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ARTS MISSION
IN COSTA RICA
We've been invited to teach in Rony Chaves church, in Tibas, quarter of San José, Costa Rica's capital : there you find seven pastors and a thousand members' lively community, from all generations... several training schools are proposed, one of them is abouts arts and very dynamic. They work with south american local television wich is very impressive.
We started morning workshops with small groups of dancers, worship leaders from different churches.
The skylines of training was very different according to every person called in this ministry. We met Jenny, flamenco dancer, who is beginning to work on redempting this dance in worship and intercession. There were contemporary dancers with high level, then other people like Andréa, dance leader (?) in this church, who never ever took a secular dance lesson but learnt in God's intimity. Different ways, each one had strenghts and weeknesses, things we wanted to work at ...
It was a time when we put down important foundations about our identity and our meaning/understanding of « body soul and spirit » ; together, we chose the tree of Life, not the tree of the knowledge, for we didn't want to see arts going a wrong way in the church.
Evening workshops were opened to all public and we had to welcome up to a hundred people alltogether ! Many youngsters, boys and girls, and also adults and solid grandmas came to join us !
Sports or gymnastics teachers, trained mimes, dancers of Israeli dances, ballet dancers, beginners, children and teenagers hip hops How to federate everyone of them ? Simply inviting them to live unity. We went from a color to an other on the visible demonstration palette : experimental laboratories where the body is a spiritual parable, worship times laying on the ground to break a wrong vision where technique is our value... and hip hop ! Hip hop created an amazing dynamic and lead us to choregraphy we presented on the next saterday, during a youth meeting. Yougsters from different churches met when Aquillas came, an evangelist and... an internationnaly known painter. It was a wonderful experience to learn to work together as a couple with our different styles and sensitivities, in the middle of all this such loving youngsters.
The next week, changing program : we focused on the profetic dimension in worship and worked with all the worship team, dancers and even singers and musiciens. Then God suddenly opened their eyes. They'd never had a worship workshop together : till then, dancers simply followed the singers leading, joining the musiciens.
Dare to follow unction, dare to go where we've never been before, dare to leave leading role to a dancer or an inspired musician... And suddenly a flutist begins to move among the dancers, an inspired dancer sings, a singer dances, there is no more role or tab, only just freedom and creativity.
You can say that our Costa Rican friends have a very strong sense of the collective. Their worship and adoration are so powerful and their artistic capacities so wide ! By sharing our feelings together, we saw the birth of very nice things matching together, totally new to them. It was a key to encourrage them as they were just preparing their next worship album.
We went to Costa Rica, and took with us a few things, and 4 banners profeticly to this land. One of them represents a Lion, another one friends had given us specially : this banner represents a horseman going through the territory. We understood the power of sutch an emblem when we realised the story of Conquistadors on this land. We had to position against this wrong spirit of conquest. Another one, the right one, the good and loving one, we have to bring it back in the middle of the people. We used those two banners twice during powerful times, once in our hands, and once in the hands of 2 natives men.
The last 2 banners, hudge and flowing, have a particular story : we were given the cloth during an conference of intercession for the nations. It represents the Quetzal's color, the bird that is an emblem to the country, fast disapearing. God called the Costa Rican to bring back in his breast (?) the true colours of their cleaned inheritance. We gladly offered it to them.
Interview : Christine
