A faith-building experience

October 2014

Tyler and Dallin had such a great time performing in A Christmas Carol last December that they were very excited to be in the spring musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They auditioned (3 long evenings!), performed in a little preview at the PRYAF (Paso Robles Youth Arts Foundation) winter review  with a medley of songs from the play, and were cast as the 2 Bulgarian spies. They even memorized a scene for the audition, complete with thick Bulgarian accents. It was hilarious! We watched the movie several times and were all singing the songs. Then a few days before the first rehearsal, we realized the final performance of the play would be on a Sunday. Bummer! We didn't know what to do. We feel strongly about the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy, and one of the things we really liked about their first play was that it didn't have any Sunday rehearsals or performances - we assumed it was always like that. This was totally an oversight on our part, since the dates were posted way back in November. We wrestled with it a couple of days, and Dave and I felt like maybe they should go ahead and do it, since it was our fault and they had already committed to be in it. When I prayed about it, I had a clear impression that the boys should pray about it and decide what to do, and that I would fully support whatever decision they made. The great thing is, this totally took all the weight off as I put this in the Lord's hands. I felt peace, and I knew that whatever they chose, this would be a faith-building experience for them. I trusted them to pray and receive an answer, and I was really okay about either decision. We talked about all the pros and cons and left them to it. They both received the same answer not to be in the play. When I talked to Tyler about his experience, he said that while he was praying, the cons just kept coming into his mind. He said he hadn't felt the spirit that strong since his baptism, almost 5 years ago! Some of their friends from church also decided not to do the play while others decided to go ahead and be in it. The staff at PRYAF was extremely understanding and respectful and said that although they weren't able to change the dates for Chitty, they have decided not to do any more plays on Sunday.