Series: Young Women of Holland FMC Who Make Me Proud! --Part 2

At the same church baby shower, another young wife and mother, Stephanie, was the emcee and she provided a musical activity for all the ladies and little girls who attended. She has been an elementary music teacher and director of children's musicals for her school in Chicago -before moving here to be near family and run our church music program.

For the shower she introduced a lullabye and assigned several instruments to the children and 3 of us ladies. We were to make our music at certain points in the song --and all the ladies snapped their fingers at certain points. (She said this was an activity and song she had used with 2nd graders, so we should be able to do it! --and we were!) She used dry erase marker to put red dots on certain piano keys and the children knew when to play any of the dotted notes. The pastor's wife, another for my series, played the lullabye through as a clarinet solo when we put it all together for a final performance in ABA form. Others had shimmery instruments of different sounds --and we sang the song over enough to nearly learn it for our own use in rocking a baby to sleep. It included phrases, "Daddy's watching the sheep -- Baby, go to sleep" --something about the "dream-maker coming down," etc. Very sweet and pretty --definitely a "chick activity."

She also sang a song on the spiritual aspect of being a mother and ran the shower so beautifully, without seeming nervous or frazzled or self-conscious about it as I would. Just quiet proficiency at work.

Stephanie home-schools 2 boys and they are doing very well in their studies --will be able to hold their own in bigger schools some day, taking piano from her, also.
She is the one who sees to it that all the children of the church have singing and performance opportunities, cultivating musical leaders for the future. She prepares our worship service music and leads with her piano and vocal skills, using to good advantage her degree from Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, where she won many honors. She spends many hours on this on a volunteer basis; we should pay our music leader, as most churches do who have professional leadership, but we need to grow more to do that.

She shared today in church that she uses her laundry-folding time for Bible memory practice --and with the boys, they study to learn a Bible verse with their meals, three times a day. The sermon today was on Bible study and memorization. They plan a trip to Disney World and her husband, a CPA, (whom she met through church camp and Bible quizzing) said they could use the time standing in line to memorize their verses. I think he's anticipating the future of the Bible Quiz team in our church --as he once coached our team to a state championship--and his sister (another one for my series) coached our team to a national honor.

Stephanie is another one I watched grow up in the church, and it is a joy to see her surpass my generation in musical excellence for the Lord.

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible