May 1, 2008
I'm still alive
Posted in General
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Just wanted to make sure I communicated that up front, because some of you were probably starting to wonder. OK, here's the skinny. Realistically, you may not hear anything else for a long time. So enjoy. :) And... sorry it's so short. GOI. :) (Jessica will know what that means...) I'm interning with AIM... started on Monday. That is going really well so far. I'm enjoying it and growing a lot. And I think I'm being a blessing. So that's really good. I'll be interning up until the beginning of August. We have an hour presentation on Saturday... should be fun. We'll be doing a mix of patriotic and evangelistic stuff. I'm looking forward to it... we haven't done one that long in quite a while. I got myself a laptop. I love it. It is so nice to be able to take it everywhere and work away from home. It is a Dell Inspiron running Vista. I actually don't mind Vista that much... there are some changes I really like. There are others I don't like so much, but overall it's not bad. I'm taking the English Lit and Comp AP on Thursday, and I'm not really very confident in my skills, so if you guys could be praying for that, I'd really appreciate it. I'm graduating on June 1. And I'm eating at Golden Corral tomorrow. Life is good. |
April 10, 2008
Journal entry
Posted in AIM
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I've started keeping a journal now, so I may not be posting as much. We'll see. Anyway, this is just one of my journal entries, typed up. It probably won't make sense if you don't know the people and the songs - but I wrote it for me to remember, and I know all that background stuff, so I'm not going to add a lot of explanatory notes. It's about the same presentation Jessica just posted about. 4/8/08 9:10 pm Today was a lot of fun. Tess called around 10 to say that Jacob had called her at 11:30 last night to say he couldn't come to the presentation today because he coulnd't get off work. She said at first she thought he was kidding, and then when she realized he was serious, she was not very happy! :) He had the main part in all four songs we were going to do (Larger than Life, One Time Show, There is a God, End). We took out Larger than Life and put in Two Sets. Tess and Jorge both presented. Jarek did the skeptic and Jo did Jesus in End, both for the first time. (I was impressed with Jarek's skeptic, by the way, considering he learned it in the car on the way there!) Jorge hadn't practiced One Time Show, so his basketball technique could have been better, but oh well. I was impressed that everybody got the changes in There is a God (we had to take out both Josh and Jonathan). The Lillys obviously practiced - kudos to them. [And today they told me that they didn't practice at all!!! It really looked like they did!] End was OK except for "angry crowd chose Him" which some people NEVER get no matter how many times we drill it. That's frustrating. Jorge was the guard, and he got the lifts OK. Crowd did a great job covering him too. Two Sets was fine. Tess's parts: crowd in End, bad narrator in Two Sets, Master of Ceremonies (Jacob's part) in One Time Show, and narrator (!!!) in There is a God. She did a great job (as always). Her Master of Ceremonies was very cute and fun. The beginning of the presentation was a little rough... okay, more than a little. We got there at 2:45 (scheduled to present at 3), Tess parked the van with one tire on the curb (which we didn't notice until after the presentation), and we piled out. We walked backstage, and then I went to get the music set up (the sound booth is in the middle of the audience, which you have to go through two other big tents to get to). I was walking along the side of the tent, and then I heard the announcer say "and our next group will be the mimes..." and then I started running! I ran, and went in through a tent flap that wasn't really an entrance, and ran through the tents, saying "excuse me" a lot and weaving through these old people (the average age of a Branson Fest visitor is about 65) and trying not to hit anybody. I got there and gave the CD to the sound guy, and - whew! - we weren't going on for a couple minutes. So I ran outside to put on a t-shirt over my ACTION shirt [so I could be a believable "plant" for One Time Show], ran back in, found a seat in the 2nd row (that was hard - there were a lot of people there!), blew my cover when I had to get up and tell the sound guy to turn on the music... etc. Then Tess couldn't find me in the audience. Melissa found me and pointed me out - covered it really well. Points for Melissa. Then the mic wasn't on for my speaking part, so I had to yell. There were several hundred people in that big ten, the music was loud, but they could hear me in the sound booth, which was halfway back. Guess those yelling classes on the CAMT came in handy after all. I slipped back to the sound booth about 30 seconds into Two Sets. Watched the song, which was uneventful. There Is a God was strong. There were a few missed cues but they weren't obvious to an audience. Tess's narrator was strong. They clapped loud and long for "thunderous ovation of praise" - they were really with us. Same when Jesus rose in End - they clapped all the way until "He came, He lived, He died." That was pretty cool. Afterward (backstage) we got a booking for 6/14, I gave some promo to a guy who wants us to come to North Carolina, and we laughed and talked about everything. God was