Christmas Around The World: The Journey This Session

We hope you enjoyed our production of “Joy To Our World” at yesterday’s exhibition. Our heroes truly took ownership as they created a script, costumes and props, selected songs, and conducted practices. This was a HUGE task to take on, but they rose to the challenge once again. I could not be more proud of them!

One of the greatest challenges I face as a guide is allowing the heroes to learn through challenges without stepping in too much. As our heroes were putting together “Joy To Our World”, they faced many of these challenges. They needed to determine who would be best in each role (and using each person’s gifts, talents, and interests), respect and encourage authority (our middle school directors), and communicate (let each other know about changes in the script and getting the flow down). There were times during the process that I just wanted to tell the heroes what to do, or resolve conflict when changes were happening within the script-but I really wasn’t needed in that way. While I could ask our heroes questions about their parts, or how they were feeling about the play at times, they were completely capable of working independently!

Usually, we have a day to reflect on an Exhibition after it takes place, but due to the recent snow day, there wasn’t much time for it this session. Some questions our heroes may wish to explore over the break include:

• What was the most challenging part of your Hero’s Journey this session?
• What failures did you learn from during our “Christmas Around The World” quest?
• What did you learn about yourself during this session?What brought you the most joy during this quest: Creating the play, Working with your studiomates, Blessing the refugees at Bethany Christian services, or something else?

It is such a blessing to see our heroes continually discovering new things about themselves and encouraging each other to grow. I have seen SO much from each and every one of them! I am truly thankful this season for the wonderful and unique individual that each hero is. They are truly world-changers!

I pray you have have a blessed time with your family and loved ones these next two weeks! This is such an amazing time of year, as it is a time to remember and celebrate Christ’s birth  and the life he died to give us freely. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

P.S. Your hero may want to consider selecting a new genre or some kind of challenging book to read over the break. It is definitely not a requirement, but it could be a fun way to get some reading in!