Dia de Amistad
Vas writes: Just got back from doing a show at a school for Valentines Day. It was a middle school so I have to say I was a bit nervous about being in front of all those teenagers. When it was our time to go up, the puppet show which we had prepared (a puppet show for teens on the theme of true love) wasn’t quite ready to start so four girls and me started to sing some songs to buy us some time while Sims, Nehemiah and Mauro finished assembling the puppet structure.
I was relieved at the response of the teens; they enjoyed our singing and the puppet show a lot (thank God!) After the puppet show, Mauro and I did a skit; the story of when the Shah of Abbas dresses up like a pauper so he can mingle among the people unrecognized. He becomes close friends with the fireman of the castle, a humble lonely man. After awhile, the king finally decides to tell the lowly fireman that he is the Shah of Abbas and is prepared to grant this person any wish. The man stood speechless.
The king said “don’t you hear what I am saying? I am the king! Aren’t you going to ask me for something?” The man replied “I know, I do hear you and I see that you have chosen to give riches or high rank in government to others but to me you gave me your freindship. I can only ask that you never stop giving me your friendship.”
Anyway, here in Mexico Valentines Day is actually called “Dia de Amistad”: Friendship Day, so it applies to all friends, not just lovers. I think this story, along with the puppet show and songs we sang were a good spiritual feeding, a showcase of true values for this young crowd. I feel we did the best we could to bring a Christian mesage in a secular way to this secular school. I was tempted to get more specific in our witness to them, but I didn’t want to ruin my chances of coming back to bring more messages to this receptive crowd.