Awake, O Sleeper.

So I've been needing to do this blog for....well...since July:)

And when I say "needing" I mean it. It's not that I want to, but I need to.

 This may be difficult to understand once you find out that this blog is solely dedicated the reason behind Awakening. It's a dance people. It's a simple dance. It's a step forward. It's a landmark. It's a story.

First, dive into the lyricism of the song that melts my heart -
In our hearts, Lord, in this nation
Awakening
Holy Spirit, we desire
Awakening

For You and You alone
{{Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing}}
For the world You love
Your will be done, let Your will be done in me

In Your presence, in Your power
Awakening
For this moment, for this hour
Awakening

For You and You alone
Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing
For the world You love
Your will be done, let Your will be done in me

For You and You alone
Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing
For the world You love
Your will be done, let Your will be done in me

Like the rising sun that shines
From the darkness comes a light
I hear Your voice and this is my
Awakening

Like the rising sun that shines
{{From the darkness comes a light}}
I hear Your voice and this is my
Awakening

Like the rising sun that shines
Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing
From the darkness comes a light
Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing

Like the rising sun that shines
Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing
Only You can raise a life
{{Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing}}


Pretty awesome. The simplicity of the words make it what it is. And don't forget the awesome "hillsong-ish" build up at the end. You know what I'm talking about. It's a powerful, powerful song. And in South Africa I choreographed an entire dance to it in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how this happened, considering I'm the hip hop teacher...not the contemporary teacher not the modern teacher and for sure not the ballet teacher. I think this dance was a just simple reminder that God likes me to dance. Any kind.


QUESTION. Why was I awake in the middle of night? Why was I dancing in the driveway like a fool? Why wasn't I sleeping like everyone else? Why wasn't I resting because 4am comes pretty early? Why did I know it was important to do this? Why wasn't I afraid of the monkeys chillin in the nearby bushes?


ANSWER. Complete and utter happiness. Sleep did not matter.


So let me take ya back.


That night we had team time in the garage, yep you read right, the garage. This was the night that everything changed. I decided to let go of everything and everyone that had ruined me. It just didn't matter after this night. So I grabbed my iphone and head to the driveway where I was just dancing. Just a happy dance party in the driveway until 3am, no big deal. Over the next few weeks I decided to write all the choreography down, which kinda sucks to do if you're a perfectionist. At first I used red for a formation change, then I accidently used the pink marker...so then I had to start the whole thing over again because then I would be mad that there was pink where there was supposed to be red. Trivial stuff right? After I wrote it all down in my little dance journal, it's a place where you write down your dances:), I thought about who should perform it. Certainly not me, that would be a joke...I gave up other genres of dance a long time ago and that would just be uncomfortable. So I thought of Company Abundance and how I wanted to share this with them. Most in high school, but all so mature and lovely.

picture credits go to jennifer blessing :)

So I taught them the dance when I came home from South Africa and Holland. And it was really cool that Suzanne gave me the chance to teach them something besides hip hop :) They all showed up in there sweat pants and kicks which made me proud but then we learned the worship piece instead...

you can watch the rehearsal at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1493732313246

This was after two rehearsals, they've performed it once so far. They're actually doing it this weekend too! But yes, even though I "gave" them this dance it's really personal for me. The song title itself is what describes my time in South Africa, an absolute awakening. These are the verses I shared with the girls before I set the choreography, each verse is relevant to my awakened heart and the vision for the dance.

"Awake, O Sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you." 

Ephesians 5:14

"But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Ephesians 2:13

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." 

Isaiah 60:1

"So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." 

Revelation 3:16

"Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light and the earth will give birth to the dead." 

Isaiah 26:19

"You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance." 

Psalm 66:11

So anyway, if you saw me perform this (the one and only time) at Life Church a few months ago, see Company Abundance dance it, or just watch the video... just know that it is a declaration of redemption. 

[[finding life after what was thought to be death.

seeking joy after what was thought to be eternal sadness.

experiencing love after what was thought to be a lifetime of pain.

dancing in order to portray an awakened heart...

from the tips of our toes to the depths of our souls]]

ESPANA.

I never thought I'd be the weird girl who could relate driving on a bus for 20+ hours to a musical. Growing up I would blare our house with the sounds of Cats, Sound of Music, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, or Oklahoma!. To this day I know too many words to the song "Memory" and have distant dreams of doing a hip hop dance dressed up like Macavity or Old Deuteronomy. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're missing out. And I'm sorry you didn't have a childhood like mine that consisted of memorizing the VHS of River Dance instead of watching Nickelodeon. So why do my 6 days in Barcelona have anything to do with my musical library? 

