Our first weekday meet.  A different feel walking into the Fellowship Hall with the sun going down.  But that didn't waver our energy level.  We quickly set up the room, got dinner out, and ate together like clockwork.

We did our second read-through of the skit and "Childhood" -- this time in "Readers' Theater" style, complete with music stands and chairs.  All cast members of each piece are on-stage and interacts with a script.  This is a good time for actors to experiment with their characters.  See what works, what doesn't work. Whether it's trying a type of voice, adding an accent or even physical movements...this is your sandbox to play in.  We all give good feedback when it's done.

Since all actors except me have been cast, I'm the supposed understudy for all male roles.  Boy oh boy.  I'll do what I can, but God-willing, no one will go down on the trip.

My main role (so far) is to lead worship at the places we are ministering.  I'm actually really excited about that privilege. While writing notes for the skit, I began imagining what songs would be great as responses to the themes; in this case, love.  One song that really stuck is "Amazing Love (You Are My King)" by Billy James Foote.  The lyrics humble

But no setlist has been developed yet.  I'm going to meet Edwin (my co-leader) early before the Thursday meet to discuss the skit and the direction we want to take with the worship.  Praying for a fruitful collaboration.

Lastly, we listened to a handful of musicals Marvin and I found online.  They are so much fun to follow along and the stories are quite memorable.  We came to a consensus for "A Little Bit of Magic" by Gail & Grant Gordon.  I can't wait to try some of their songs on Thursday when we meet to cast the parts.

That's it for now.  Only 6 more days of practice before dress rehearsal & showcase night.  It's going to be a grueling one.

In Him,
Albert

Team @ Bread of Life Church

Dear AOW Supporters,

We are all back safe, rested and back into the rhythm of normal life. The trip was just awesome. God was more then good. As I’ve always heard, when you go into the field to serve do not be surprised to receive more blessings then you think you may be giving others. So was the case. We went out to serve and minister to others and it was us who were so blessed, inspired and loved. Our “work” or task so to speak was to perform drama, and that went well, but was just so insignificant to all else that happened around our performances.
 

Some special moments were…

Prince Adam w/Frog meeting his fans....................... Cast with Michael, a patient at Miller's Hospital

• Children at the Boys and Girls Club who seemed to be bored with The Frog Prince wanting to meet and hug the 2 Princesses, touch the Frog, and have their pictures taken afterwards.
• Intimate personal time making origami frogs with the patients at the children’s hospital talking and meeting them and their parents.
• Fellowshipping with the high schoolers, college and young adult fellowship of Bread of Life after the show.
• AOW members spontaneously being invited to post service HS and College small groups at Palos Verdes Babtist.
• Being blown away and inspired by the servant and giving hearts of Rolling Hills Covenant Church.
• Our team coming together in unity, working together, sharing, praying constantly.
 

Princess Joyce with fan................................. Princess Jennifer playing fooseball @ B and G Club

For the first time I felt like more of a team member then the team’s leader or director.

We have a meeting this Friday for the whole AOW team to do a year end evaluation and discussion of direction for next year and beyond. This is the first time we have had such a meeting. It was a result of the mission’s trip. We all were so inspired and our hearts and minds and now open to the endless possibilities of how we and this ministry can be used and what we can do. So we want to thoughtfully gather such impressions and ideas as a group to aide us in defining direction for the future.

This can also be a tense time of year as well because each member must prayerfully consider their commitment to AOW for the coming year. AOW is a 1 year commitment and so every year we are all anxious, esp me, to know who is staying and who is leaving. Decisions are always made before our year end banquet on Sept 7th. Please pray for the future of AOW, for us to discern and follow God’s Direction personally and as a group.

Adam and Jordan eating Mexican....................... AOW at Back Pack give away ministry in Wilmington

Last but not least, I want to thank you, our beloved prayer warriors. Your encouragement, support, love and prayers are cherished by us all. Thank you so very much.

Blessings, Marvin Fong

Just wow.  That's all I can say about tonight.

It's truly a humbling and encouraging experience to see so many people come out to support God's calling for us.  Truly none of this could have went this well without your prayers.


But even during our quick debrief after the 2.5-hour production, we all began realize that this special night is only the beginning.  Four performances in four different places lie ahead in a very different environments than our home church, where we've been so used to serving all these years.  The team is excited, eager, and ready to see His glory revealed.

With that, please pray for everyone's physical and spiritual health - we can continue to lift one another up and go forth with a humble, serving heart for the people - to be open to what God can do this weekend.

Below is our final schedule for the trip, so you may see what we're doing and continue to pray for us in these events and for the people whom we'll be serving.

Friday:

12:00 pm – Leave CEFC

1:00 pm – The Frog Prince at The Boys and Girls Club of Harbor City

7:30 pm – I’m Going To Order A Lion, Field for All,
                drama workshop and sharing at Bread of Life Church, Torrance .

Saturday:

11:00 am – The Frog Prince at Miller’s Children’s Hospital,

     Long Beach

1:00 pm – Serving at outreach-evangelistic event and free school
                  backpack give away in Wilmington with Rolling Hills

                  Covenant Church and Love I.N.C.

Sunday:

9:00 am – Field for All at Palos Verdes Baptist Church .

1:00 pm – Back home at CEFC

Much thanks (again!) for your continued support in this calling.  For your viewing pleasure, here is our AOW "Year in Review" for the 2007-2008 season.  Sit back and enjoy!!  =)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'm glad to be able to share in this site that Albert created for us.

Last night, we had our one and only Dress Rehearsal. It was way too long!! We are wanting to show all 3 performance pieces we have prepared for the road along with time for worship, prayer, sharing, slide show, and a intermission. I won't scare all of you that are reading from coming so I won't tell the total time here. But be sure to know that the night's program and material is going the the editing cutting room so to speak. We really needed to condense the Missions sketch which ran 24 min! And so a rewrite is taking place as I speak by all of the corresponding actors.

Jen and Edwin in "Lions"

Earlier today, I eliminated some dialogue from "Frog Prince" that I thought was unnecessary, saving at least 6-7 min. This will be better for the short attentions spans of our audience at the B and G Club and Children's Hospital. So now if all goes as planned, Thursday will be a fine evening that will not go late or get tiresome for our special guest. The overall pace of acting and delivery of lines was dragging and so as the actors get even more familiar with their lines/blocking and not being nervous things should move along at a appropriate pace.

Tonight is dedicated to prayer and worship resisting the temptation to "work". It's time to surrender ourselves, the trip and process to God. He has always been so faithful and down right miraculous in the past for us. We are always amazed at how he gets us through tough situations and makes our performances great even though we felt so unready.

We hope to see many of you Thursday 7:15 we want to thank, and hug, you for supporting us. Thanks for reading.

Exhausted.  Frustrated.  Hopeful.

We just got back from our practice tonight.  NO JOKE.  We logged in about five hours since our 6:30pm meeting time.  The 13 of us were scattered among the tables and floors in these last minutes, listening and straining to make note of Marvin's last comments on the "Frog Prince" performances.  It all can seem a blur when its late and you want to go get rest, but we pushed forward together - confident that things would come together sooner or later.

I wished I felt so confident.

We did our first official run-through of "Lions" and while the first four scenes held up decently, the fifth act collapsed like a deck of cards.  The dialogue between Edwin and my characters' was quite extensive and dense in storytelling.  So when one line was skipped, it was hard to recover and continue.  I ended up needing more line checks than I expected and it was painful to hear what you're supposed to say all along.  Needless to say, both of us were frustrated.  Marvin was gracious enough to add his comments and work with us to capture the emotions of the scene.  But there was still work to be done and I'm feeling the pressure.

Please keep us in prayers to nail down these lines and make for a good finale in "Lions".

I am scared.

I am not giving up.

God, empower me to press on and get it done right.

So we had nothing really scheduled for today, leaving it open for another practice.  But Marvin preferred that we make the most of the this rest day by doing something else to get us as ease.


So some of us went bowling...

...and I owned everyone.

Nonetheless, we had fun together on our day off.

That's what counts. =)

We just finished our second weekday of rehearsals and things are moving along steadily.

We just wrapped blocking today for "Lions" and are getting through "Frog Prince" one scene at a time.

Last Friday, three of our team members scouted out the places we are serving in the South Bay, and were able to confirm logistics as well as check out our performing areas.

The rest of the non-traveling AOW cast is busy planning out our special night on August 21st, where we will perform our pieces exclusively for our prayer supporters and have a community night of worship/prayer/sharing/sendoff on this missions He is calling us to go.

So if you don't know what "blocking" means, it's basically determining actors' positions and movements on-stage.  During rehearsal, the director would guide the actors to where they need to move in each scene and in relation to their dialogue. This is important not just for the audience to see the actor speaking, but also for dramatic effect too. A character who is scheming a plan, for example, might need to slowly pace back and forth on stage to really show he is thinking.  On the other hand, a character who just got asked on a date might enter the scene in a wavy, dancing way meant to show her joy.

Acting is not just with the voice, but with the whole self.  After all, it would be a pretty boring play if the actors just said their lines but there's no physical acting with it! =)

Quick Prayer Request:  We found that "The Frog Prince" is our hardest piece to perform on this trip.  Not only does it have several characters on stage at once, but also our performing areas will be quite small (i.e. children's hospital play room is the size of a small classroom).  In a nutshell, it's a blocking nightmare.  In addition, we will be performing in front of children - our hardest audience to minister and reach.
Please pray for this one-act play - that Marvin may efficiently direct us and our cast members would work hard to make this experience come alive for the kids.


On a high note, in the midst of heavy rehearsal, Marvin's wife Lisa came with a special treat for us:

Bread pudding.  Yum.

May the craziness continue...=)