Dancing in the Piazza!

We have been rehearsing the last few days to do a flash mob in the Parliament Square.  This was my 3^rd flash mob.  The first was in Milan’s ritzy department store, La Rinascinte, singing Amazing Grace on Christmas Eve to shoppers there.

My 2^nd was a flash mob of values on the steps of the Duomo Cathedral of Milan, in which at a signal we held signs naming various moral values.  Mine said coraggio (courage).  The press had been invited to that one!

This time we were all over the big central piazza and after an introduction we ran to the middle of the piazza and danced to Resurrection (link there—I’m in the back on the right, all in gray).  You can see a guy in green at the front who briefly dances with us.  We had good audience participation.  The wind was something I, personally, had prayed for because without wind, it would have been blistering hot—so thank You, Lord, for the wind to keep us cool!

Afterwards the dance team and others went to the main street, set up there, and danced some more.  It was a moment when I would like to have been able to be in 2 places at once.  But I stayed in the piazza with the evangelization team.  We hadn’t seen them very much at all since Rome, so I wanted to spend some time with them.  But that desire was really just a set up for a divine appointment.  In Rome Guy, the host and head of the evangelization team, had told us about prayer walking in Parliament Square at 3AM.  He had gone up to the door and knocked on it.  The guard who answered had tears in his eyes, and Guy asked if he could pray for him.  The guard had just a month earlier lost his daughter in a car accident and had been in that moment struggling to cope.  Guy prayed for him and shared the Good News of Jesus Christ with the guard.  The guard has remained Guy’s friend.

After the dancers left, Guy went to the same door and knocked.  He asked the guard inside to please tell Paul hello for him.  The guard said, “If you wait 10 minutes, Paul will be here, and you can tell him yourself.”  So we all got to meet Paul, and he invited us into the courtyard of the Parliament Building.  Paul told us that we can’t go inside, though.  Then after a few minutes, he took us into another courtyard that was even prettier.  Again he told us that we couldn’t go inside.  I got a chance there in the second courtyard to talk with Paul.  He is a very nice man, and his affection for Guy was obvious.

Then after telling us twice that we couldn’t go inside, Paul took us inside, where we saw lots of suits of armor and paintings of leaders going back to the 1500’s.  Before exiting, we all prayed for Paul.  He thanked us, wiping tears from his eyes.  It was a sweet and touching visit, and probably prophetic for whenever Operation Capitals of Europe comes to Malta—that we will be gratefully welcomed.

Then Guy treated us all to ice cream, and we said our good-byes (some of them are leaving today, and I’m leaving tomorrow).  God is good!

Dancing in the Park

I had no sooner posted that last piece when Miki, leader of the dance team, came to me.  She said that as she was showering she was thanking God for sending an intercessor (me!) to pray for the team.  And God told her, “No, she’s a dancer.”

My jaw just fell open.  It seems that He’s calling me back to dance.  He’s got to do quite a bit of physical restoration to do that, but He is God of Restoration.  We walked to the ferry dock with my head swimming at the thought.

I generally don’t like boats very much, but the ferry crossing was really nice.  The water is the cleanest harbor water I have ever seen—or smelled!  It’s a pretty deep teal color, and there is no oily scum or floating trash that I’ve always associated with harbor water.  Here’s how clean the water is in Valletta harbor: I would actually swim in it!  I haven’t, but I would.

On the other side we took the elevator to the park high over the harbor.  Up there we found Herbie, the guitarist.  He grinned at us, “I had a good morning!  I did some busking, made some money.”  He had his guitar and a battery-powered amp with him.  He was clearly on a high from his successful morning.

I watched the team’s backpacks and prayed while they went to pray and Herbie went to look for a plug to recharge his amp.  Herbie came back at 2, the appointed start time.  He was grinning again.  He had found a plug in the Indian Embassy waiting room.  Inexplicably, they had not chased him off.  Well, not inexplicable, really because I had been praying for him to find a place to plug in.

Herbie warmed up the crowd with a Christian song, done in his own smooth jazz style.  People grabbed their phones, cameras, and tablets and started filming or taking pictures.  Then the dancers did a hip-hop number that looked like a lot of fun.  Herbie played a song or 2 in between each dance set.  Then a bunch of about 10 junior high school kids came along.  One boy started in mocking the dancers and tried to get the others to mock, too.  A couple of other boys did, but half-heartedly.  A couple of girls started dancing a little where they were, and after a while Miki invited them to join in the dance, and they did.  They were clearly having a lot of fun, and a friend filmed them with her tablet.  They stepped back into the group when the song was over, but stayed to listen to Herbie sing and play.  They joined into the next dance even more enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, people came by and put coins in Herbie’s open bag.  I saw one man come by and carefully put in about €5 worth of coins.  Later another man put a €10 bill in Herbie’s bag.  Herbie had a good day!

Then the dancers did a dance with streamers and the mocking boy made a grab for Miki’s streamer.  She gave it to him, and he danced with it, and with some degree of grace and style.  Then the kids announced that they had to go.  The 2 girls that had danced hugged each of the dancers and said good-bye, waving to the rest of us.  It was a really sweet moment.

Because of my duties in watching the backpacks and helping set up the music, I wasn’t able to get around to talk to very many people.  But I did get to talk briefly with one lady who was visiting from Australia.

It was a fun afternoon.  And I got another message from God about dancing, this time from Carrie, a Maltese believer who had come to support the dance team.  Carrie said to me: “You should get out there and dance with them.”  I said, “What on earth made you say that?”  She said, “I don’t know!”

Well, I do know: it was God!  I guess He’ll show me how He wants me to proceed.  God is good!