Behold, My Fair Lady and the song that I sang to Bethany on the bus that nobody knew.

Oh Spain! We left Wednesday night around 8 and drove all night through Holland, Belgium and France to arrive in Spain around 4 on Thursday. Why Spain? Well the Kings Kids of Barcelona hosted the European conference, so 42 dutchies and I showed up to represent KK Netherlands :). Over 21 countries were represented at the conference, including someone from Congo! Crazy! I'm sad to say, that America was the minority country there but maybe in a few years that will change! So the purpose of the conference is to have a weekend of worship, workshops, and fellowship with all the different Kings Kids groups across Europe. Sadly, I slept through most of France so I didn't get to see much of it... except a gas station. Oops. Our group consisted of staff from the different KK teams within Holland and Belgium. I got to know a lot more people within KK Holland, which was super :)

This is the conference center/hotel we got to stay at in Barcelona.

I shared a room with 5 other girls from Holland, so niiiice.

these are the boys from our team...

and these are the girls!

Our schedule was pretty packed, worship in the morning, coffee and tea break, speakers, seminars, etc. But Friday we snuck away on bikes to go to the beach and on Saturday we had the afternoon to roam Barcelona in its entirety :) It kind of reminded me a little bit of NYC sometimes, but it was a-freakin-mazing. A couple times I would look to Beth and just say "oh my gosh we're in Barcelona right now!" and it still never quite sunk in. This trip doubled the amount of countries I've visited so far, coming in at a grand total of.....4! I'm working on it :) But even tonight in Amsterdam after teaching class we were talking and I just said "wow this is something I'm going to get to tell my kids about, I taught hip hop in a basement in Amsterdam!" This has been such an amazing oppurtunity and I'm so happy that I am constantly reminded to stop and think, "I. AM.SO.BLESSED." It's been so amazing, and Spain was the perfect ending of a super busy month.

Besides enjoying Barcelona and loving every minute of it, you could say going there we (me,beth, and tam) were feeling a little dry. Teaching 3x a week on top of KK weekends every week has been a bit exhausting, but luckily for each of us Spain really was a time of renewal and rest. Of course for me it wasn't immediate, ha what else is new? I realized I was going home soon on the bus ride there so I started just "getting busy in my head" and had kind of mentally checked out already. I didn't really want to make new friendships at first because in my mind I was just thinking "I'm just going to leave again soon." But I know now that was just a distraction from what God had for me. My dearest big sis, Mrs. Burke, uses the term "cracking a code" which is very much how my super analytic brain likes to think about most things. I was trying to "crack" lots of codes this weekend which turned into a disaster. I wanted to know about my future, and mainly what comes after this year of crazy adventures. On the last night we had team time where Johnny asked us to share about our experience so far. I basically shared my frustrations about leaving Holland when I'm just getting settled, and not being able to be completely still in my mind. Seems to be a problem ay? Over thinking, over processing, over analyzing, over calculating, over doing, over saying, over planning, over worrying... are just a few things I "over" do. The line "I'm having a level 5 meltdown" has been a sentence I use on a daily basis to explain my anxious mind. But after my time in Spain, it seems to have calmed down. Behold, the word surrender and the friend who made my weekend so incredibly more clear.

Saturday night, walking to my room. Chillaxin. Ready to PTHO (pass the heck out). And a friend from room 131 was just standing outside next to my room. He went on to tell me that for him "being still" means to LET GO and surrender everything over to God. Funny thing is those words were exactly the words I hate to hear..."letting go" of stuff has been a big issue for me. Still is. He told me he was just in his room praying and felt like God was telling him to walk outside, and then 3-2-1 I turned the corner and he told me all those things that made everything click. The whole weekend I was fighting....with my future, with my present, with my past... when I should've just been surrendering it over the entire time.  Thus began the letting go process which left me feeling in tip top shape by morning :) I'm so blessed by my friend's obedience to just walk out of the room not exactly knowing why... that in itself was just cool.

So Spain treated me well! It was full of hard learned lessons, sand in my socks, dutch humor, black licorice I'll never like, 22 hour bus rides, 11 mile bike rides, and surrender.

i like to call it blessed.

