Living Dance International

I must admit that when Beth Bluett deBaudistel floated into our church and complimented me about my dancing, I said thank you with a confused smile, as often is the case in these situations where people remember me but I don’t them.

I thought nothing more of it until she invited me to attend her dance seminar.  “Sure,” I replied, “when is it on and how much does it cost?”  I was always interested in learning more about dance techniques and theory, especially as I had no real training in the topic and was trying to teach some form of dancing to the young ladies in our church.

The seminar, as I discovered was an answer to prayer, I will describe it as ‘5 years of ballet stuffed into 3 days’, along with an entire ballet/jazz/dance curriculum set to Christian music on DVD.  This curriculum, Living Dance International, we discovered was written from the view point of an accomplished ballerina and teacher drawing on her experiences dancing in France, Russia and Australia, for some of the best ballet companies in the world.   With techniques from some of the best ballet teachers in the world, Beth has written a complete curriculum in ballet and jazz, from pre-dance through to advanced tertiary level dancing, taught without the sensualised movement and costumes that often find their way into dancing. 

Beth has been taking her curriculum to the world including having qualified teachers in Singapore, Europe, New Zealand and various locations in Australia.

 

This curriculum, although I don't intend at this stage to run a 'dance school' will be of great assistance in encorporating more professional lines into our dances, and I am also looking forward to using the pre-dance curriculum in a Sunday school setting for some more subdued activity than normal games produce.

 

A Gift and the Gospel - A Chance for Change

It is a funny feeling walking into a prison where a guard is marching backwards and forwards, M16 at the ready, surveying his human targets. Somehow you just hope he does not have to use it while you are there.

My Dad often said later that if he knew where we were going on that mission trip to Papua New Guinea, I would not have been on that plane.  In fact it was one of his first thoughts as we touched down in that Land of the Unexpected, back when I was only 14, and his first views were of coils of barbed wire dancing precariously over walls that glimmered with broken glass, threatening to shred the feet and hands of those intent on making their way in to cause destruction.

I had my own teenage moments of pricking fear as I lowered myself into the front row of wooden pews inside the prison chapel and the dark-skinned prisoners filed in silently, perhaps even sullenly.  My imagination ran wild as I wondered how my family would manage to get my body home if I got stabbed in the back with a pocket knife?

Thankfully that scenario never played out and I quickly lost my nervousness as the prisoners began to worship God and praise Him and when I walked into that place again four years later I knew that regardless of the fact that we were going into one of the nations’ largest prisons, that I would be safer inside than if I was walking down an Australian street in the dark.  

God’s Word had transformed that institution from a place where the worst criminals were sent to be punished to a place of complete healing for body, soul and spirit.  The swept clean women’s dormitory that our tiny team from Victorious Ministry Through Christ stepped into that day was alive with testimonies of God’s grace and transforming power thanks to the hands and feet of Christ made human by the Prison Fellowship ladies that regularly visited. 

As our team shared about bondages and barriers to healing, wounds and scars of the past, occult bondages and confession of sin and forgiveness I was surprised to see the little bundles carried by some of the women moving, and even crying, and with a few questions I discovered that some of them had tiny babies or roaming toddlers incarcerated with them. I was saddened to hear that at the age of 2 these precious bundles were removed from their mothers and sent to relatives until their mothers were released.

I was later delighted to find out that the international Prison Fellowship Ministry is also committed to caring for the children of inmates through a program known as Angel Tree.  This ministry invites church families to purchase gifts on behalf of the child’s parents to show that they are still loved and cared for even though they are physically separated from one or both of their parents.   These gifts open doors to share the Gospel not only with the child, but the whole family and can help provide reconciliation between the family later down the track.

Would you like to donate or become involved?   This ministry, as you can see, goes far beyond a simple Christmas gift.  As is happening in Papua New Guinea, the Prison Fellowship Ministry is opening doors to transform the culture of prisons from violent cycles of crime, to a place where complete healing takes place, and giving a gift is just one part of the process.

 

Children and the Supernatural

Do you want your faith stirred and inspired to the point of action?  Or perhaps you want to see your children communicating with God in a way that is beyond their wildest dreams? Enter Jennifer Toledo, a woman with a call of God on her life to inspire the children and parents of the nations.

I first heard of Jennifer Toledo when I was 16, speaking on a cd called the Undiluted Gospel, a message of how she found herself in one of the most famine-stricken areas of Africa as a single young woman, and the strategies God gave her to see the people set free, including children.  I found it again this year and played it for our  Tuesday night group to listen to.   Right towards the end she began to speak about how she was training to children to walk in the supernutral, a topic that we had been searching for inspiration on. 

We ran a Google search on Ms Toledo and discovered her new book, Children and the Supernatural, published by Charisma House.  This inspiring book records numerous testimonies of how God is working with and through children around the world.  She shares how she has seen God heal children of emotional, spiritual and physical disabilities and how she has led groups of children into African hospitals to pray for the sick, resulting in the closure of the hospital.  However, supernatural encounters are not just happening in Africa and other 3rd world countries, but also in America. 