merciful, and it wasn't raining until 15 minutes after the presentation (even though a 100% chance of strong storms was forecast). We wandered around awhile trying to find Jory, then found out he'd already gone toward the van. It was raining by now. Never mind - we ran. First Tess, then a string of mimes trailing behind. Then we schemed for Jory's birthday, helped Tess get out of the parking space (that was funny!), and went home. I forgot to mention that I went to help Tess this morning also. I got some music copied to her mp3 player, worked on the project plan for Family Camp, made 08 financial file folders, and sorted mail. :) It was fun. She said she did her hair while waiting 8 minutes for the post office to open this morning. She did her makeup while watching Jacob's part in There is a God, and took a phone call while practicing Two Sets. Why do just one thing when you could be doing two? |
March 28, 2008
Practice
Posted in AIM
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http://www.teamroberts.org/kids/katie/blog/audio/3_28_08_practice.wma |
March 18, 2008
The Killer Board Meeting
Posted in General
There's a ministry board meeting tonight at our house. It started at 6:30 PM, and as of right now (11:23 PM), they're still going strong. And one of the men has a 45-minute drive home.  I'm going to bed now. Who knows when they'll go to bed... |
March 18, 2008
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST - Flooding
Posted in General
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We've had heavy rain since about midnight last night, and the flooding is really bad... the worst I've seen in the 12 years I've lived here. There's a creek right across the street, and our neighbors' home looks dangerously close to being flooded. Some other homes around here are already flooded. PLEASE pray that God would have mercy and stop the rain. It is forecast to continue all night and into tomorrow morning. Please pray!!! |
March 17, 2008
Harbor House Presentation
Posted in AIM
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We had an awesome presentation last night! Click on the link below to hear all about it: http://www.teamroberts.org/kids/katie/blog/audio/3_17_08_presentation.wma |
March 17, 2008
Copying from Jessica's blog: Important Announcement!
Posted in AIM
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Be it known that six new presentation videos, from last night's presentation at Harbor House (a homeless shelter) are now up on the website (prompt, huh?). But it gets even better than that - Tess was in all of them! That's why it was prompt. We highly recommend watching the videos, because even though they are pretty typical songs, I think I could safely say they were done by a non-typical team. And if you only have time to watch one song, you MUST watch In the Light. Tess has the main part, and she does an amazing job with it - even though she learned it in 5 minutes right before the presentation. ;) Here's the link: http://www.teamroberts.org/aim. I hope to post more about this presentation at a later date. Thank you, and good night. ;) |
March 15, 2008
AIM Craziness
Posted in AIM
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And it's not even Veterans Week. http://www.teamroberts.org/kids/katie/blog/audio/3_15_08_AIM.wma |
March 7, 2008
Tag
Posted in General
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Well, Jessica tagged me, but I don't know six bloggers to tag back, so I guess I'll just post my answers, and if anybody else feels like answering, go right ahead. :) Jessica's blog: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/mime4jesus Six random facts about me: 1. My middle name is Katherine. 2. I have never seen The Sound of Music. 3. I have been to Washington DC three times. 4. The biggest book I own (other than the Bible) is 1100 pages long (The Complete Sherlock Holmes). 5. I got up at noon today. 6. There are three smiley face stickers (love you Lauren!) on the back of my cell phone. |
March 2, 2008
Two entries in one day!
Posted in General
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Aren't you impressed? I'm just going to link to them: Misc Life Practice |
February 24, 2008
Life
Posted in General
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A new entry! Aren't you excited?!? Without further ado... http://www.teamroberts.org/kids/katie/blog/audio/2_24_08_misc.wma |
January 21, 2008
Audio journal
Posted in General
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I've decided to start keeping an audio journal because it's faster and I think I'd be more likely to "write" in it, because it's quick and easy. The thing is, I might not be uploading entries to this blog very often, because that is definitely not a quick and easy process. However, I'm at least posting the first entry. Post a comment if you have trouble hearing it; I want to know if it's not working so I can get it fixed. Enjoy! http://www.teamroberts.org/kids/katie/blog/audio/1_21_08_Kansas.wma |
December 24, 2007
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Posted in My Faith
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For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. - Isaiah 9:6-7 I wish you a very merry Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace who changed the world forever! I pray that He will be at home in your hearts this Christmas and that His kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. Hosanna in the highest! |
December 20, 2007
An Announcement!