So as I'm writing this, I'm gonna describe where I'm sitting because it's wonderful. Well first of all I'm in Belgium, not Holland. (Tamara and I drove in on Friday afternoon to teach for the Belgium Kings Kid's team until Monday morning) We get super special treatment and get to stay at the Belgium leader's house, The Biesbrouck's. They have a the coolest three story house and with so much character I wish I wasn't too lazy to take pictures. But try and imagine something super quaint, cozy, and in a small city called Kojrik. We drove 4 hours to get here, which for Europe, that's a "long drive." Hard not to laugh due to the numerous amount of road trip to Colorado and Florida :) Thanks for living large mom!

I decided to do a blog about my adaptation to Holland. Or you could call it a culture shock. I documented my meals in Belgium just for this blog. For cold meals, it's an assortment of bread, butter, jam, and of course the "hagel slag"... which is a fancy word for chocolate sprinkles. Yep, sprinkles. I'm still trying to explain to people that "hagel slag" goes on ice cream and is considered somewhat of a dessert in America, but it's not going well :) oh, the culture. This summer most of my time out of the U.S. was spent in South Africa, so this month in Holland has been a learning experience for sure. My first day here Beth showed me my bike that would be my main way of transportation [pause for remembrance of my sweet, sweet, sweet Nissan Murano sitting at home HOPEFULLY not being driven :)] It was a mountain bike and everyone laughed when I said I had that kind of bike. To myself I just kept thinking, "what other kind of bike is there?" Of course my best friend Bonnie told me "normal" bikes are called, "cruisers." But I thought my mountain bike was perfect...until it was too tall and prohibited me from sitting sometimes. Tamara has a car which has been such a blessing when it comes to driving to Amsterdam twice a week, except she just looked confused when I told her that it was the smallest car I'd ever ridden in. So needless to say, the food and the transportation has been an adventure in itself :)

 

After countless conversations about why it's not weird for me to drive everywhere, I decided to give up. Walking everywhere is so much better for you, but I'm still so grateful for our "let's drive to the mailbox" culture. It just seems to make sense. Why would you walk when you can drive? Haha, these conversations have been so interesting and eye opening all at the same time. When everyone sees that I have two iphones they just look at me kind of crazy and say "why do you have two!" and I just say the obvious, "this one is for America, and this one is for Holland..." I've been lucky to have such a great job since I was 16 years old and I'm proud of the things I've paid for....i.e. my car and more than 2 iphones due to lake trips and other miscellaneous accidents. It's interesting though, to realize the things I have taken for granted and to realize that some things that are "normal" to me... aren't to others. Oh, culture.

Last week for Arise, we got to take a  photo shoot in Amsterdam, it was so cool! I just have two photos so far of the day but I thought I'd share them :) We walked around the city changing from Hip Hop outfits to Modern outfits... of course I'm only posting these for now! 

Yep, that's me upside down :)

Tamara, Bethany, and I :)

Teaching at the Belgium boot camp was such a blast!! They were so willing to learn, it was so encouraging to have kids that were so in love with dancing. The boys at this boot camp really got into every piece we through at them and they were such a blessing this weekend. I gave them a pretty advanced hip hop section and they worked so hard to master it, it was so awesome! Tamara and I were so tired and exhausted at the start of the weekend but they were so nice to us and so unbelievably grateful we came. After being there for a few hours we were so blessed by the people that the rest of the weekend was nothing short of a treat! :) They gave us a warm meal before we left and gave us candy and made us cute little name tags. The people were so nice! I will say it was a bit of a challenge at times because we were so tired, but every time I had to teach I had enough energy. Other than the times I was teaching I was pretty much exhausted though. People in Belgium don't use english as regularly as people in Holland so sometimes I wanted to scream because I didn't understand what people were saying... but in the end I made it through. In my dance classes I made the kids introduce themselves in Dutch and talk about their dance background and I could understand mostly everything which is SO exciting! These are the group pictures of this past weekend, truly a blessing to meet so many kids that were eager to learn.

After our Kings Kid's weekend in Belgium we had to drive back to Holland... then straight to Amsterdam to meet up with Bethany for monday night classes with Arise! We had this ongoing joke about "what Belgium did to us" and these are the pictures to describe it! Tamara has been basically our chauffeur for weeks now since we can't drive here... Beth and I "made" her take a day off to rest after our delirious ride home that night :) It's been so tiring, but so fun... I promise!

I'm signing off now... going to teach classes in Apeldoorn tonight. And then tomorrow.... SPAIN!

:)

sit down.

