Lena Ballerina

This past week has been a busy one with concerts and dance recitals. Miss Lena Yi Yi had her first dance recital on Saturday. I've been to many a dance recital before because I have a sister that was a dancer but this one was definitely different. After watching so many routines that were all good, finally it was Yi Yi's turn to dance with her ballet class. It struck me in the middle of this dance that God had this planned all along. Being a musician my ears always focus on the music first and then how that relates to the dance being performed. The girls in Yi Yi's class all did so well. Where God seem to speak the loudest to me was as Yi Yi came to the front of her class and leaped to continue to move with the class. As this happened the music being played had the distinctive sound of the music that we know as traditional music from China.

There is no way this could have been planned ahead of time. Yi Yi joined this class 1/2 way through the school year and they were already learning the dance routine with the music.

It was pretty cool to see this young woman who, at our very first meeting not even 6 months ago, said she wanted to dance the ballet, now doing that for the first time. I also thought about the courage it took for her to take this on. She's left behind her culture, all that she's ever known, went on a 27 hour journey to another country with a different language that she doesn't speak. And all of that with 2 strangers, coming home to meet another stranger and now we all live in the same house together. She enrolls in a ballet class that has been going strong since September and it's now January. She speaks no English when the class starts so has to learn all she is learning by watching everyone else. Then not quite 5 months after starting the class is on stage, in costume and dancing with her heart and doing quite well at it.

By this time she has made friends with several of the girls who have all been so kind to her. As her English has grown she has told us how they have fun before class starts each week.

We ran into a friend of ours who told us she had seen Yi Yi in the bathroom with one of the girls in her class during intermission. She told us they were chatting away as all girls love to do and it didn't seem to matter that the English wasn't perfect. They seemed to understand each other and were having a lot of fun.

All of this showed me then and continues to show me that God does have a plan in all of this and He made one courageous little girl, in China, 13 years ago!