A Mime's March Madness

"Oh where…is my Jenny? Oh where…is my Jenny? Oh where oh where oh where oh where…" I sang my revised version of the VeggieTales lyrics over and over. It was 6:40 AM, and I was waiting for the van that would take several members of our mime team to the Kentucky Creative Missions Festival.

The oddities started at 6:20 AM, when I stepped out onto the porch to begin my wait for Jenny, our director; Zach, one of the guys on our mime team; Mrs. Harrison, his mother; and Kristina, one of the girls on our team.

Jenny had said to be ready at 6:20 and that they would be there around 6:25 or 6:30. Every ten minutes or so, I went inside to check the clock. My little brothers, curled up in a blanket on the porch swing with only pajamas to protect them from the 40 degree weather, weren't interested in checking it for me.

When 6:40 rolled around, I began to wonder what was going on. Jenny is usually late, but not this late. That's when I began singing the VeggieTales lyric. I received odd looks from passing drivers. Still no Jenny.

At 6:50 there were still no signs of Jenny, so Dad called one of the guys who had planned to go with us, but ended up staying home. "They just left five minutes ago," was his answer to Dad's inquiry.

Oh great. Another fifteen minutes.

Kristina gives Jenny a back rub in the van

But apparently this guy couldn't estimate, because five minutes later, a fifteen-passenger van with ACTION emblazoned on the side pulled into our driveway. I hopped in with my backpack and sleeping bag, said goodbye to my long-suffering brothers, and left.

Looking back, I am not sure why we took the big van. Mrs. Harrison and Jenny sat in the front seats, Kristina and I took the seat directly behind them, and Zach had the bench two rows back. We had so much room! Even with all our luggage and sound equipment, it was like driving a barge!

Kristina was elated when she received the gift I had purchased for her: A bag of Combos crackers; her favorite snack. Holding the bag aloft, she proclaimed, "We can now crash and live on the side of the road, because we have Combos to sustain us." Thankfully, we had no chance to test her statement.

The actual drive to Kentucky was fairly uneventful. We read, talked, and played Mad Libs. One of them turned out really funny:

"My bubbly darling,
"I love you more than whole wheat noodles themselves. Each minute away from you is a hard-boiled egg, each hour a simplistic eternity. Without you, life is dull, boring, and transparent. I feel like a baby without its fuel tank, a toddler without its teddy malaria-infested mosquito, a dog without its mulberry bush."

The mulberry bush part struck us as enormously funny; especially later in the trip when we got stuck behind a truck bearing a large tree that looked suspiciously like a bush. There was, however, no trace of the dog.

When we got into Kentucky, we promptly got lost. Excuse me. We weren't lost, per se. We just were not sure where we were.

Jenny called for directions, and a very helpful young man told us to turn right at the light. When we got to the light, the street we needed to turn onto was on the left, and Jenny had to swerve across two lanes of traffic to get to the turning lane in time, which made for a hilarious (and somewhat dangerous) spectacle.

When we turned, we went up on the curb, which only made us laugh harder.

We arrived around five o'clock at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, the site of the 2006 Creative Ministries Festival. Just as I was wondering how on earth we would present any songs with just three people, another van pulled up and five kids piled out, followed by two adults.

I soon learned that this was part of the AIM team from Blacksburg, Virginia. Kristina had met the team on a mission trip. She was happily chatting before you could say, "Hey, wait!" and I was left wondering if I really could bond with this team in the less-than-32 hours that we would be together.

I had nothing to worry about.

I was introduced to everyone as we walked toward the dining hall. Two boys, David and Daniel, and three girls, Lizzy, Claire and Kayla, had joined us and I joined in the conversation as we climbed into the elevator to ride up to the dining hall.

"Are you sure we're not over the weight limit?" someone wanted to know.

Mrs. Armstrong, Daniel and Lizzy's mother, laughed. "We'd all have to weigh over two hundred pounds," she assured. "We'll be fine."

"I know I don't weigh two hundred pounds!" I exclaimed, sending a wave of laughter through the car.

"Closer to one hundred, I suppose," Kayla whispered as we climbed off.

"Well…" I grinned and shook my head, following the group into the dining hall.

Ten minutes later, we were all seated in the dining room, plates of food before us. Having already prayed, I dug in. Sitting around all day can make you hungry.

Jenny had a program of the upcoming events sitting on the table beside her.

"May I look at that?" Lizzy wanted to know.

"Sure." Jenny began to hand it over, then stopped. "Wait. You're not supposed to know what is going on." She tucked the program away, shaking her head and smiling at Lizzy's objections.

"I am going to get a look at that program," Lizzy muttered, a gleam in her eye, as she watched Jenny leave the room.

