feel God has told us to do. One girl gave up Macbook. Another girl gave up her last 500 dollars. And many others of us gave as much as we could and still we do not have enough. The rest will come from God. (God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” -Numbers 23:19)

Besides all of this God seems to find that our freedom is more important than how much money we have or if some of us finish this school or not. Freedom from bondage so that we can help free those who are still in bondage. Freedom from the fear of man, freedom from financial fear, freedom from our own dreams as we give all our expectations and selfish goals to God. These are things that my school is letting God heal and that is the wealth that has been gained, and it is richer than all the money that we gave to each other on Giving Night in attempts to come closer to our financial goal. And the sweetest moments is when all 13 of us and our 4 staff are dancing together in a powerful worship to God. “Worship is Warfare, because it is praise.” It is a whole new level and dimension of worship as none I have ever known. That is worth more than any money ever given or spent. Besides, God can do the impossible.

 

 

Since everyone’s been asking me about it,

“Fix You”

We just finished this dance in three days and it has had a special meaning for each of the dancers in it. The music is of course by Coldplay and the choreography is done by Amrah Johnston who was our guest choreographer and teacher from Florida.

This dance is about repentance. We’re frustrated with ourselves and with the world and with sin and finally, there is a release and we can breath. Finally. This is when God births freedom in a world that’s fallen. Look beyond the chaos of life and see the face of God standing right before you…. One of the most impacting part is when each dancer stands completely still in the front while there is a release of frustration occurring in the back. Sometimes, stillness speaks more than movement and in this dance it seems as if it yells. We can’t wait to take this dance on outreach! (dancers in above picture from left to right, Katie, Erica, Krista and Heather)

The video below is of our first showing the week we completed it. Dancer’s include Katie Grosse from Canada, Krista Frishmuth from Pennsylvania, Crystal Shearer from Canada, Annie from Washington, Whitney from Florida, Heather from Texas, Alissa from North Carolina and myself.

BLOOP!

This is the BLOOP! dance (we don’t really have a name for it). It was one of the first dances created by Kendra one of our guest choreographers on the YWAM base. At the second rehearsal Kendra suffered from some temporary paralysis but after some intense praying, she was sent home healed and the doctors still don’t know what happened even after several tests. Thus, we were able to finish it in the next few days. The dance itself is in a nutshell about one going through life and discovering all sorts of things including, mishaps, confusion, love, happiness and other people. One goes through chaos and also grasps for Truth. In the end, giddy joy and a solid peace is found as well as one’s identity in God. I can’t help but be in a good mood when I am dancing it! Click play below and you can watch the whole thing. (This is just one of eight dances that we have prepared already for various performances including outreach Christmas and around the community of Kalispell.)

(I’m wearing all black with a white strip down my pants, Amy from Canada is wearing all black with a white shirt underneath, Carla from Costa Rica is wearing the white and Grey, Heather from Texas is wearing the back and purple, and Krista from Pennsylvania is the one in the white shirt.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8ovk_8Tous

The Flood of Humanity

Who are we, genuine hypocrites and authentic fakes,
We can be as hot as ice and as cold as fire
And in the depth of humanity
I see shallowness of perfection -
What’s perfect for you is lost for me
At least that’s a truth we can all see.
So fight like the frustration of the ocean
And so destroy what could have saved you.
You forget the peace of the sky -
The wonder of the stars,
And dismiss the one who made you.
I hope you find slavery in your safety
I hope you find freedom in the eyes of danger
I hope you life in the joy of the sun
And sleep and cry to the sorrow of the moon.
Who has reached the love of life?
Who now fears the breadth of death?
And so they bring death to life…
And the fear to love for the fear to die…
Where now they find the fear of life
And a hideous love of death -
Or a beautiful fearlessness of its depth.
Truth is not logical in this chaos
God is not chaos in this mysterious order.
Don’t think to know all you know;
It is like stagnant chaos and blinded order.
Find the flight of the found,
Follow their trail of silver dust
And rays of sun with eternity’s colors
And singing and dancing forever…
Catch the fall of the lost and fallen
Feel their weight, the ground, the dark
Look for light and open their eyes;
A surgery worth the pain in their lives.
How will we survive this growing flood of humanity,
With the impending drought of perfection?
Surely not all is lost
When we’re sweetly broken,
Beneath a cross…

