APU Blogs

Last night was Creative Expressions Night, which has been in the works for a couple of weeks now. We (community coordinators) announced it to everyone, and pretty quickly people started forming groups to perform and coming up with routines and pieces to share with the group. I was surprised actually. I really wasn’t sure what kind of group we had here-the kind that would say “this is lame” and be too embarrassed to do anything, or the kind that would throw those thoughts aside and put themselves out there on stage. Well our group loves to perform and we had a great night!

Yesterday we spent all day in Durban at uShaka, which is an aquarium and a water park. It was a lot of fun-we were in the water and sun all day, which as you probably know is very draining. We all wanted to collapse when we got home. I’m sure a few people were really wishing that we would postpone Expressions Night, but we didn’t, and it went really well.

To start off our performances, two women who work here at the AE Center led us in some interactive worship songs, which was great. It was cool to have people involved from our community here who are not APU students. Also, a Canadian intern who works with AE and has preached all over South Africa came and blessed us with some spoken word. He was great; I would love to hear him again sometime.

Joleen gave a very passionate reading of 1 Corinthians 13 from The Message; Walker displayed a fascinating “human trick” he does with his tongue; Raven and Mandra pulled Cindy out of retirement and wowed us all with a step routine.

Angela directed a ‘skit’ (that word doesn’t do this performance justice) with Mandra, Christa, Corrie, Anna, Jessica, Walker, Alyssa, Raven and Kelly.

They acted out different scenes of heartache and struggle to Nichole Nordeman’s “Redeemer,” as they signed the chorus, and Kelly signed the words throughout the performance. It was very powerful, they all did such an amazing job and I was literally moved to tears when I watched it.

I was a part of a group who did a dance to “Apologize,” by Timbaland and One Republic. Jenny directed and choreographed the group: me, Jessica, Anna, Mandra and Angela.

We put the whole dance together in about two weeks, which was kind of surprising. I grew up dancing, since before kindergarten until my junior year of high school when I started cheerleading. So it’s been about five years since I’ve danced at all, and I was pretty nervous going into this. I knew I wasn’t as good as the others or as good as I may have been in the past, which made me not want to do it at first. I didn’t want to humiliate myself, but I remembered something we tell high-schoolers at the leadership camp I work at in the summers: “this is the best place to fail,” not that you will, but if you do, it’s safe here. I knew that here, with this group of people, no one would stop being my friend if I wasn’t a good dancer…it seems silly now that I think about it, but it’s things like that that I feel keep us from doing things we really want to do in our hearts, therefore keep us from great experiences and possibilities. I am really glad I performed, it was a lot of fun.

Ben was our entertaining MC for the event and did a wonderful job pulling the whole thing together. All in all it really was a fun show. I was worried at first because we were all so tired and exhausted, maybe not as prepared as we’d wished, but it went well and I think everyone had a good time.

There were a lot of people involved in performing, but I especially appreciated the group of people who came to watch and support us, even thought they were very exhausted as well and had no obligation to come. It really meant a lot to me, and I bet they don’t even know it. Maybe I should tell them.

It’s amazing what sorts of talents come out of the woodwork in situations such as this: we’re all here on a small, secluded campus in South Africa. We have some free time which we don’t always use to go places considering our location, so we find ways be creative and interactive. I learned a lot about the people I am here with just by what they decided to organize and participate in for last nights show.