Everyone laughed.

After dinner, Jenny gathered us together in the main foyer downstairs and briefed us on what needed to be accomplished before the next day.

"We will have to learn Be Still, possibly End of the Beginning, 2 Sets of Joneses, Redeemed, Forgiven and Courtroom, and you will all have to learn every part in Via Dolorosa. Tonight."

It was after seven o'clock!

She gazed around the circle intently. "Are you overwhelmed yet?"

There came a chorus of enthusiastic "no's," and a smile spread across Jenny's face. "Good. Let's get to work."

The room we were using to practice and teach in was on the third floor. We rode the elevator back up, leaving the boys downstairs to retrieve sound supplies from the van.

We entered the room, set our things down on a little table, and awaited Jenny's command.

I knew what was coming; it happened every week in practice.

"Line up," Jenny ordered, as I knew she would, and we five girls all lined up.

"March," Jenny commanded, and we all started to do the pressure walk, also known as the mime march. Being careful to toc - do a sharp muscle spasm - at each switch of my feet, I stared straight ahead, again anticipating Jenny's next order.

The guys. Left to right: David, Zach, Daniel

"Now, I'm going to have you change feet," Jenny informed us. "When I point at you, I want you to change feet as quickly and discreetly as you can. If you have to stop and switch, that's okay. Just do it." Then she went down the line, pointing at each of us and watching the results.

Kristina and I already knew what to do, and changed our feet with ease. The other girls stumbled, some of them having to come to a dead stop before they could change their feet.

Once everyone had changed, Jenny called me up to the front of the group to demonstrate the way to change feet. "The reason I'm having you do this," she told us, watching the successful transitions with satisfaction, "is because in Via Dolorosa all you do is march for the whole song. It is very easy to get off."

"Amen," someone said, and everyone laughed again.

The boys walked in with a large speaker, some CDs, and Jenny's laptop.

"There's nothing breakable in here, is there, Jenny?" Zach asked as he set the laptop case down a little too hard. "We just banged it around."

"No, of course not," Jenny replied, grinning. "No problem."

After the boys understood how to march, it was time to teach Via Dolorosa. "Now," Jenny said, her gaze resting on the folks from Virginia, "You all learned this song the way Andrew [another director] teaches it. Andrew and I have… a difference of opinion."

"That's a nice way to put it," I said quietly.

"My way is very different from his way, so be prepared to learn." She then began to assign parts and positions.

Ninety minutes, countless wrong steps and eight run-throughs later, Jenny held up a hand to stop the music. "We'll come back to this. Now we're going to learn Be Still."

I looked around, expecting someone to complain of weariness, but no one said a word. I think that they may have known Jenny better than I did.

Throughout the song, we heard Jenny's critiques: "David, you have to remember to turn!"

"Zach, I need you lower. You are Satan, after all. Be more commanding. Send your demons out."

"Demons! Tempt faster! You should be done right… now!"

"Who is holding the SIN banner? Get it straight!"

"Those white tabs must be in the right place! Get them there at all costs!"

By the time we were finally finished with Be Still, it was close to 11 PM and I was exhausted, but I knew better than to complain. We went out to the van to gather our sleeping bags and backpacks and headed for our room.

When Jenny walked into our room, she took a cursory glance around the room and her eyes fell on a coffeepot, complete with mugs and packets of coffee.

She ran over to it, her eyes alight. "Coffee!"

"Girls," I laughed, "Jenny's in heaven."

Claire, Kayla and I were to share a room with Mrs. Armstrong and sleeping arrangements were next on the agenda. "Kayla, why don't you sleep on the bed with Claire, and I'll sleep on the floor," I offered.

Kayla shook her head vigorously. "Nobody wants to sleep with me. I'll sleep on the floor."

"Nobody wants to sleep with me, either!" I exclaimed. "I've been told that I kick, talk, and sometimes walk."

We looked at Claire.

"Well, I'd like to sleep on the floor…"

Mrs. Armstrong laughed. "If you girls are going to fight over the floor, I'll take the bed, thank you!"

It was finally decided that Kayla would sleep on the trundle bed, Claire would sleep on the couch cushions, and I would sleep on the floor. As we settled into our beds, we started talking.

Forty-five minutes later, Mrs. Armstrong called, "Girls, it's midnight. Time to stop talking." Sighing, we realized that it would be wise to get some sleep before the big day ahead.

"Does your cell phone have an alarm?" I asked Mrs. Armstrong.

"Yes…" she replied.

"Would you set it for 6:15, please?"

They all stared at me as if I'd come off another planet.

"6:15?" Kayla said incredulously.