So I've been in Holland for 17 days, and the days are starting to run together. But I'm going to play a game of catch up so I can bring everyone up to date on the wonderful world of Connie :)


So I arrived at Schipol Airport Amsterdam on Oct. 11th, which felt a bit like home considering my Kings Kids team spent over 7 hours waiting there one time. The patience I acquired while being on a team with 31 people this summer still amazes me. Tamara  picked me up and drove straight to Amersfoort for some errands then home to Epe! [For all you Texans, Epe is pronounced ape-uh, not eeep :)] We met Beth at Heidebeek and I got to say hello to old friends and meet new ones in the office. I talk about going to Heidebeek a lot, which is the YWAM base in Epe. The Kings Kids office is inside Heidebeek and we have all the KK weekends here, and I come here to use the internet :) It's so green and it's hidden inside this beautiful forest, complete love.

We (Beth and I) get the privilege to stay at the founder of this base's home, The Fountains. They have a house right down the rode from Heidebeek and we can walk or ride our bike to the office in a matter of minutes. For spoiled Americans, we have a pretty sweet set up :) We each have our own bed and share a bathroom that no one else uses. The house has been such a blessing. We don't spend much time there because we're so busy, and I find myself only sleeping there and packing & unpacking bags for the weekends. This is picture of my room via iphone, the bed is completed with my unicorn pillow pet :)

After taking a few days to get settled, we had our first Kings Kids weekend. I was so excited to see old friends from my summer tour team and meet the new ones! These teams are different from the summer ones in that it's a "year around" team. They have bootcamps in October & November where they learn dances and dramas, meet the team, complete devo's, and learn about what Kings Kids is. Starting in January, once a month they go on outreaches as a team. Team 1 is led by Marc and Kirsten Wessels, who were my team leaders on my summer tour so I was ecstatic to see them during my first weekend here. Kirsten served as my 1 on 1 mentor this summer so she was someone I became close to really fast. They are such an example for me, and they made me feel such at home this summer. I was so blessed by them. With my team leaders being people I already knew, the weekend was easier to go into. A few more participants from my team were also assigned to this year around team so the first day was full of hugs from old friends. It was so encouraging to hear everyone say, "wow you've changed so much", "I'm so proud of you Conn" again and again from the people that witnessed everything I went through in South Africa. I'll share a bond with these people that I'll never fully be able to explain to others, but what a beautiful bond it is. I taught this team a dance to a song called "make war" which was a spiritual battle in itself. The inspiration behind it was from Psalm 18:34, "He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great." The piece mainly had boys in it, which was actually better than all girls because it was more powerful when the boys did it. Instantly the team understood the idea I had about the piece and the representation of being "a soldier for God." Pretty magical.

Arise began after the first Kings Kids weekend. We have a location in Amsterdam and another in Apeldoorn where we teach 3 classes per night. I teach hip hop while Beth teaches ballet and modern. The classes are going great,  I teach three different groups of dutchies how to hip hop per week! At first I really struggled with how I would be perceived, let's face it... hip hop is interpreted in so many ways. At home with Suzanne's, I've been there for 4 years... and I was the first hip hop teacher they really ever had. I've had 4 years to build up everything I have there, and I found myself struggling with the fact I would only have a month to teach my concepts and beliefs of how to use hip hop as a ministry.

The second weekend here was Kings Kids weekend number 2, with team 2 to meet and teach dances to. Johnny and Tamara Meijerink are the leaders of this team. Johnny also serves as the national leader of Kings Kids Netherlands and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them better during this trip. I saw some familiar faces on this team, but mostly all new ones. It was kind of refreshing to meet new people within Kings Kids who didn't know who I was or my story. Kind of exciting. I taught the same dance to this team because the program leader for team 2, Tamara, liked "Make War" so much she wanted it set on team 2 as well. Teaching it to team 2 offered different dynamics...mainly because the group was all girls, and the majority of them had never danced let alone do hip hop. So saying "get into it!" and "dance strong" was pretty frightening to most of them I think. It was a struggle for me to adapt from breezing through with team 1, to having to work a bit harder to explain the power behind this dance to team 1. But in the end it was great, and both teams were a joy to teach.

