He Is Near
It’s September, one of my favorite times of the year, because it’s play practice time. Mary Evelyn has been busy for weeks: researching, writing, and casting. She’s made plans to turn a black stage into a crowded, noisy, dawning-of-the-20th-century city in India in some scenes and the peaceful Dohnavur Fellowship in others. She’s figured out how to transform 117 American children into natives of India a century ago. She, her husband Nate, and many volunteers have devoted days and days to making those plans a reality.
I’m off to practice with Mary Evelyn and her children again this morning. Since the day after Labor Day, we have gathered each day with dozens of homeschooling mamas, a few daddies, and lots and lots of children — not only the 117 in the play, but also several younger siblings who aren’t old enough yet to be in the play themselves.
I love the opportunity this provides for every child in the play. One gets to pull a rickshaw. Some get to be his passengers. Many get to do real Indian dance movements. Every child gets to look in a mirror and see himself or herself dressed as a native of India. Every child who steps onto the stage steps into India.
The children learn to sing in unison and dance in unison. They learn how to work together. They learn how what they do affects everyone else. They learn to take instruction and to put that instruction into practice immediately.
Every child gets to hear a story of God’s transforming power and gets to tell that story on stage. All have the opportunity at every practice to shout in unison: “To God be the glory!”
I love to learn from books. I believe in “book learning” for children so much that I write books for children. But I also believe in learning from experience. I hope that all of the homeschooling mamas I’m hanging around with these first two weeks of September are laying most of their books aside for these two weeks because everything happening at the performing arts center this week definitely “counts for school” in my book.
If you live within driving distance, I hope you will consider joining us for a performance. The play is to be performed this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center in Cookeville, Tennessee. Here are the details:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I commanded you;
and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20