The girls. Back, left to right: Kristina, Lizzy, Jessica, Claire, Kayla. Foreground: Jenny.

"Well, yes… we have to get up, I'd like to shower, and then we have to get dressed, eat breakfast, get our makeup on, and practice, all before nine. I like to be ready!"

"An early bird," Mrs. Armstrong mused. "Just don't be singing too early in the morning!"

At 6:15 AM sharp, Mrs. Armstrong's phone went off. I groaned and stumbled over to the counter where it was laying and shut it off. Not more than a minute later it rang again.

Isn't there a snooze on this thing? I wondered, picking up the phone. But it wasn't the cell phone making the noise; it was the phone in the bedroom.

Wonderingly, I picked it up. "Hello?"

No answer.

"Hello?"

Setting the phone back in its cradle, I walked back into the main room just in time to catch Mrs. Armstrong saying, "That was our wakeup call."

An hour and a half later, we walked up to Jenny's apartment and I rapped on the door.

"That's not the secret knock!" Jenny called, refusing to open the door.

"Um… I don't know the secret knock!"

"Well, at least try!"

We had heard Jenny do the knock the night before. I suspect that there really isn't a sequence of knocks; they just made it up. But who knows?

I rapped on the door in a short sequence, much shorter than the one last night. When Jenny did not open the door, I turned to Kayla and Claire. "I tried - your turn."

But as Claire stepped up to the door, it swung open and there stood Jenny, her foot tapping. I am pretty sure she thought we could have done better.

I sat down in a chair and let down my hair so that Jenny could put it up in the customary fashion.

There was a knock on the door.

"That's probably Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong with breakfast," someone said.

But Jenny was unrelenting. "What's the secret knock?" she demanded, a smile on her face.

A pause. Then a long sequence of knocks spaced closely together.

"You forgot the last little one!" Jenny called.

Another pause, then one single knock.

Everyone laughed as Jenny opened the door to Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, who carried three bags of groceries. Breakfast consisted of doughnuts, bagels, bananas and oranges. However, before we could eat, Mrs. Armstrong realized that they had left the milk in the van.

Mr. Armstrong immediately volunteered to go retrieve it, and all the boys followed him.

A few minutes later, there came another long, drawn out sequence of knocks and then a long pause. Everybody held their breath.

Knock.

The door swung open, admitting a smiling Mr. Armstrong and the three boys.

"Let's eat!" someone exclaimed. We prayed and dug in.

After breakfast, the next order of business was putting on makeup. Jenny provided us with striped mime shirts. The boys went into the boys' bathroom in the main building and the girls stayed in the apartment to apply the white stuff.

The Virginia team's makeup had spent the night in their van and had therefore frozen, so we shared makeup. The procedure took about twenty minutes - luxury time as I would soon realize.

The team. Left to right: David, Jenny, Zach, Claire, Daniel, Jessica, Kristina, Lizzy, Kayla

After we had our faces on, we ran through Via Dolorosa twice before we had to run to the building where the opening ceremonies were being held. Along the way, we waved to the little children who were intrigued by our white faces and the teenagers who just thought we were weird.

The presentation went relatively well, although we stumbled a bit, but Jenny was not too upset about it. All she said to us after the song was, "Go take off your makeup and change your shirts."

After a hurried make-up removal and a run by Jenny to make sure the job was satisfactory, we all gathered in our classroom.

Jenny and Kristina worked with the sound system, which was rather obstinate throughout the entire day. The other girls and I worked on arranging ACTION promotional material on a small counter off to the side.

Around 9:45, our first students began to arrive and Kristina, ever the social type, determined to learn all their names. The first group lined up against one wall and Kristina went down the line, asking names and repeating them all.

After a few minutes, Kristina told us, "I have one wall. Now you get the rest of them."

It was a daunting task, and one that none of us - save Kristina - was able to accomplish. After the first few names I just gave up, hoping that we would not be required to address the students by name.

Jenny stepped up front and began to speak, first asking our students to introduce themselves, then having us AIM folks tell our names and hometowns. Everything was working well - until we realized something about Jenny's clip-on microphone. The signal was so weak that if anyone stepped in front of the speaker, we would hear a high-pitched shriek and then the microphone would go dead. Needless to say, we were careful in the future, but it did make for some funny moments.

Forty-five minutes later, near the end of the class, Jenny began to teach us a one-person mime to Psalm 23.

Kristina read it aloud as Jenny presented the different parts excellently and crisply. "The Lord is -"

SHRIEK!

Nonplussed by the feedback, Kristina continued. "- my shepherd, I shall not want…"

Once our class had learned Psalm 23, the time had come to dismiss, and as soon as the final "amen" was said, Jenny called for all of the ACTION folks to gather around. "Lizzy," she began, "You and Daniel are going to teach this next class, right? Are you ready?"

