Merry Christmas Everyone!

I can't believe it's already a week before Christmas. The time really flew by so quickly. I feel like it should be a few weeks before the Paul premiere, but here we are almost ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, I think Holly's last blog was pretty precise. We haven't been doing a whole lot of dancing lately, but alot of painting. I think by the time we are finished transforming the shack into "Surrendered School of the Arts" I will be a professional wall trimmer:) And my favorite colors are officially mossy green, chocolate brown, and burnt Orange. The studio is coming along great. We are pretty much done with all the painting, we just have to sand the beams....which look wonderful by the way. We also have to finish the floor and some other last minute things.

This is the last blog that we will be writing before Christmas break. Everyone will be going home to family and friends to enjoy a much needed break! Please continue praying for us as we are finishing up the new studio. We still have some needs, but are confident that the Lord will provide them in full! You can also see esactly what they are by looking at our website. www.paradosiballetcompany.com. Also be praying that the second we open the doors of the new school, that our attendance would be exactly the amount we need to run, and Lord willing more.

Thank you again for your prayers and support! They are very much appreciated!
Merry Christmas!
Whittannie

Hello Everyone!

So sorry this is a tad late. I tried to think of an excuse, but well there are none. I just kept forgetting to write it.

This past Saturday we had a performance in Kent at the church that Michel and Amanda attend. We did " The Worship Project" for a women s breakfast. It was really nice to worship the Lord with other sisters in Christ.

The latest project we are attacking is Surrendered School of the Arts. For the past two weeks our days have consisted of taking ballet class in the morning and then heading over to the new space to transform it into a studio. It seemed a little daunting at first, but after the paint went up on the walls you can begin to see what the final product will look like. Quite exciting really!

Well that is it in a nutshell, I have a baby screaming in my ear right now so I am going to keep it short. I am a nanny, I do not have a child of my own.

God bless you all!

Holly

Ok, here it is..FINALLY! So I figured since we all had a break from the studio last week, that perhaps a break from the blog would be appropriate..hope this didn't throw anyone off! But, never fear! The blog is back..and in style..ha ha OK, enough with the procrastination already and on with the show...

Speaking of procrastination...any of you have roommates? that distract whilst trying to write blogs?:) AH HEM..

So, as all of you know in the last blog we were getting ready for the 'A Walk With Paul' performance, and now it's over! Thank you all so much for your prayers and support leading up to this performance, and for all of the volunteers helping us out, and the extras..you guys rock! The day of the performance pretty much consisted of getting there early that morning, setting up all day for the silent auction and our set, dress rehearsal, eating, and turning right around and doing the whole show all over again! We were totally going off of God's grace that day!

From the Silent Auction we raised enough for the first two months rent for our new studio, Praise God! And the performance as a whole pretty much went off without a hitch..it was so exciting to see the dream that Joel and Tenille had had for years, and that each one of us has adopted as our own, finally come out to play. Of course, as with any production, there are always things that need to be tweaked, and I think we are all very eager to get to work on those things, but it is very exciting to see the potential that it has to be a tool that God can use. After all, we can't do anything on our own strength, only with His!

Well, I do hope you all have truly had a wonderful past two weeks, and I'm sure the next person to write this will be more timely;). God Bless!

~Sarah

WE'VE ARRIVED!

Well guys, this is it! We are thrilled to be twenty-two hours away from our "A Walk With Paul" premier! The lights have been set, the props have been prepared, the costumes have been sewn, and the last minute touches have been made to the choreography. Every single thing that we can conceivably think to do has been done. This concept occurred to me as we were praying this morning before our final rehearsal: we have accomplished everything humanly possible, and now the show in it's entirety is out of our hands. However, this is just where the Lord desires for us to be! We have nothing to do but place our complete trust in our God, and guess what? He has promised that if we commit our way to the Lord and trust in Him, He will bring it to pass! (Psalm 37:5)

The show will open with "A Worship Project," a collection of choreographed worship songs that are designed do just as the name conveys- worship! After a brief intermission will follow the premier of "A Walk With Paul," a forty-five minute dramatic ballet recounting the life, testimony, trials, and death of the most infamous apostle in the Bible.

Tomorrow is going to be insane. We are probably going to be out of our minds. People are going to be stretching, practicing, sewing, sleeping, decorating, folding, eating... most likely simultaneously! When seven o'clock hits, though, all of that will mean nothing to us. Our purpose is twofold. We long to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and relay the good news of the Gospel to everyone in that building. Our prayer is that not one person leaves the show untouched by the Holy Spirit's presence.

Ours is going to be a powerful account of the story, and lives are going to be changed.
Will yours?

~"Fun Size"

I KNOW IT'S LATE.....BUT HERE'S A FEW THOUGHTS

For those of you who keep up with our blogs on a weekly basis, you may know by now that you can expect to find a new blog on Monday. And if it's not there by the time you go to bed on Monday, it's sure to be there at least by Tuesday. So where has the blog been this week?!? I know you are probably worried that we have fallen off the face of the earth. But alas....WE ARE STILL HERE! I blame this late blog on the costumes for the new ballet. I literally have been dancing in the morning, sewing until its time to make dinner and enjoy some time with my husband, and then it's back to sewing until it's time for bed. But aside from some purchasing some essential items for the roman soldiers and a few stiches here and there- I can say that costumes are about done. And its a good thing too since tomorrow's Dress Rehearsal. And since the costumes are so close to being done- I feel obligated to inform you all on what's been going on with us.

