In July of 2012 the School of Dance Studies was in London, England for a six week mission trip that used dance as a form of proselytizing about Jesus. During the second week of July this we had an opportunity to perform with another Christian dance event called Project Dance. Project Dance is basically an evangelistic collaborative dance concert. This concert consists of 30-50 different dance companies and troupes that come together for one full day and perform their own various styles of dance pieces. On this specific weekend we had around 30 different dance companies that had flown in from all over the world to perform at this event. All the teams came together a day before the event to pray, worship, and be informed of the schedule for the full day of performances on the next day.
The location of this amazing project was at an outdoor amphitheater that rested right alongside the Thames River in between the London and Tower Bridges. On this day it happened to be raining. Our hope was that the rain would stop throughout the day so that we could perform, because rain can be very unsafe for dance performances. Especially since most of these companies performed barefoot and the stage could be very wet and slippery. We planned on starting the performances in the middle of the morning, but rain just kept coming down. As we all realized it was not safe to perform, many of the companies retreated to dry places and began to pray for the rain to stop.
I knew everyone was very excited and expectantly wanting to perform, but I also wondered if any of the performers or the director of this project might be a bit upset. A couple hours passed and all the teams waited indoors hoping that the rain would just stop. The rain began to let up and many dancers ran out to the stage with loads of towels to dry it off so we could start the performances right away. It took about 20 minutes, but the stage was almost dry enough for the dancing to begin. Then within five minutes the clouds from above just decided to let out some more tears and quickly the stage and performers were soaked again.
Most of the performers ran back inside a close building to retreat from the downpour, but a few of us from the School of Dance Studies decided to stay outside, enjoy the rain, and pray. As we began to pray the leader of our school began dancing on the steps of the outdoor amphitheater wearing her umbrella and rain boots. Luckily, the the DJ for the event saw this from his covered sound booth and decided to put on some upbeat worship music. At that point, our leader and a few more of us from our school began to just worship God in the rain. As more of the dancers saw this from the windows of the building they were in, they came outside to dance and worship in the rain with us.
Within 20 minutes we had over 50 dancers spread throughout the amphitheater praising God together using all our different styles of dance. As all this happened I began to look up and around the amphitheater and saw a sea of umbrellas surrounding the theater, watching us dance. The local people of London who were walking along the Thames had stopped to see us worship. I was amazed by how many people planted themselves around the amphitheater in the rain to observe how we worship God. This lasted close to and hour and 45 minutes. The crowd kept growing as the dancing went on. A few times the leader of the Project grabbed a microphone in the rain and began telling all that were surrounding us with eager eyes, that we were simply using our talent to worship and dance for Jesus. A couple of times she spoke of the love we had for Jesus and how much we wanted to share it with the city of London.
This event could have been a huge disappointment to many of the dance companies that had flown in, but in my opinion the redemption of God is always the greatest plan of all. This was a miraculous time where I saw how by simply letting God do His thing He could plan something much more amazing than we ever could.