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I got the videos from the final presentation up! Check 'em out at http://www.teamroberts.org/aim. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm involved with a ministry called AIM that does mime to Christian songs, and we just had a big presentation of all our Christmas songs, and I took video of five of the songs to post on the website. A couple notes - I was running sound and taking video at the same time, so the videos start a little late (because I was starting the music) and end a little quickly (because I had to stop the music). I was working on other stuff during This Baby, so I didn't touch the camera during that song, just left it on a wide shot. Also, the battery died near the end of The Gift, so I don't have all of that song. I will tell you what you missed: at the beginning there are poor people huddled around fires in barrels, and the narrator signs "For them there were no presents around the Christmas tree / No flashing lights unless you count the land across the street." At the end, the rest of the lyrics are: "Santa Claus is coming / Because he knows where real faith lives / But who needs Christmas presents / We already have the Gift." The family keep opening presents and the narrator keeps signing, and then at the end everybody else forms a Nativity scene and the mom and kids go over and look at the baby Jesus, and that's how the song ends. Oh, also, I put One King on the front page of the website: http://www.teamroberts.org. And I made some other Christmas updates (and am going to make more as soon as I get time), so check that out too! |
December 20, 2007
A cool quote
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"The resources of the Deity cannot be so meager that in order to create a human being endowed with reason, He must change a monkey into a man."
- Louis Agassiz, 19th-century naturalist |
December 18, 2007
Wise words
Posted in General
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Every day is a journal page Teach us to count the days Every day is a bank account Teach us to count the days Has anybody ever lived who knew the value of a life Teach us to count the days Every day is a gift you've been given Chris Rice - "Life Means So Much" |
December 17, 2007
Christmas 07 Final Presentation = WOW!!!
Posted in AIM
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Okay. I just got back from what is quite possibly my favorite presentation of all time. Let me tell you all about it! The occasion was the 2007 Christmas Session Final Presentation. We were to arrive at 5:00 and practice (mostly because we learned a new song while one of the guys [Josh] was on vacation). We would present at 6:30. We arrived at 4:00 to do some devious scheming. See, we had two big schemes for this presentation. In addition to the Christmas songs, we were going to present a special surprise song for our parents ("Mama Prays" - Chris Rice). We were also going to present a special song for Tess and Jory and Jorge and Kristi (our rechoreographed version of "Thank You" - the Ray Boltz classic - that now stars a husband and wife). At the end of Thank You, we were going to give gifts to the Rolfs and Madrigals - roses for Tess and Kristi, a gift card to a Christian bookstore for Jory, and a birthday cake for Jorge (decorated with the Costa Rican flag and the words "Feliz Cumpleaño Jorge!" [Happy Birthday Jorge in Spanish - his birthday was Friday]). Those of you who know Jorge will understand. And we knew that Tess loved roses, and we knew that Kristi loved flowers in general, so that was an easy decision. And... well, we didn't have any brilliant ideas for Jory, so we figured a gift card was pretty safe. ;) As far as the song - well, for those of you on AIM teams, picture having four directors. Now picture trying to learn a new song without ANY of your directors knowing what you are up to! This was difficult, but we did it. One of our team members (Melissa) attends the Methodist church right up the street, and we went over there right after practice the past two weeks and worked on the song. The first week Josiah and Jacob both had to lie to Jorge about where they were going in order to get out the door without him knowing. The second week the youth pastor and his wife were watching us, so we gave a mini-presentation of End of the Beginning and In the Light on the spot! Very fun! So anyway. We arrived early because we wanted to hide the gifts for the Rolfs and Madrigals on the stage somewhere so they were easily accessible when the time came to give them at the end of the song. No such luck - there wasn't anywhere practical to hide stuff on that stage, so we finally ended up sticking everything in my car and I brought it all into the hall adjacent to the sanctuary while they presented the song. Then we went and tried to get props but couldn't find the flags. Wonderful. Then we sat around for awhile and waited for everyone to get there (remember, we were an hour early). When everyone arrived we had them sign the cards we were giving to the Rolfs and Madrigals. Then we were going to work Josh into Mama Prays, the song he hadn't learned. Problem: Mr. Lyell was sitting