We all had a special treat this morning during the devotion time at 8am. The Holy Spirit ministered to us! To the melody of the song ,"Father, I Want You to Hold Me", we sensed the comforting presence of our Lord speaking to us that He's there to carry our burdens, concerns and fears and that He's always there to love us as we are. Even more was His presence felt when we moved on to 1Samuel 3 for our Bible passage led by Eugene. This was about listening to God and responding to Him when He calls. There was a heartfelt sharing in each of the three groups remembering the specific instances of the Lord's participation in each of our lives. A time of praying for each of the participants followed. A spontaneous move to pray over and bless Mari ensued to uphold her in her role as the leader of the group. What a beautiful time of worship!
At 9am, Mari, Eugene, David and Bess proceeded to meet at Tim's room to discuss the teaching topics for today. We realized that we could not keep on going with our daily activities without empowering from above. So, we spent time to pray for each other and to give each other space to rest while the other team member(s) took responsibility for specific sessions. It was agreed upon that David would give one hour music theory session for the next two days while Eugene would tackle vowels and consonants. We also talked about the preparations for VBS in Bangalore and in Hyderabad especially making more efficient the cutting of craft materials to be used, the Bible lessons, the theme songs with their accompanying motions and memory verses. Instead of all the participants doing all the cutting necessary for one craft, one craft per table manned by each of the choral grouping, e.g., sopranos/altos, bass, tenor was adapted. Planning for the VBS in Hyderabad would involve key people who participated in VBS last year. This would be a great encouragement to Mari who would be assigned to go there next week.
At 10-11am, David covered the following music topics: more difficult rhythms (syncopation, sixteenth note combinations), different meters, conducting those meters, moving the DO to a new key, extended scale (below DO: TI,LA,SO). He gave out to all participants a step by step approach 23-page handout using Kodaly to "decode" any melody by separating rhythm and pitch elements, and locating those elements on the staff. He also taught the song "Jesus is King" as a round song. He spent time with Daniel, talented musician and music leader: gave Kodaly lesson planning outline, helped him with decoding some difficult rhythms in his guitar course (teaches 35 students), jammed with him in preparation for a presentation for Friday night.
At 11am-12:30pm, Eugene emphasized specific points to sing more beautifully like in the first stanza of In HIs Time; to take note of the words "all" , "BEAUtiful", "show", "every day". With Mari, we practised singing the songs- Do Lord, In His Time, Shine On Us - that will be sung Friday night at the closing of the music program.
After lunch, from 2-3pm, Mari, Eugene, David and Bess proceeded to Tim's room to discuss the VBS program for Bangalore and Hyderabad. Both places will have the same VBS program outline. We discussed the specific Bible passages to be used, the memory verses for each of the 5 days of activity, the crafts, the theme songs and their accompanying hand motions.
From 3-4:30pm, we decided to have rest time to have some down time. We need to be strong enough to do the VBS next week.
From 4:30 to 7:30pm - all of us spent time cutting out the craft materials. A lot of relaxed conversations occurred during this time.
After dinner from 8:30pm-9pm - the soprano/alto group represented by Sagita and Sweetie, sang an Indian song each which talked about worship of the Lord in Tuluru language. They were beautiful. Sweetie who just accepted the Lord this week, tried giving a message using some passages in the Beautitudes. It was heartwarming to see how the Indian brothers tried to coach her on how to explain the passage. David commended her for being brave to stand in front to face all of us to bring a message from the Lord. How inspiring is she to show the evidence of her conversion. Thank the Lord!
Everyone in the room lingered on for 30 more minutes to cut the crafts or talk some more until Mari reminded everyone to get some rest so we could be ready for tomorrow.
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