8 days to go.

8 days? Time has flown. People keep coming out of the woodwork to help, and mainly keep me sane. We've learned the 3 benefit pieces: "Orphans, Kingdoms" "Albertine" & "Flags".... all of which RULE. And we started and finished Andrea's piece "Heavy in Your Arms" within 2 rehearsals. "Heavy" is exactly the word that represents the piece, and here's the video that will be played before the dance....

  

It's going to be awesome. This dance is taking me to a new level.... having to place ourselves in a darker mindset than all the other happier pieces we do. It's challenging, but worth it. The story it tells is about a struggle and the burden that it becomes on your life. It's deep. The video contains a verse from psalm that pretty much inspired the idea of the piece. Basically, no matter if our bones are withering away...God is our refuge and strength and provides a stronghold to shelter us in times of trouble. Can't wait for it!

dear beginning, i like you.

In me, in you 
Orphans, kingdoms 
Wide eyes and paper crowns 
Time will hold us, 
Time eroders 
We're wrinkling children now 

We are wondering where the wild wind blows 
We are happy here 'cause the wild wind knows 
What we are 
Orphans, kingdoms 

In me, in you 
Friends, explorers 
Babes with coats of arms 
A world inside us 
A feast, a harvest 
Each soul a son, a star 


We are wondering where the wild wind blows 
We are happy here 'cause the wild wind knows 
What we are 
Orphans, kingdoms 

Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die 
We will look our waker in the eye 
Raise a flagon and drink to your health 
Who is he that can conquer himself? 

We are wondering where the wild wind blows 
We are happy here 'cause the wild wind knows 
What we are 
Orphans, kingdoms

Day 1 went amazing.

too excited to sleep.

michelle is amazing.

her piece was a joy to learn.

everyone was so present.... and on the same page.

(pretty hard for 16 creative dancers to do)

can't believe this is the beginning.

but, it's just the beginning.

Beneficial.

January has one word: rehearsals.

Choreography starts this week, friends come from all over.

My body hurts already, but I have a 2 year old's enthusiasm.

So, February 4, 2011 has become the day I'm counting down to.

It's also the day we're going to reap benefits for children in South Africa like these:

BOTTLEBRUSH.

The biggest slum in Durban, SA.

HIV/AIDS

meal trucks

water

glass

blood

siblings

incest

violence & abuse.

Never thought I'd hear those words the way I heard them before we performed for 800 little kids at the Bottlebrush School that day. What heartbreak. On the plane ride to Holland in October, I had an idea. Let's make a lot of money somehow, and send it their way. How? Well, I know a lot of people who dance, and who love to dance. We're going to dance... and sing (I will not sing, you are welcome) to raise money for this city. "Bottlebrush" is a flower, it's meant to be something beautiful.... and the village that is called Bottlebrush, has no visible bottlebrush. How perfect that something broken and lost is entitled a name with something to live up to. I believe the money we send there will help bloom the city.

So spread the word.

Help be apart of the movement in Durban.

Come to Life Church on February 4th.

Be ready to listen to amazing songs like this:

Christmas Splendor. {{more than just a candle scent}}

So the two main holidays I brag about to all my friends in Holland, have come and gone. Besides dodging conversations that started with "you're so different now" and waking up any earlier than noon, my celebrations were legit. Too legit to quit. - thank you Jack (a.k.a. Dad) for letting me listen to  97.9 THE BOX FM in your Bonneville back in 1997. My taste in music couldn't get any better or broad.

THANKSGIVING LOVE.

House divided, like usual with our ATX relatives.

My youngest sister and the best pup in the world, Copper.

I LOVE AMERICA. 

My Aunt Margie turns her town house garage into a super classy meal time venue.

WITH LOVE, DECEMBER.

After the Aggies BTHO Texas, December was upon us. My best friend Bonnie is obsessed with Christmas things like candles, car fresheners, and matching green with none other than.... red. She was my date to the Suzanne's School of Dance teacher Christmas party and A&M Consolidated's Holiday Choir Concert where we watched my other younger sister sing while we ate cake, cake,... and cake.

  

- my sister sings real good -

- & this is Jack - 

These past two months have been full of dancing! From Dance Revolution in Dallas, Christmas in the Park, to Christmas parties with fake snow ball fights... it has all been a blast. 

I'm really lucky to witness amazing moments like these: 

Surprise Animal hats for Xmas in the park performance :)

Getting to dance at DR-Dallas alongside an old buddy

Taking Katie to Xtended in Houston, where I learned everything I know

Celebrating a great first half of the dance year with great students!

MI FAMILIA,

To kick start my Christmas travels, I visited Bonnie's family for the second time in San Antonio. Don't hate me but yes, white people do reside there, in mass amounts. (pause for gasp) I ate too much, specifically of the flaming hot cheeto food type and learned what the heck spode is. For those of you kitchen, maternal, or girl-knowledge challenged, it's plates and whatnot with "Christmas Spirit" printed on them. My mom was embarrassed I had to ask what it was. O-V-E-R I-T. After I visited San Antonio, we drove the treacherous 16 hour drive in the 'burb to Colorado Springs, CO to my grandparent's home. After driving around Europe for days at a time, a 16 hour car ride in a suburban with 3 people and 2 dogs seemed like a treat! Colorado was full of mega-church Christmas eve services, singing happy birthday to Jesus, and the family program where my cousins and sister demonstrate their musical talents. I ran in the snow, owned my family at CLUE, and taught my little cousins how to break dance. 

So, the break was successful. I apologize for this being a super long post, but it is what it is. Hailey Burke turned 7 and we (Bonnie and I) got her a huge bear for her birthday. Can't believe it!

my honorary little sister <3

Now, onto starting the blog post with the details/vision behind the benefit concert on February 4th. 

Mark your calendars now because it's going to be worth your while. 

This weekend is the first rehearsal that 32 dancers will be apart of.

This weekend marks the beginning of feeding hundreds in South Africa.

Awesomeness.

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.