The start of a dream...

It all started with a book... a very cute children's book to be exact.  

Three years ago I took my kids to the library to take out books to read at home.  My little one Mia chose a book called Maisey and the Pirates - the ghost ship, by UK author Sam Walshaw.  To be truthful, it was the Afrikaans translated version of the book, but for purposes of this blog, I will refer to the English version. That night she asked me to read the book to her at bed time and being the actress-mom I am, I of course did it with silly voices and lots of gestures and weird faces.

She laughed herself silly the whole way through and I had to repeat the process for two more nights.

By night three I was sitting with the book on my lap, looking at it and thinking "this would make a great children's theater show".  So I did something very scary for me... I looked up the author and actually CONTACTED her through her webpage, explained who I was, that I was involved in amateur theater in South Africa and that I would love to develop the book into a show.

For three months I heard nothing, so I basically gave up on the idea and kept myself busy as stage manager for an amateur theater company in our area.  Until one day when I opened up my emails and found a mail from the author Sam's publisher, Stuart Trotter from Rockpool Children's Books.  They LOVED my idea and had never even thought that such a thing could be done and gave me permission to go ahead, promising their support all the way.  I was ecstatic!  And then I realized my dilemma... I had no theater group to do the show with and no money to fund it.

They say man plans but God decides, and in my case He had decided that it was time that I realized my life-long dream of running a children's theater group.  So I contacted a few lady drama friends I'd gotten to know through various previous productions I'd worked on and asked them to come to my house for an idea I wanted to pitch to them.  On 16 April 2016, I told the founding members of what would become Drama Queen Productions about my dream of a Children's Theater company, which would also be a children's ministry group, and that I had gotten the rights to the books (there were 4 in total) from the author.  They all wanted to join me in this mad endeavor and so we founded our group.  We all agreed that our focus would be drama, music and puppetry for kids aged 3 to 14, to bring them the life giving message of God's word.  Along with this, we would work towards staging the books by Sam.

Choosing a name for the group was a challenge... nothing felt right to me.  We all suggested various ones, until I remembered a birthday card I once got, saying "happy birthday Drama Queen".  And it just... clicked.  More than just being drama queens in life, we made the attachment to the name that we were daughters of a most high God, our King, and that we used drama as our medium to spread our message to kids.

And so we were officially Drama Queen Productions... on our way to greatness!  I have so much more to tell you about our group, so more blogs about my queens will follow soon.

Love thy neighbor...

Last night my next door neighbor played music so loud that it was rattling my window frames... at 8 pm at night.  In my innocence, I sent her a message asking if they could possibly turn the music down just a bit, for the sake of my windows.  Thinking her a Christian woman like me, I was confident she would be a good neighbor.

I was wrong.

The response I got was that the music was turned off completely and when I sent a note to say that it wasn't necessary, I got a rather nasty reply back from her, coupled with being blocked on Whatsapp.  This completely threw me and I've been struggling to "get over it" since last night.

How can someone that gave them self out to me, on the day we formally met, as a Christian, be so vindictive and mean to a neighbor?  The hurt I felt made me look for solace in my Bible and I found a few verses on the subject of neighbors that told me:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  Matthew 7:12
✿

Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. Romans 15:2

✿

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Galatians 6:10 

✿

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. Romans 14:13

✿

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  Colossians 3:13

✿

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. Mark 12:31

If you are a true Christian, our first thought should not be one of spite, but of being a good neighbor, as the Bible clearly instructs us to do.  Hubby and I've always tried to be good neighbors, yet thinking back, I've never had good neighbors anywhere we've lived as a married couple, who've treated us the same way.  Why is this?  Do people mistrust each other so much, that we cannot even be kind to the person living next to us who has to take our loud music late at night?  Life has changed so much... I didn't grow up knowing neighbors like this.  Our neighbors as kids were like family... we were constantly in each other's houses, laughing and playing together, got scolded by each other's parents, helped each other out in need and are still friends today, all grown up.

I struggle with small things like neighborly conflicts affecting my life.  I don't like people not liking me, ever.  I try so hard to please others, that it has taken quite a physical toll on me.  My eldest seems to be the same and can get affected by people's responses the same way I do, while my husband has this way of just letting things roll off his shoulders - something I envy and wish I could do too.

Every time I get upset like this, I mull it over and over in my head, making it even worse.  I don't sleep well and I grind my teeth badly, to the point where I am currently sitting with an abscess and am going for a root canal today.  I am praying so hard every day that this will be the year that God will deliver me from this evil and make me a happy person again.

So to you, my neighbor who so clearly needs to hear the Word more in your life - I forgive you for your response to my simple request.  I will keep on greeting you and if you don't greet me back, I will pray for you.  But I will not be defined by your response to my request - to be a good neighbor, as God expects us to be.  Some day you too will learn this lesson: