Dear friends,
Even though I just posted that last post, it's a few days since I wrote it. I have been feeling a bit better since then and am experiencing not as much anxiety. I'm still having sleeping issues, though, so please continue to pray for me to be "normal" as soon as possible.
I had about two weeks here at CMS with very little activity, and that's been very challenging for me! As you know, I like to be busy and involved and suddenly I was confronted with the anxiety I feel when I do not feel engaged, purposeful, or active. This, though uncomfortable, is important to identify and to work towards fixing. One must be able to relax!
But now, after about two weeks here, some of my responsibilities have begun! Let me tell you about them:
Yesterday I taught my first conversational English class. It was just a half hour, and was for the girls of the Home Science department. We worked on introducing ourselves and it went really well! There were seven girls that attended.
Yesterday I also began rehearsing the Hostel Choir, which I am in charge of. Each year they perform a Christmas concert of traditional carols and Malayalam songs. I can't tell you how excited I was to begin practice with them yesterday! 24 girls showed up and I started to teach them the song, "Go, Tell it On the Mountain." I will lead Hostel Choir from 6-7 on Tuesday & Thursdays, and teach conversational English classes at the hostel at the same time on Mondays and Wednesdays.
The college choir meets every day from 1:30-2 and from 4-5, and so I have begun rehearsing with them and leading the sopranos. I have also met a talented 15 year-old singer with whom I will soon start private lessons.
On this coming Tuesday, I will begin teaching conversational English and music to the girls of Baker's Girls School, ages 10-17. Though I have no idea what to expect and what the classes and girls will be like, I'll prepare as best as I can and am looking forward to it. I will spend one full day of each week at Baker teaching.
Additionally, some other opportunities around campus have surfaced. I met with a boys a cappella quartet to help them learn a song for the upcoming quartet competition, (I'll be one of the judges of the competition) and found out that they love to sing worship music! So I'm going to begin doing worship music with them whenever they have some free time. I am extremely happy to have found a group of students on campus who love contemporary worship music!
This morning also was the first day of a Vocal Training Program for Faculty which my supervisor and other faculty have arranged for me to lead. Today about 10 faculty members showed up, along with the chaplain, who prayed over the program before it began. For 45 minutes on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, I will meet with faculty members to work on tone production, vocal training, breathing, music fundamentals, and sight-reading. Most of the members sing in their local church choirs but do not read music-so there will be a lot to teach! There are very few people here who have any formal music training-all of the choir directors I have met work in another field and just direct the choir with knowledge gained from experience; no one here that I've met has a music degree, and most are very excited about scheduling time for me to come work with their choirs!
Leading warm-ups and vocal training with the various choirs has been amusing and challenging. As you may or may not know, in learning to sing, you have to do a lot of seemingly silly vocal and physical exercises. Singers are used to this, but if you're not a singer, being asked to do these exercises with your bodies and voices and make strange sounds can be considerably uncomfortable for people. In order to learn to sing, you very much have to abandon your boundaries and embarassment of awareness of all parts of your body and be willing to try anything sound-wise. This is challenging for people even at home, especially older people, and anyone that hasn't done these exercises before. Add on top of that the cultural sensitivity to the physical body present here which is much greater than in the US, and you'll get some sense of the barriers to surmount before proper vocal production can be achieved. Thankfully, the members of the group seem excited and dedicated to learn, but it may take some time before these physical exercises become comfortable. I'm very excited to continue with this program and anticipate the progress we will make together.
This week at church and also at college chapel, I will sing a solo, and I have started to be invited to conduct various workshops for local choirs, the first of which will be a day-long session this coming Wednesday.
I am very excited about all of these opportunities. It is difficult to schedule things, as the students have class from 10am-4pm, so I can't really do anything during that time.
I have begun to meet a lot more of the students around the campus and am beginning to master SOME of their names, which are all very new names to me! I am now used to being asked multiple times a day to sing a song randomly for groups of students anywhere and anytime, and it doesn't phase me anymore. I cannot express properly in words how kind everyone is to me. I have recently begun hanging out with the girls at the hostel in the evenings and bringing my books outside of my room to read nearby them, which invariably leads to wonderful conversation with them. These exchanges about cultural differences are both entertaining and enlightening.
This past weekend, Gigi Sir invited me to his home to stay on Saturday night as I have joined his church choir and will be attending church there on Sunday mornings. The Sunday service was a 2 and a half hour service entirely in Malayalam! I must confess that these long services in a language I do not understand and in a worship style entirely different from my own are challenging. But worship is worship! And I have to continually remind myself to be patient and open-minded about my responses and reactions.
Funny story: On Sunday after the service, we had church choir practice. The CSI Ascension choir has about 100 members! The director asked me to lead warm-ups, (which, as aforementioned, were greeted with many giggles) and then we began to rehearse some of the music for Christmas. At one point a few minutes into rehearsal the director asked me if I had any suggestions. I came up and began to work on some pronunciation, and he encouraged me to continue. So I started working on the piece with them, continually checking with the director if he still wanted me to keep going, who kept encouraging me to rehearse them, and I ended up rehearsing them the entire rehearsal, completely unprepared, for one hour!!! This was a great surprise, but very welcome!
I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to be beginning to get involved in the lives and music of the people here-it was very difficult sitting back for awhile! All of this is just beginning. I know that the Lord has plans for me here, and I'm thrilled to receive confirmation of this.
Please continue to pray for relief from anxiety and for my sleeplessness! Thank you!
Thank you, Father, for these new ways with which to love and be loved by Your people. Thank you for arranging these activities, and thank you so much for the help of the many faculty here who have been incredibly kind to me. Father, I have never known such kindness from so many people. Thank you for these beginnings, and may I not lose sight of You or Your purposes. Amen.
