God's Ears

Living in Mexico has taught me how to lower my expectations. Harsh, I know, but true. Mainly, living here has helped me to rely on modern technology less and my own creative inventions more. Secondly, working at a small school full of ESL students has helped me to focus on what the kids can do, rather than on what they can't do.

After 2 weeks of swine flu break, we were finally back at school. The kids were so bored that they were actually happy to come back to school. I'm not kidding. Since we're very close to the end of the school year, they likely would have "checked-out" mentally, but we spent nearly 10 hours this week on musical practice.

In my previous experience, Musicals meant: a 10-piece band, 30 singers/actors each with at least 3 costume changes, 15 backstage persons, a pile of props, 20 lights, 10 personal microphone packs, curtains, 2 set changes, 2-way radios, tickets, and an ulcer. This musical meant hand-written posterboards, 5 microphones on stands, a CD with music, silk-screen tee shirts, a tarp, and a final performance on a basketball court, praying for the rain to hold off another few minutes.
Every day, I had to lower my expectations of what this musical would entail. I am used to working with experienced young adults who want to do drama, and who want to have a good production. This musical involved children who did not want to do this, did not care if we had a good production, had never seen a live show of any quality, and did not speak English as their primary language. I am used to running lights, sound, and set changes to maximize the audience experience. I am not used to the wind blowing over our hand-made posterboards.
After a lot of work (well, let's be honest: not nearly as much work as I'm used to), a lot of prayers, and 5 days, we managed a somewhat successful 45-minute musical that impressed the parents.
Lower expectations - achieved.

The funniest part, though, was listening to the kids' songs. Elementary kids are notorious for not pronouncing their words very well when singing. Imagine 30 kids who speak English as a second language singing English songs!
Along with the normal "duh" instead of "the" and "dings" rather than "things" we also had a lot of trouble with "lord" - asians had a hard time with that, so it quickly became "oar".
My favorites:
"hum-boh yorselves be-foe de Oar"
"Lee-mee, oar"
"God's Ears"
Any idea what these songs are supposed to be?
"Humble yourselves before the Lord"
"lead me, Lord"
"God is near"/ "God is here"