Stink Bugs and Sprained Ankles

JiIn from South Korea is always the first to vocal a multi-pitched screech when a harmless stink bug crawls into a room. Which happens a lot. We usually try and safely transport them outside but every once and while I’ll squish one just for the fun of it. The result is a pungent aroma that smells of freshly cut grass and aroused dirt. The stink bug is a familiar creature around here. I think I’ve rather taken a liking to them oddly enough, probably because they are everywhere.  I’m convinced that if one didn’t try to at least like the pests a little they would inevitably go crazy.

Besides the stink bug’s reign, the dancers and I have been up to our eyeballs in dance history, rehearsing sometimes till 10 or 11 at night, lectures on Post-modernism to better understand where art in the world is going (if one can give a lecture on that without being all that post modernism says it isn’t) plus an entourage of health and nutrition classes. We are all now more obsessed with eating as much food as we can get. No doubt, the amount we’re dancing calls for some sort of magnanimous energy lift, but there comes a point when no matter how much food and sugar I feed myself the body says a determined “no”; it is just too tired, and no amount of sleep will do its pain justice. I mean, is it normal to wake up in the morning and feel like one has been beaten? It has all been worth it, every moment. Life seems to hold a much sharper valor and a much deeper motivation when we know that we’re learning and dancing for something bigger than ourselves, when we know we are apart of something beyond our mere individual lives. God is redeeming that arts back to Himself, and that means not just dance, but music, and drama, and writing and painting…

Evil has done all it could to make dance an enemy to those who love God and it has succeeded in history as making it viewed as something ugly, sinful, and impure. But sin has made a lot of things that way. If only people knew the power dance can have if used as God intended it. Just look at art in general. Music and books and all other artistic fields are so powerful that they can even change the face of culture and change the views of society and impact so deeply what mere stagnant thought or debate couldn’t hope to do. And God infiltrates everything. From the beautiful, to the ugly. We have had numerous injuries on the base and this is Satan’s way to keep us from doing what God will do with our group on outreach in Europe and even in the base and around the community here in Lakeside. Our first two guest speakers were severally injured including some parallelization and a sever ankle sprain. One of our guest speakers coming in November broke his leg. Every week since the start, an artist on the base has hurt themselves, whether musician, painter, or dancer. The most recent being a broken toe, a hyper extended knee, and a broken hand. All of the injuries within the dancers themselves God has healed in miraculous time. I can’t help getting the feeling that God is protecting us. Every slight twitch, fall, or trip could have been something serious but somehow there’s always safety net. Our last guest choreographer threw her back out. We prayed of course (because it always seems to work) and a few minutes later, she was fine. Sometimes, it’s hard to hide my surprise, but then again God lives outside of our expectations. That’s why we can never hope to understand Him. I find so much comfort in that.

We had a breakthrough. Many people had been praying for us and one thing they said was that there was a problem was jealousy and envy. Many of us of us were actually comparing ourselves to each other and this can leave room for Satan to do whatever He wants. A man once said “To the degree you give the enemy room in your life is to the degree that he will wreak havoc in it.” In our case, this was true. We confessed to one another and the result was an unbreakable unity. We sensed that we’re apart of something big and I’ve never known such love and genuine authenticity in one group of girls than in this one. Dance in many ways can make oneself insecure, competitive, full of pride, and envious of those who are better than you. It can make you distracted by focusing your identity based on the flesh than on who God says we are in Him. It is from these things we strive to run. At least we know we don’t have to be perfect and that God understands that, and uses us despite our mistakes and our weaknesses. To the degree that we give our weaknesses up to God is the degree that He will be within us as ten times stronger. Control is not something any of us are good at. If we were, we would be God. But were not, so that’s impossible. Just know that all your life and all you have and will ever have and do – is by the grace that holds the very fabric of human life together. That in itself is a miracle.

Oh, and there haven’t been any more injuries since.  :cD