So the evening was piano and guitar, handing out certificates, choir time, and some worship. AND most importantly, some friends baked some cookies and I hired a local lady to bake 400 more, so we had a free cookie bar all evening long! It was delicious.
Over the course of the year, I had quite a few private music students. 16 piano students and 10 guitar students, when I actually add them up. Some stayed all the way through, some quit after a few months, some just started a couple months ago. Most are at a beginner level. This has been... not really outreach, in terms of direct witnessing or anything, but it has been a really good time. A way to encourage, teach them a little bit, and hopefully show them a little bit of love. I also had to do a lot of learning myself, as I didn't really know anything substantial about guitar before coming here, now I know a LITTLE bit. It definitely has been really good for building relationships here, and for them and myself to practice perseverance. It also has opened up my eyes and shown me how terrible a piano student I must have been - sorry!!
For the music night, I had no idea what to expect. No one's had a piano recital here before. There's been a couple worship nights, but the people who led them are gone and no one has tried since. I was hoping the parents of my kids would come, but also hoping that people of some local communities would attend. We had it in the sanctuary of the Villa Nueva Church, but I really wanted more of a coffeehouse feel instead of straight pews. So... do we set for 50? or 400? We really had no idea.
In the end, Whit and I moved the very heavy benches all to the sides, creating a semi circle, and set up 10 tables in the middle. So table space was about 80 people, overflow/benches could be a few hundred if needed. Turns out, it was perfect. It was a great relaxed atmosphere, the tables were mostly full and the benches were nicely full. I have no idea how many people really came, I would guess around 200 hundred but I actually don't know. But it was a perfect feel of not empty, and not crammed in full.
Posters were posted:
Thank you to a million people for editing these! I struggled.
Now onto the actual evening.
Setup and practice before
Just the beginning of the cookies!
A grade 12 student kindly translated for me
The youngest student, in grade 4, starting off the recital part.
I tried to teach both classical music (with staves and notes) and also contemporary stuff with just chords. A few students chose to play a worship song, with just the chords, for the recital. For these pieces, Whitney and/or I sang along so that the song made sense!
The students waiting to perform
With the guitar students, I played along as well, just to help them out.
Certificates
Grade 8 to 12 students, VOLUNTEERS only
Worship time at the end. Whitney recruited her husband (on the drums) and some other local people who often sing in worship teams at church.
And that was the evening!! It was crazy, really. So many moving parts, and I was involved in every single part, plus managing everything. It was stressful beforehand, but the evening itself was more than I could ever have wished for, it was oh so smooth and amazing.
- Thank you to all the students for practicing and learning so much this year, and for being brave and playing in front of all those people:)
- Thank you to Whitney, David and Nancy for helping set up, baking cookies, taking pictures, managing the food, filling in for random music parts, writing in the certificates, cleaning up afterwards, and all the other ways you helped! So appreciative!
- And THANK YOU to God, who loves to gives us gifts such as music. What a rich life we live
~ to God be the glory ~
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