So that should bring everyone up to speed about what my weeks have been looking like. I teach monday through wednesday, have thursdays off, and on the weekends I'm completely booked! I love being this busy again. I've met some many new and interesting people along the way, and had time to spend with old friends. One day I met Naomi and Manoah in Amsterdam and got to actually see the city, not just the airport for once! It was a nice day. Another day I got to use public transportation :) and visited my dear friends, Jedidja Dogger and The Wessels in Almelo. They took me to a restaurant called the "Texas Rib House" and it was so cool Holland's take on what a cowboy is. I had dinner in Zwolle with some friends as well! But for the most part I'm teaching dance....a lot. What a joy! I also get to take class from Beth which is helping me restore dance fully in my life, which started this summer in South Africa. Ballet is kicking my butt as usual though :)

One thing I'm learning is to listen. Learning to sit still I guess. The first few days we had worship and teachings I was so busy in my mind thinking, "what"s next?" and "what now?" People close to me could sense that I was going a million miles an hour in my head and after several people kept saying "enjoy this time" "take time to rest" and "just sit in God's presence" it finally hit me that I needed to take a seat, and be still. After undergoing such big things this summer, it only makes sense to have a time of peace and comfort. But of course, my over analytic brain wanted to keep processing it all. In the past weeks I'm learning how to wait, and listen. And I must say it is such a challenge. I'm brand new, but I'm learning how to be this person, how to grow into who I am made to be. So if you're looking for ways to pray for me, pray for peace and stillness of my soul. My mind is constantly searching for things to think about.... that I shouldn't be. Not a day goes by that I don't get reminded of who I was, the places I went, and the things I did. It's exhausting. I'm learning how to find authority in God and cast those things out my mind and mainly my dreams. 

Bethany has been nothing but a blessing when it comes to these topics and last night she knew I was starting to break so we sat and talked. The latest issue on my mind is.... of course it's no surprise... my past. I'm haunted by so many horrible decisions, and moments in my life. If you're reading this and have no idea what I'm talking about, feel free to ask me sometime. As much as I know my mistakes are what ultimately attack the new person that I am, I also know that they made me into who I am. Would I want to take those years back? I'm not sure. I learned so much during my bumpy walk down that road. And the freedom I've found from owning up to the things I did is nothing short of serene. I love that I have let so much of my past go, but I struggle because it continues to effect me daily. I've debated with myself again and again why I continue to do this to myself, but I know in the end it's just the enemy discouraging me. Meeting all these new people is divine, I'm enjoying every minute. But always in the back of my head I'm thinking I wonder what they would think if they knew this or if they knew that. Second guessing is never good. But I want so bad to be real. To be raw. I wish I could just meet everyone and say "Hi I'm Connie, ask me anything" because since my transformation I find being honest is the best way to show people how much God has done in me. Pretty weird right? The things that I hid for so long are now the things I want to tell people in the sense I can say "but now I am free of all of it". So once again I find myself in "limbo land" figuring out if I tell the whole world my story, or sit back and wait for the right person to share it with. Trivial.

<3

And so it begins...

Family and Friends ,

The purpose of this blog is to share all the amazing opportunities I have been blessed with for the upcoming year. I have been so lucky to have many encouraging and supportive people in my life and if you are reading this …you’re either one of them, or you stumbled across my corner of the internet.

After my summer trip to Holland and South Africa, my life was turned upside down and inside out. No words can really describe everything I experienced while I was gone, but I can try. Before I left, you could say my life was a bit “confused”. My transition from high school to college was a struggle for various reasons, and needless to say my freshmen year of college was tough, or maybe "rough" is a better adjective. Being in South Africa really broke me of all the complications in my life and was a genuine restoration of my life. While being in Holland and S.A., I was asked to help Bethany Brantley open a Christian dance studio much like Suzannes. Along with helping open a dance school, I was asked to teach more “boot camps” for missionary teams that travel throughout the year. So here I am in Holland.  

So this is what the next year looks like for me…

From October 11^th- November 10^th, I’ll be in Holland working with Bethany alongside Y.W.A.M (youth with a mission), and Kings Kids (this is a Y.W.A.M organization that focuses on using the arts in the mission field). During this month I’ll be teaching classes at the dance school, working in the Kings Kids office, teaching dance boot camps to 3 different teams, and I get to attend a staff conference in Spain!

From February through April, I’ll be in Holland with more American dance teachers like me that were involved this past summer with Kings Kids. Our job will be full time dance teachers at the school that will hopefully be fully up and running by then! We will be teaching in two different locations within Holland, and when we’re not teaching we will be helping out in the office at much as we can!

If someone would’ve told me six months ago that this is what I would be doing this year, I wouldn’t have believed them. Sometimes all of this doesn’t feel like my life, but I am ecstatic that it is. I feel so lucky.