In 2018, I did a special project with my Cambodian friends from English Ballet Theatre Cambodia. Later my sister joined up to be the guitar player because we sang a song about walking in the light.
This project was funded by the Lewis Grant. We did this project with Melissa. Below she has helped me explain what the project was about.
The aim of the project was to utilize oral methods of transmission to share the gospel. Working in partnership with SIL and the One Story Project, the dancers learned the storying model and then participated in a bible storying group. After this they chose a subset of stories and then choreographed the stories that they then shared with children in the province. The choreography was such that there were elements that the children could learn so that they were not just observers but participants as well.
We learned that there are many way to share a story using props, words, songs, movements and sounds. One lady came and taught us about stories from the bible and how to share them with others. We took turns telling stories, it was really fun. We all chose our favourite stories and then picked one to work on together. We chose the birth of Jesus.
To finish the project we had to take this story, decide how to tell it to other people and go to Kampong Cham and tell it to 2 groups of Cambodian children. We decided to dance the story because we thought the children would like to see dance. The amazing part was, Christmas was coming, it was a perfect time to share the good news of salvation.
This is a short section of the story. I am dancing Mary my friend Neang is telling the story...
We worked by ourselves to choreograph the story. This was the first time for us to do something like this without our teachers. It was hard to find the movements for them to understand and we had to be creative in order to achieve it. There were lots of times we felt discouraged and wanted to give up, thinking that it would never happen. We prayed to God for wisdom, courage and strength.
God answered our prayer, the children enjoyed it. After we shared the story, we asked if they would like to learn some movements from the dance. We didn’t think they would enjoy it because they had never seen this kind of dance before. But they were happy and curious, they wanted to do more. This made us feel so glad and we felt God’s presence. The children were so sweet and fun to teach. They were trying to dance like us even though it was their first time. Because of their heart and passion for dance, it touched our hearts and made us feel that this was God’s plan. I was so happy to know that I can be a tool to bring people back to God, especially children.
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