So let me rewind to last week so that you don't feel left out. We had a crazy week of rehearsals. On top of the usual, we had an extra rehearsal on Friday night from about 9:30 pm to midnight. And after a couple hours of sleep Friday night, we were up to drive to Leavenworth to perform at a woman's conference. We rented a 15 passenger van for the day. Talk about hilarious! 10 girls and 2 guys on a 3 1/2 hour drive both ways. And even though the van seemed to be falling apart and had gum on the seatbelts- it was so fun to be all together. If you were able to be a fly on the wall for that roadtrip, you would find Cathleen sewing wine skins, Audrey and Sarah giggling to no end- driving Tennille (and probably Joel) crazy, Amanda making roman soldier arm guards, Michael thinking that we were all too crazy and trying to tune out the giggling, Cara squished in the very back seats next to stinky costumes and everyones bags and all of us singing along to the ever so famous "Friends" by Michael W. Smith. Let me tell you that there is nothing like being with the Paradosicals in the van for 7 hours!

But about the performance- it was great! I (and others) felt very out of it. I mean we literally jumped out of the van and onto the stage. And we all learned that God works best when we are weak. Thank you Jesus for that! It was an amazing time of worship with these women. Their workshop theme was "Be still and know that I am God" and I think that is a great thing to remember for each of us.

Aside from the crazy weekend of dancing- we are finishing all the details for our Premiere! It is officially about a week away and we see the light.

Please keep praying for us. (as you can tell by this blog- we are all a bit crazy and need all the prayer we can get!)

Enjoy your weekend and we will see you next Friday!

Blessings to you all!!!
Amanda

Back and Forth

16 days, 384 hours, 23,040 minutes and 1,382,400 seconds. That's how long we have until our "A Walk With Paul" premiere- and I can't decide whether or not to be terrified or excitified. (just thought I'd throw in a made up word for all you scholarly types out there.)

This past weekend, we did a piece from "Paul" during Puyallup Four Square's weekend services. It's called "Potter's Wheel" and I must say, it's my new favorite song of the week! Why? Well, let me just say that our first try on Saturday night was a little shy of disaster by our standards. We had sound problems, we had choreography problems, we had costume problems-then I was thinking-"but who cares?" It's not about us "looking" good, or "feeling" good. It's about our Dad. Period. Our HEARTS must be focused on Him and that's all that matters. Whether or not they actually were- that's our problem, but His grace is sufficient! God used our mistakes that night for His glory. Nothing positive Saturday night was because of us, (seriously!) but because He Is.
The good news is we made up for those Saturday glitches on Sunday morning. The reason I love this song? Because from now on, it will remind me of my inability and His ability! Oh yeah, and the words aren't that bad either! :o)

Wrapping things up, I'm overwhelmed at the thought of how many times my God has turned what I see as my disasters, into His accomplishments!
On a larger note, in light of the election news that is now flashing across my screen, I am reminded of this: Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the Lord's hand. He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases." and of Romans 13:1 "There is no authority except from God, and those who exist have been instituted by God." I'm thinking... If God can create the universe- he can handle our country! And if God can create the universe, He can handle my crazy mixed-up attempts at writing this blog!!!!!!

Blessings,
Audge

oh yes, He's still GOOD.

"Do you have a wooden staff? Do you have Roman-looking sandals? Do you have a very large artificial rock? Do you have a fake (but realistic looking) chicken? Would you like to donate a very expensive item to our ministry that we can auction?" These are some of the questions that we have been asking in order to prepare for the A Walk With Paul premiere. I have termed my car the "prop-mobile" because it feels like I am carrying the entire ballet inside of my trunk.

Lately in the studio, most of our discussions have centered around aesthetic decisions for the ballet or how the costumes will work with the choreography or where the extras (the friends we have dragged into the ballet) should stand during the scenes. We have been focusing on the details of the choreography, the acting, and the very-hard-to-hear musical cues. This week has been very productive---working up until the last minute so that everyone must run out quickly when we are done so that we can make it to work on time.

With all of the things that need to be done and the work that needs to be put in, I can get pretty caught up in the details. I even found myself wishing that we could have an extra month to prepare. But when I sat down to write this blog, all I could think about was how excited I am for November 21st. I feel privileged to be a part of a production like this. I am awed by the way the Lord has inspired Joel and Tennille. I look forward to seeing how God will provide for the ministry through the auction. But most of all and more than anything, I am so excited because I believe that God is going to change lives through this production. And for that reason, November 21st cannot come soon enough!

Which just reminds me that in the details of life, it's all about the big stuff (i.e Jesus). There are things that constantly try to steal my attention from the joy and hope that I have in Christ. And there are a million things that bring my eyes towards myself when I should be looking to Him. And yes, this is very frustrating. But it makes make truly thankful for God's patience with me and his ever-willingness to bring my focus back to Him. He's just really great like that :-)

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."(2 Cor 4:18)

So there ya go, there's my thought-nugget for the week. And I hope that you are as excited as I am for November 21st! Please be praying!

God bless and bless our God!
Cathleen