Even though I just posted that last post, it's a few days since I wrote it. I have been feeling a bit better since then and am experiencing not as much anxiety. I'm still having sleeping issues, though, so please continue to pray for me to be "normal" as soon as possible.
I had about two weeks here at CMS with very little activity, and that's been very challenging for me! As you know, I like to be busy and involved and suddenly I was confronted with the anxiety I feel when I do not feel engaged, purposeful, or active. This, though uncomfortable, is important to identify and to work towards fixing. One must be able to relax!
But now, after about two weeks here, some of my responsibilities have begun! Let me tell you about them:
Yesterday I taught my first conversational English class. It was just a half hour, and was for the girls of the Home Science department. We worked on introducing ourselves and it went really well! There were seven girls that attended.
Yesterday I also began rehearsing the Hostel Choir, which I am in charge of. Each year they perform a Christmas concert of traditional carols and Malayalam songs. I can't tell you how excited I was to begin practice with them yesterday! 24 girls showed up and I started to teach them the song, "Go, Tell it On the Mountain." I will lead Hostel Choir from 6-7 on Tuesday & Thursdays, and teach conversational English classes at the hostel at the same time on Mondays and Wednesdays.
The college choir meets every day from 1:30-2 and from 4-5, and so I have begun rehearsing with them and leading the sopranos. I have also met a talented 15 year-old singer with whom I will soon start private lessons.
On this coming Tuesday, I will begin teaching conversational English and music to the girls of Baker's Girls School, ages 10-17. Though I have no idea what to expect and what the classes and girls will be like, I'll prepare as best as I can and am looking forward to it. I will spend one full day of each week at Baker teaching.
Additionally, some other opportunities around campus have surfaced. I met with a boys a cappella quartet to help them learn a song for the upcoming quartet competition, (I'll be one of the judges of the competition) and found out that they love to sing worship music! So I'm going to begin doing worship music with them whenever they have some free time. I am extremely happy to have found a group of students on campus who love contemporary worship music!
This morning also was the first day of a Vocal Training Program for Faculty which my supervisor and other faculty have arranged for me to lead. Today about 10 faculty members showed up, along with the chaplain, who prayed over the program before it began. For 45 minutes on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, I will meet with faculty members to work on tone production, vocal training, breathing, music fundamentals, and sight-reading. Most of the members sing in their local church choirs but do not read music-so there will be a lot to teach! There are very few people here who have any formal music training-all of the choir directors I have met work in another field and just direct the choir with knowledge gained from experience; no one here that I've met has a music degree, and most are very excited about scheduling time for me to come work with their choirs!
Leading warm-ups and vocal training with the various choirs has been amusing and challenging. As you may or may not know, in learning to sing, you have to do a lot of seemingly silly vocal and physical exercises. Singers are used to this, but if you're not a singer, being asked to do these exercises with your bodies and voices and make strange sounds can be considerably uncomfortable for people. In order to learn to sing, you very much have to abandon your boundaries and embarassment of awareness of all parts of your body and be willing to try anything sound-wise. This is challenging for people even at home, especially older people, and anyone that hasn't done these exercises before. Add on top of that the cultural sensitivity to the physical body present here which is much greater than in the US, and you'll get some sense of the barriers to surmount before proper vocal production can be achieved. Thankfully, the members of the group seem excited and dedicated to learn, but it may take some time before these physical exercises become comfortable. I'm very excited to continue with this program and anticipate the progress we will make together.
This week at church and also at college chapel, I will sing a solo, and I have started to be invited to conduct various workshops for local choirs, the first of which will be a day-long session this coming Wednesday.
I am very excited about all of these opportunities. It is difficult to schedule things, as the students have class from 10am-4pm, so I can't really do anything during that time.
I have begun to meet a lot more of the students around the campus and am beginning to master SOME of their names, which are all very new names to me! I am now used to being asked multiple times a day to sing a song randomly for groups of students anywhere and anytime, and it doesn't phase me anymore. I cannot express properly in words how kind everyone is to me. I have recently begun hanging out with the girls at the hostel in the evenings and bringing my books outside of my room to read nearby them, which invariably leads to wonderful conversation with them. These exchanges about cultural differences are both entertaining and enlightening.
This past weekend, Gigi Sir invited me to his home to stay on Saturday night as I have joined his church choir and will be attending church there on Sunday mornings. The Sunday service was a 2 and a half hour service entirely in Malayalam! I must confess that these long services in a language I do not understand and in a worship style entirely different from my own are challenging. But worship is worship! And I have to continually remind myself to be patient and open-minded about my responses and reactions.
Funny story: On Sunday after the service, we had church choir practice. The CSI Ascension choir has about 100 members! The director asked me to lead warm-ups, (which, as aforementioned, were greeted with many giggles) and then we began to rehearse some of the music for Christmas. At one point a few minutes into rehearsal the director asked me if I had any suggestions. I came up and began to work on some pronunciation, and he encouraged me to continue. So I started working on the piece with them, continually checking with the director if he still wanted me to keep going, who kept encouraging me to rehearse them, and I ended up rehearsing them the entire rehearsal, completely unprepared, for one hour!!! This was a great surprise, but very welcome!
I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to be beginning to get involved in the lives and music of the people here-it was very difficult sitting back for awhile! All of this is just beginning. I know that the Lord has plans for me here, and I'm thrilled to receive confirmation of this.
Please continue to pray for relief from anxiety and for my sleeplessness! Thank you!
Thank you, Father, for these new ways with which to love and be loved by Your people. Thank you for arranging these activities, and thank you so much for the help of the many faculty here who have been incredibly kind to me. Father, I have never known such kindness from so many people. Thank you for these beginnings, and may I not lose sight of You or Your purposes. Amen.
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