Mime4Jesus - Dearest Cournet...

Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set the example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. I Timothy 4:12

Apr. 2, 2009

Dearest Cournet...

Gabriel used to call Courtney "Cournet." I wrote this email to Courtney, now vacationing/furloughing in DE, and it was a pretty good description of practice.

Dear Courtney,

Don't know if you care, but thought I'd let you know how practice went today. If you aren't interested, that's OK. Just enjoy your vacation!

Practice today was so weird. It was just wrong without you guys. SALTeam meeting was not only minuscule (people-wise) but it was very reminiscent of old AIM Branson days in that after figuring out the songs for Teddy Bear Tea and the parts thereof, we had seven minutes for Bible study (we did it late because Jorge was leading and he couldn't get there till the end of the meeting). We didn't have time to assign when we were teaching which songs, much less who was teaching them, which made things a bit more chaotic.

Girls' Bible study started off slow but as we progressed it got a lot better. Tess and Kristi had a lot to add to the discussion and I think we had some good topics thrown around, especially near the end. We couldn't help but notice how small our group seemed without you (although it's still relatively huge). I got to hold Christopher and he fell asleep on my lap near the end of the study, which was majorly cool.

Oh yeah, so here's the deal for Teddy Bear Tea: we're doing four songs and the armor of God skit that we did at the end of Family Field Day last Midwest Family Camp. The songs we're going to do are Devil is Bad, Sin Chair, (Armor of God Skit), Lazarus, Virtuoso. We tried not to put y'all in any main parts seeing as you're going to have negative time to learn the songs that you don't already know.

We started off the SALTeam presenting Champion, which was really a riot. Actually, it wasn't technically the SALTeam; it was most of the old AIM Branson team, since y'all weren't there and Josh didn't know the song so it was a lot like last Saturday. Jo was Jesus; Jarek was Satan; I was God (yeah, I know, it's funny, but Jarek said he didn' t know it. If he had I would have been Satan: muhahahaha). Madison narrated, and Melissa and John were angel and demon, respectively. It was pretty pathetic, because Jo and Jarek were having a lively conversation while they punched each other's lights out and I couldn't glare at Jarek without cracking a smile.

After we presented Champion we all popped a squat and watched the first presentations of Go and Love Story, to try to pick up on our mistakes and find things we can improve for next time. We were watching the video that Jory took from on high [on the balcony]. :) That was pretty cool. We all laughed when we could see the curtain undulate - barely - as Melissa slipped behind it.

When we taught Champion it got pretty chaotic. Melissa/Madison taught the angels, Jarek/John taught the demons, Jo taught God (Josh), and I taught Jo and Madison (Jesus and narrator). Well, for Jo I basically just told him his cues; he knew the part. We also added this cool part where there is a captive - Hannah - and she's there over in the demon's corner for the entire song (she comes out at the beginning and gets captured by the demons) until "captivity has been set free" and then Jesus sets her free. Basically. Anyway, I thought it was cool. Tess taught it - I'd never heard of it before but apparently other teams have done it. She's full of good ideas. :)

So we taught Champion and ran it once and then had to move on. I was OK with that... being a demon is painful on the legs. The demons did pretty well but Melissa said the angels were "eh." OK, I guess. So next was Devil is Bad. We - SALTeam minus Josh and plus John - did that song and it was cool. Teaching it was NOT cool, though. Don't know what was up. I guess it was because the Lillys and the Duncans were sitting out (they won't be at the TBT). The whole thing seemed cluttered from Champion on. Well, mostly Devil is Bad... the other two songs went OK. Madison taught Emily D the Eve 2 part.

We taught Lazarus really fast but we're really going to have to drill characterization because we had problems in that department. Probably because we haven't taught it yet. Hmm... we should make that a priority. That will help them in practically every song they ever do.

We didn't show Sin Chair just because it's so short and simple I didn't think it was necessary (yeah, I did seem to be one of the primary leaders today, with Melissa. It was kind of awkward. I used to do that all the time but now I'm not used to it). By the way, we put you in the main part for that song. I think I've seen you do it somewhere, or KT has told me about how awesome you are, or something. At any rate, we figured you'd do it best. You cool with that?

Sin Chair was ... fine. There really isn't much to say about that song. Since each person is only out for five seconds they don't really even have to work on characterization, so at this point we're just trying to get everyone across the stage before the "song" is over.

So we finished Sin Chair, I gave a brief run-down on the skit and who was doing what, and then we did announcements, prayer requests, and clean-up. It ran pretty smoothly, I guess, but it was really weird, and sort of depressing. I know that's not going to make sense to you, but now I'm rambling.

So here's the deal on parts.

Champion:
God: Josh
Jesus: Jo
Satan: Jarek
Narrator: Madison
"Captive": Hannah
Angels: Courtney, Maria, Emily B, Emily D, Moriah, Heather
Demons: Charleton, Alex, Jessica, Kyle, Rachel, John

Devil is Bad:
Eve 1: Heather
Eve 2: Emily B
Satan: Jo
Jesus: Josh
Signs: Jessica
Trumpet: Not sure

Sin Chair:
Main: Courtney
Christian: Jessica OR Emily B OR... ?
Strongman: Alex

Lazarus:
Lazarus: Josiah
God/Jesus: Josh
Mary: Maria
Martha: Emily B

OK, so we did give y'all a couple of parts. Especially Emily. But y'all are experts; you can pull it off, right? :) And about the skit... I'll paste the text at the bottom of this email, but just know that you are an "enemy," Emily is not wearing the shoes of peace, and Rachel is the one who is wearing all her armor. Basically someone will read the text and we'll act it out, in slow motion and extremely played up. You know, cheesy? Exaggerated? It's fun.

Oh yeah, we've also got to figure out parts in Virtuoso since Jarek won't be there.

So that was my extremely long and probably boring email. Thanks for suffering with me to the end. ;-) Don't know if you're in DE yet (probably not), but know that our prayers go with you and hope that y'all have a great time together! How did the college visit go? Have y'all done anything fun or stupid yet? Shall I quit asking questions so you can get back to doing those fun and stupid things? I miss you guys a LOT and I'll be really glad when you get back!

Much love,
Jessica

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