watching us practice! Just then Tess (who was still at her house) called, and she said I should have Kristi (who was working at the AIM office in the church) try to get him out of our hair! Ha. Ha. She basically just asked him to leave. And he did - he went and sat in the foyer. So we taught the song. I think we got in three run-throughs, which is really not too shabby. We then talked through the order and ran transitions and practiced the first half of the order before Tess showed up and parents started coming. Then the team prayed while the SALTeam talked with Tess about stuff for the new session (and asked her where the flags were!). Then Tess told me who was talking when (although this changed several times during the presentation) and we got set. Tess opened and then the presentation started. Here's our lineup: Celebrating Jesus This Baby One King Still Her Little Child I Believe in Bethlehem Grown Up Christmas List The Gift Gloria Mama Prays (which the parents didn't know about) Thank You (which the leaders didn't know about) I didn't really pay much attention to the songs because I was kinda busy. First, I was trying to tape some of the songs (which didn't work out all that well; the battery died halfway through The Gift, plus I missed Celebrating Jesus). I was also preparing stuff for our devious scheme, and planning what to say during my speaking parts. And of course I've seen all the songs a bunch of times and don't always pay all that much attention to them anymore. :) At the beginning of Grown Up Christmas List, Tess told me I was speaking after The Gift about our presentation at Rockaway Beach. That went pretty well, I think. I did an analogy about physical and spiritual needs which seemed to fit pretty well. It was kinda rough after that, but then I hadn't spent a whole lot of time preparing. I've noticed that in public speaking, I tend to do worse the more I prepare, so I don't stress it all that much anymore. After Gloria I got up and transitioned to Mama Prays. I didn't plan to do an invitation because I figured everybody would be saved (it's mostly parents anyway), but I later found out there were some Jewish people in the audience. Great time to decide not to do an invitation, Katie. Brilliant. And we did Mama Prays, and mama cried, and so did papa. You should watch the song from the last time we did it, it's pretty neat. We all gave our parents cards thanking them for everything they've done for us. So that was special. Then I got up and handed out the certificates to Mom (glove washer) and Mrs. Lilly (super-duper LITE team member). I had the SALTeam come and do it to give Jacob a chance to sign the certificate to Mrs. Lilly (he was the only SALT who hadn't had a chance to sign it). I did Mom's first so he would hopefully see that his name wasn't on there (and see the pen right by the certificate!), but no such luck. I whispered to him as he went back to get the other one, and talked long enough to give him time to scribble his name. Initiative on stage, public speaking style. :) Then finally, my FAVORITE PART OF MY FAVORITE PRESENTATION!!! So I said, "There are a few more people we'd like to thank..." and then I said who it was. And then I told them to come up. And then I told them to sit down on the front row. And then I told them we wanted to honor them for everything they'd done for us and for everyone else. And then... well, then the song started! I missed most of it because I was making trips to the car to get the cake and flowers, but I saw the end - the part where Jesus tells the couple thank you. And when everybody signs - and everybody signed right at the four people on the front row! Tess and Jory were crying, Kristi was crying, even Jorge was crying, which is really saying something. Even the people on stage were crying. Makeup was running. One girl was about to burst into tears right there on the stage, and by the time we finished, there weren't very many dry eyes left in the room. And then I had to stop the music. And then I went up front and we all hugged and Jorge and Kristi prayed (Jory asked them to do it... I think because he was crying too hard to be coherent! ;))... and then I hugged Tess and Kristi, because I hadn't been able to hug them at first... and then Jory prayed to close... and then it was over. Not totally, though. We didn't leave the church until 9:20 - we just hung out, talking, telling the Rolfs and Madrigals all about our devious scheming (that was fun!), eating Jorge's cake, etc. I gave all the girls mime gloves (black and white striped!) - it's unanimous, they're wearing them in the Adoration Parade next year! And Kristi gave me picture CDs and now I'm going to make the ECMT video for the Madrigals! What a day! Keep your eye on our website - videos of some of these songs will be posted soon, and several (Gloria, Mama Prays, and Thank You) are already on the website from other presentations (albeit in slightly different versions!). Getting the videos up is my next order of business after the Madrigals' video. Wow. I don't think I'm ever going to forget this day. God, thank you for Mom and Dad and Jory and Tess and Jorge and Kristi and Jessica and Melissa and Madison and all the guys... God, thanks for AIM! And thanks for the final presentation. And thanks for Christmas. This really is the most wonderful time of the year! |
