CMM in Tonga

No - we haven't been, but we have heard from Marlene Wilkinson, a missionary in Tonga, who has used the music from Saints Alive. Here's what she had to say:

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We didn’t really have much practice time! The young people (all girls!) met with me the Friday evening before the Sunday, and we worked on their drama and ‘action songs’. Tongans do ‘action songs’ regularly (we might call them ‘liturgical dance’ in some cases) so actually can choreograph simple stuff very fast! Some of the congregation go to a Tuesday night bible study, and they had practised the songs we planned to use for a short time in the group for two weeks. Then we had about 10 mins run through the songs the Sunday before. The dramatic readings were just done ‘on the night”. Since we had done some last year, some of the congregation remembered, so that helped. However, our congregation is always changing, so we also had ‘new’ people too. Given all that, we actually had a good service! Many thanks for your resources.

5 photos for you to see - hope you like them!

1. The dramatic reading just after Jesus leaves the disciples. (the two angels on the right here). The flames at the back had been done by three very young members of our congregation (2,2,& 4yrs) the previous week. At the end of the service, the little ones took down the flames and gave one to each of the congregation.

2. Some of the young people dancing in the coming of the Holy Spirit song. The two older girls are Fiji Indian and the younger one in Tongan.

3. The Young people doing an action song to the choruses of “God raised him up”. One of the congregation sang Peter’s part. You can see a couple of the young boys copying the girls.

4. One of the congregation giving out percussion for “Brothers and Sisters”

5. The YP again, doing the actions for the drama “learning, fellowship, sharing, prayer”.