In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pretty excitable person. I’ve been compared to a chipmunk by many, many people, on many, many occasions throughout my life. I have the heart rate of a baby mouse, I walk with the speed of someone twice my height, and I can go from zero to 60 on the emotion rollercoaster in under 3 seconds. There’s just a lot in life to be excited about, and along with that unfortunately comes a lot in life to be scared about or stressed about. Keeping that in mind, welcome to my Christmas Season on the Africa Mercy…a season where there’s something to be involved in every night of the week, and for an extrovert like me who gets excited about any chance to celebrate, or dress up, or perform, this is fantastic! I love it! I could write an accurate parody of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” about my Christmas Season onboard entitled, “The Very Overcommitted Miss Beth:”
- On Monday, she watched a Christmas Hallmark movie with the Hallmark channel lovelies.
- On Tuesday, she took photos of the kids welcoming Sinterklaas to the ship and sat on the floor of the cafe to watch “The Star” on the big screen with all the kids of the ship.
- On Wednesday, she helped direct the dress rehearsal for the Academy’s Global Community gathering (which involved wrangling the entire elementary into nativity costumes), narrated the story of Santa Lucia as the Scandinavians processed through a dark midships with candles on their heads, and then booked it over to hand chime rehearsal.
- On Thursday, she directed Key of Sea’s acapella rehearsal, getting ready for the Christmas concert on the weekend (which she was also directing) and grabbed her ukulele before heading out to the dock for Carol’s by Candlelight to play along with the 3rd-5th graders, after which she stayed up until 1am baking gingerbread pieces with her sweet roomie for the upcoming gingerbread house competition.
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| Our cabin door is ready for the door decorating competition! |
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| As is my classroom door! |
- On Friday…ok fine, you got me…no Christmas activities on Friday because Friday means sitting in the café with the other teachers drinking Frappuccino’s (and making snowflakes for the upcoming Christmas Concert) and then watching Poldark in the evening!
- On Saturday she participated in the gingerbread house competition and directed the AFM Christmas Concert, in which she directed the elementary choir, played handchimes, sang in Key of Sea, sang in a Christmas Quartet, and read a Christmas story.
- On Sunday, she rested…and played handbells during the advent service.
- THE END
I love doing each and every one of those things and I wouldn’t trade them for anything! I get energy from being around people, which means that while all those events may sound exhausting, for me it’s so energizing! Perhaps a little too energizing on occasion. So much energy and excitement and stress coursing through one little body can, on occasion, cause an explosion, which usually looks like me sitting in my classroom at midnight crying while facetiming with Kate. For example, take the Christmas concert last night. I loved every second of that concert and I think the audience did as well! It was magical! There were however moments beforehand that were not so magical. Moments that no one else saw.
- Moments like me lugging bags of paper shreddings for “snow” up to my classroom for a week from what seemed like every shredder on the ship.
- Moments of hearing other crew members lament that there was yet another “Christmas Concert” (apparently not understanding that the other events weren’t in fact “Christmas Concerts” but a classical concert three weeks ago and a Global Community Gathering two weeks ago, and yes, that’s a lot of events, but they didn’t have to come if they didn’t want to and it made me feel rather unwanted).
- Moments when, after not having enough people sign up to perform, a name was added to the list only for me to later find out that his friends had signed him up as a joke (cue me in my classroom crying at midnight on the phone with Kate…they were just trying to be funny I suppose, and didn’t think how it would make the little director looking for more performers feel).
- Moments where I cut out beautiful snowflakes in Elsa themed colors to hang in our practice room to set the mood for Key of Sea’s last rehearsal for “Let It Go” only to find out just before rehearsal that some members wouldn’t be making it (it’s quite hard to have a final rehearsal without all the members of a small singing group).
- Moments like meeting for a final quartet rehearsal 30 minutes before the concert and a quarter of your quartet not showing up (if you are reading this, quartet-member-who-shall-remain-nameless, don’t worry! It all turned out well in the end! Thank you for knowing your part!).
All of that led up to me sitting in my cabin by myself (not something I do often) yesterday evening before the concert and listening to Casting Crowns sing “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” in an effort to calm myself down. No, not everything will always go right, and sometimes, despite my best efforts, people don’t show up, or I mess up, or I forget something, but how lovely it is to know that God cares. Last night, He showed me so clearly that he cared about my little singing group and about bags of fake snow and about mics and lights that work and about singing the right notes and the right lyrics…all insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But He cares because He knows how much I care. And He cares for me. He cares for me so well. The concert last night was my last Christmas event/performance this season and despite the details that had me amped up and worried, it was delightful…delightful to see the incredible crowd that turned out to support us…delightful to be a part of such an incredible group of performers…delightful to see the details come together…delightful to watch the faces of adults and kids alike when it started to snow…delightful to see the amount of people who appeared with brooms to help me clean up all the paper shreddings and glitter when it was all said and done…delightful to feel the delight that I believe God took in stepping into the details for me.
And now, a public apology is in order: Housekeeping, I really tried to sweep up the snow, but I fear we may be finding paper shreddings in nooks and crannies for years to come! Sorry about that!
