In the course of a school year, I try to give my juggling troupe, LOL, a wide variety of venues in which to share their Gospel presentation. Typically, one of the most memorable is the Root Cellar ministry in Lewiston, Maine. This year was no exception.
Lewiston is Maine's second ;largest city, and, is considered the most Islamic city per capita in the United States. The Root Cellar ministy is right in the middle of the city's poorest residential neighborhood, made up almost exclusively of African immirants and refugees. While many of these families are Muslim, many are Christian, and it's fun to see these kids mingling and playing together in their new homeland. I always plan to bring my students early so that they have time to interact with the RC young people before the show. So last week, we arrived early enough to set up before the show so that as the neighbors arrived, we could be freed up to go to the adjacent park to play basketball, four square, use sidewalk chalk, swing and jump rope together. The weather was perfect, and the kids had a blast.
As for the show, by now the two groups of kids were friends, and LOL had a very warm reception. With so much energy from the crowd, the team was at the top of their game in every routine. For our routine "the Gate" we used a girl from the audience named Blessing. Little did we know that she was very new to America and spoke no English. She actually did remarkably well as our volunteer, and was promised a balloon animal after the show. She left that evening with at least one new English word in her vocabulary: "balloon".
Katherine chose this show to do her 8th grade solo; a production illusion based on the fruits of the Spirit. She produced literal fruit sybolic of each of the spiritual fruits from Galatians: an apple for faithfulness, because they contribute so much: cider, sauce, pie, fritters... My favorite was Jello for kidness, because Jello is 'kind' of like fruit. Well done, Kathrine.
In recent years, the highlight for me has been getting reacquainted with Abdul. He has been a fan of both my show and LOL since he was a little kid, Now a Freshman in high school, he attends a local Baptist youth group on Sunday nights. He was very happy to tell me all about it.
Since we were there last week, my students have referred back to their experience at the Root Cellar several times. No doubt they will continue to for years to come.