 

Eyes that See & Ears that Hear, is a revolutionary handbook written in a simple child-like manner, inspiring readers young and old alike, that hearing from God really is quite easy, and that the type of relationship God desires with each of us is revolutionary.  Describing God as a ‘chatterbox’ Jennifer encourages children to ask God any questions relating to their daily life before teaching them how to check that what they receive is indeed Godly counsel.  She provides activities to help them hear clearly and accurately before suggesting ideas that they can use in outreach.   We have just started  reading Children and the Supernatural to the children at our Sunday School, which has inspired them to start seeking God for what He wants to speak to them.  We will begin using Eyes that See & Ears that Hear this Sunday, and plan to work through the introduction with them this term.   

Children and the Supernatural can be ordered from Koorong, for Australian buyers, while Eyes that See & Ears that Hear is available from: http://expression58.org/store-2/#!/~/category/id=1878695&offset=0&sort=normal

Writer's Block Removalist Service

There is are certain conditions that every writer dreads, that at some point or another seems to creep up on each one of us.  
1. Procrastination

Well my dear friend, is it really that P word that you are suffereing from?   This condition can be terribly misdiagnosed.  In the precious spare time that you have carved out to write, are you surfing the net to research or are you flitting around and frittering away time on facebook, dealing a blow of fatality to your creativity?   Unless you are particularly inspired by your friend's newest status update, I suggest that when you pop open the internet for research, you stick purely to doing that.  No checking e-mails, facebook, or anything else, and if you simply cannot resist the temptation than set aside, what, say, 10 minutes only, to satisfy that inner drive to discover any new communications you may have received.

Are you procrastinating or are you purely prioritising?   Sitting down to write creatively may not be entirely fruitful when you have exams looming, a baby screaming or your stomach is empty. 

If you decide that you truly are suffering from procrastination, then when you sit down, write something.  Continue crafting the outline, add imagination to the plot, detail to your characters sitting in your notebook, and if this isn't inspiring, and you are really suffering from writer's block, you had better keep reading.

2. Writer's Block

I have heard nearly every cure imaginable for this dreaded drain on the brain, take a walk, read something inspiring, write a random sentence about something on your desk, go back to researching, try writing with a certain piece of music, and warranted they all work to a certain degree.

All these methods seem to take time and energy away from your main concern, the incomplete work staring you down, while the clock ticks in the corner; a deadline looming, or perhaps counting down the minutes to your next interruption.   

My tips for this drastic dilemna, once again are to make sure you have eaten something nutritious before sitting down to write.  My brain simply times out if it is not full of food, and secondly open up your page, see where you are up to, turn away from the page and pray.  Ask God for wisdom and inspiration and pray in tongues.  John Bevere, author of many and various best selling books says that praying tongues is the quickest and most effective way to move a writing block;  not only that, you are receiving heavenly inspiration.

Is praying in tongues a foreign concept to you?  If you are a Christian you have free access to this awesome gift . . . you just have to ask God to fill you with His Holy Spirit and give you His gifts, of which there are many, but 9 specifically related to this particular request. 

Word of Wisdom * Word of Knowledge * Prophecy * Healing * Discerning of spirits * Miracles * Faith * Tongues * Interpretation of Tongues

Ask God and He will give you the whole package.  It is sort of like a tool kit or a kitchen start up kit that will help you in your Christian growth and writing, and once you have asked for it, if you have an interesting syllable rolling around in your mind, start speaking it out in faith that you have received your package, after all it is a bit hard when it is an invisible one to know if it has been delivered yet, however I assure you it has, as it is always sent via Express Angelic Post.

 

Not a Christian but would like to be?

I suggest that you click the link below to find out what this step requires. 

http://faithwritersjesuspage.weebly.com/
If you decide that you would like to become a perhaps you could let me know so that I can give you a a couple of suggestions for your new walk of faith.

 

Healing of the Land

In 2006, my Dad and I went to Papua New Guinea for a six week mission trip with Victorious Ministry Through Christ, which is the trip that 'Dad and Me in PNG' is based on, a book that will soon be available through this website.

In 2010 I went back with another team from Victorious Ministry Through Christ, but we had a dual mission. While we travelled around doing Freed to Live Seminars and Prayer training schools, we had also been asked to consider doing a seminar on the Healing of the Land process, to which the leaders of the team agreed, and I jumped in with them. I had heard that the people who organised the teaching material about Healing of the Land lived in Toowoomba, and so when we moved up here, I had my radar on high alert, to find this couple and talk about our experiences.

It was with much excitement that I accidentally ran into Nancy Thomas at the Wilsonton High School, where we were preparing to talk to the girls about their dreams for the future. Nancy and her husband Deryck, regularly accompany Pastor Walo Ani to PNG and other South Pacific areas to organise Healing of the Land processes where villages come together and repent of sins that have taken place on their land. Amazing miracles happen where feuding tribes are reconciled, idols are burnt, fish come back into rivers, rivers turn from being poisoned into being quite drinkable, and crops multiply etc.