December 16, 2007
Fun Links
Posted in General
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A few fun links I've stumbled upon lately: "What Kind of Reader Are You?" quiz - for the bibliovores among us. Free Rice - test your vocabulary and help feed the poor at the same time. Pretty darn cool. Madlibs - who doesn't love madlibs? Snowdays - make your own virtual snowflake! Even people with no artistic ability whatsoever (aka me) can make works of art with this thing! Have fun! |
December 15, 2007
Sunday, October 7
Posted in ECMT Journal
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Sunday, 9 days later - near Gettysburg, PA Busted headphones at training camp I'm being realistic here - there's NO WAY I can catch up on nine days of journaling. I'll try to hit the highlights. So I haven't even STARTED training camp. Interesting thing was, we had zero songs that were polished [excellent, ready to present] by the end of training camp (except maybe Pledge to the Flag [a very easy song]... no wait, not that one either). We have a fairly extensive basic repetoire of songs we've at least started, though. Here's a list: Two Sets of Joneses End of the Beginning Forgiven Go Statement of Faith (new version) Gifter Be Still Truth March Voice of Truth Battle Hymn of the Republic Courtroom Via Dolorosa Champion Honor to Serve God Bless the USA America Again Pledge to the Flag Fallen, Not Forgotten Always Been the Soldier Virtuoso (new song) I Will Stand for You (new song) Sin Chair (learned today) Strings (learned today) Psalm 23 (learned today) We're doing Bible studies from scratch, so we've spent a lot of time on that. In fact, we're teaching it tomorrow and it's still not totally ready. I'm doing [a class on] public speaking [at the workshops] - aka dramatic reading/reader's theater - with Josiah Poch. Evidently he's taken lots of classes, but never taught it. I'd be totally OK if it was just public speaking [I taught the same class on my previous mission trip], but choreographing a dramatic reading will be interesting, so I'm kind of apprehensive. [We ended up doing choric readings - just speaking - instead of dramatic readings - speaking and acting - so it ended up being easier than I thought it would be.] |
December 14, 2007
Friday, September 28
Posted in ECMT Journal
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Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:22 PM ET Near Seiverville, TN Current Music: ZOEgirl - "Good Girl" WOW - journaling two days in a row. That's really something. We'll see how long I can keep it up. Just picked up most of the rest of the team from the airport. Ryan and Courtney (YAY!!!!) [went with me on the California mission trip earlier this year], Brian from Delaware, Josiah Poch (the one Jared [his brother, former AIM intern] told me to keep in line  ), and Brooke, a girl who's never done anything with ACTION before! Plus Caleb from Colorado and his mom got in last night. She's leaving tomorrow, I think.Last night, driving into training camp, we got the bus stuck in a ditch and sustained a minor injury to the bumper. Kristi got to call Tess and Jory - a job I wouldn't wish on anybody. It was partly mine and Lauren's fault, but... that's a long story. Got to do casting [choosing parts for the mime songs] this morning. That was fun. It was especially fun trying to guess the strengths and weaknesses of people I'd never met. Also got seat assignments. I'm with Nicky, and the other four girls are in a row all across the back.We got REALLY nice, almost brand new, roomy blue backpacks. Good thing too, because the zipper on mine is now totally fried. The guys got the yellow ones. One had a ribbon tied on it, leftover from the Midwest Mission Trip. We gave that one to Jacob. Traveling with little kids is really interesting. Gabriel [Kristi and Jorge's 18-month-old son] is usually pretty sweet, but he is so annoying when he cries. He's also not talking yet, so it's really hard to figure out what he wants! Lily [their 3-year-old daughter] is OK - she gets kind of annoying with her endless knock-knock jokes, but other than that she's pretty cute. Nicky [age 5] is sweet too. But when he - or Lily - is grumpy, he's no fun. Our cabin at training camp is neat. There are six bunk beds - 12 beds total - in the main room, plus eight in the back - total of 20 beds. LOTS of space. We've been using the back bedroom as a private changing area, so we don't have to go to and from the bathroom - big, nice, warm showers! - in our PJs. I think Tess and Jory are waiting for us at training camp. That'll be fun - my first really INTENSE Jory experience! We don't have a whole ton of songs to learn, though, and the ones we do have are pretty basic. The Bible studies are going to be the really intense part. Well, we're almost there, and I'm going to get a bit more Sonlight reading done. I've got about the first three days done - OK, but could be a lot better.Signing off from the biggest tourist trap this side of Branson (that's Pigeon Forge, if you're wondering), Katie |