Nancy told me that they had prepared a book called 'if My People . . .' full of testimonies that were happening in the Pacific and that I should look out for it over the next few weeks. I discovered boxes full of them at the combined pastors meeting last weekend and as it turns out, I was the first one to buy the book.

 

This book is available to buy at Toowoomba City Church, to which the website is pasted below.

http://tcchurch.com.au/

My Purple Pants

This month I was privileged to meet Samantha Jackel, author of My Purple Pants (Ark House Press).

She spoke very vividly at the Toowoomba Season's Conference at Humeridge Church of Christ, of how she was sexually abused as a child by her mother.  Her story touched quite a few people who listened and afterwards she was able to pray for a number of people during the lunch break.

As for me, my main excitement was to speak to her about the publicity aspect of writing a book.  

 

Writing the book is just the first step, then comes editing, publication and then advertising, book launches, finding speaking engagements, setting up websites, etc.  This is a very exciting new world but sometimes it can all feel a bit overwhelming and is just a matter of one step in front of the other. It was fantastic to meet someone a bit further up the track than me that can provide some form of guidance. 

Book Dissection - Not Quite Surgery

Where do you get your inspiration from?  Watching people in the shopping centre, picking a random phrase to base a story from, news stories, newspapers, or, the latest I have heard is picking random words from a jar to put together.

http://faithwriters.com/blog/2012/07/18/writers-block-buster-idea-jars/

One of my favourite ways to find inspiration on how to structure a book, is to study other books that have a similar story line to mine, or are written in a style that I want emulate.

Questions to evaluate include: what length are the chapters, what age is it aimed at, what style, eg third person, first person, one central character, are there two points of view, is it educational mixed with story or testimonial, what about fictional?  What is it that you want your book to say? Who do you want it to help, and is there another book similar that you really admire?   How can you tweak yours so that it is original?

 

Let me give you an example for some of the books that I am working on and what has been inspirational to me.

 

Dad and Me in PNG (available October 2012, Creation House)

This book is my story, told from a fourteen year old point of view, in third person, of a mission trip.  It chronicles, in a story form, my testimony of being filled with the Holy Spirit and difference that made in my life.

This book was originally written to remember and share my experiences in Papua New Guinea, but I later evaluated it to see who the target audience was and what I was trying to convey and I began to look around for a book that was similar. 

 What I found was ‘My Seventh Monsoon’ by Naomi Reed, Ark House Press.  It shares her story, although in first person, of her mission trips to Nepal.  Our journeys are not terribly similar, though I thought perhaps our writing styles were, in that both books are easy to read, share a journey with anyone who is willing to listen and occasionally drop a carefully disguised theology bomb to provoke thought in the reader. 

I have met Naomi briefly and heard her speak in person at a women’s conference in Moree, NSW.  Her journeys have caused her to puzzle, like me over the differences in culture between Australia and third world countries, and how we can be living in such comfort while others struggle in such poverty. 

 My three current projects are vastly different in style, as I experiment to find my niche; the sequel to Dad and Me in PNG is a good example of this. The sequel is about how my husband Stephen and I met, and our five year courtship which was quite different to the norm.  Books that inspired us at the time included those by Joshua Harris, ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ and ‘Boy Meets Girl’, and also those by Eric and Leslie Ludy.  Last week I found another of their gems at the op-shop across the road from me. 

‘When Dreams Come True’ tells the story of their courtship, which is similar to ours in their age differences, but the similarities end right about there.  It was very interesting to read this book, as there are hilarious splashes of humour across the pages that just draw you further into the story.  This book has three parts and the authors alternate in writing chapters.

Another of their books about courtship in general, ‘When God Writes Your Love Story’, has snippets of their story along with friend’s testimonies and Biblical guidelines to relationships which is similar in style to Joshua Harris. 

Reading through these couple of books has lit a clear pathway as to how I can write my book in a unique style and outlined what I should avoid in order to stick to a purely testimonial story that spans five years, though this time it will be written in first person. 

 

I am also writing the prequel to Dad and Me in PNG, which is written from various persons points of view, but still in third person.   These are family stories from my childhood farm, and especially a lot of the hospital and healing testimonies that my family has.    A good inspiration for this one was ‘Mercy Moves Mountains', by Nancy Alcorn

Not that I have experienced any of the issues of the girls in this testimonial book, however, I believe the writing style is very similar.  There seems to be many testimonies all written in third person about different girls, but as far as I can ascertain, all written by the one person.  

This book has also inspired me for a fictional trilogy, not in the writing style but to use the content as a base for several characters.   For this fictional trilogy, my writing style inspiration has come from Brock and Bodie Thoene.  In fact, I have carefully dissected chapters in ‘Gates of Zion’ to help me understand their skill and mastery of weaving several characters whose lives all join to create an incredible and complicated plot masterpiece.  

So, what do you want your writing to look like?  How do you want your book structured?   What style and person should your book be written in?   Find a book you enjoy and dissect it!   Write notes on the characters and anything that particularly stands out to you including humour, chapter formation, character detail etc.  If you are starting a book or even if you are part way through, give this method a try for some fresh inspiration.