Lizzy nodded and Jenny, satisfied, began to debrief us, but had no time. The second class was already filing in, and we started the class with little or no idea of what we were doing.

Kristina was elated to discover that some of "her" people from the first class had returned for the second, and immediately set out to memorize another wall. The rest of us just smiled and shook hands.

About twenty minutes later, the ACTION folk were teamed up with different people around the room to practice mannequin. I got teamed with a girl named Meredith who didn't really know what to do but gave a valiant effort anyway.

Mannequin is where one person plays a mannequin, and the other "operates" the mannequin, moving him around and manipulating his arms, legs, and other body parts. When the "operator" claps his hands, the mannequin comes to life until the "operator" claps his hands again, and then the mannequin freezes.

It was really interesting to see some of the things that people did to their mannequins. One was putting on makeup, one was fishing and fell in the water, one was doing gymnastics.

I feel sorry for the people who were playing the mannequins.

A little while later, we did "group" mannequin, where one person is the "maker" and all the rest of the people are the mannequins. I got an idea, gathered a large group, and began moving people around.

Just as I finished, Jenny called for everyone to finish up and watch. I had my people in position and I clapped my hands.

The pitcher wound back, throwing the ball with vigor. The batter swung - where did that ball go? … the "ball" thumped into the catcher's "mitt". The silent ump motioned that the batter was out and I clapped my hands to stop the scene.

"Hey, good job, guys!" I exclaimed as I freed the mannequins.

"I guess I wasn't supposed to hit the ball," Kayla, the batter, said apologetically. I laughed. "No problem."

We finished that class and headed downstairs to lunch. We were following one of the ladies who had been in our class to the dining hall, but as we drew near to an imposing building, somebody spotted the crosses on our backs and yelled, "ACTION Missions!" He pointed to a lady clown. "Follow that clown!"

As we obeyed, Jenny pulled us girls aside to tell us to make sure we were being good examples for everyone. The reminder did not take long, and soon we were off.

"Back to stalking the clown," Kristina murmured under her breath, and we all laughed as we followed the clown up some winding stairs into the gym.

We ate lunch as quickly as possible - Jenny's orders - and hurried back to our room to run over Be Still, the song we were gong to present at the closing

ceremonies. We had time to run through it twice before folks began arriving for our third class. We hurriedly put away props, smiled and shook hands while Kristina embarked on another daunting memorization task.

We started the class by presenting Via Dolorosa, because that was the song we were going to teach. As soon as the presentation was over and the class had an idea of how to do the song, Jenny paired us off with different groups and told us to teach the song.

The team presents Be Still

This was totally new to me. David (the boy who had been paired with me to teach the song) and I looked around at our group - all adults - and tried to decide which parts to put them in.

I pointed at an athletic looking man, one of two men in our group. "I'm thinking… Jesus?"

David nodded - he must have been thinking the same thing. The other man in our group was one of the guards by default, and we picked one of the women to be the other guard. David moved off to work with Jesus and the guards as I turned to Mary and the crowd.

About thirty minutes later, Jenny turned on the music and all seven groups tried to present the song at once.

It was a disaster.

We presented the song again for the students so they would better understand what to do, then ran through it one more time with the students. As Jenny dismissed the class, we rushed to put on our makeup as fast as possible.

When we arrived at the building where we were to present, we discovered that we were nearly half an hour early. Jenny went off to check on things onstage and we settled into an empty room offstage and waited.

Zach, who was playing Satan, was apparently overeager to play his part and began stalking Daniel, who was playing Adam.

Daniel was making weird faces in a mirror and pretended not to notice as Satan crept up behind him. At the last instant, Daniel spun and made the sign of a cross with his fingers, causing Satan to stumble backwards, hands over his face. The odd antics went on for quite some time before Jenny came back and had us line up.

Ten minutes later, we walked off the stage. The presentation had gone surprisingly well but had been tense because of the number of props that needed to be in the right place at the right time.

After taking off our makeup in the two minutes Jenny allotted us, we regrouped in the classroom. Jenny showed up with a bag full of long-sleeved T-shirts reading: "Kentucky Creative Ministries Festival!" They were perfect, save for one thing: every shirt was extra large. Laughing, we held one up to Claire - the smallest girl - who completely disappeared down to her knees. "Fits you perfectly, Claire!" someone exclaimed.

We gathered our things and headed out to the van, where Kayla reminded me that she would bite my ear off if I didn't email her. Hugs were exchanged all around and we would have drawn out our goodbyes forever if Jenny hadn't said, "Time to go," and loaded the Missouri contingent into the ACTION van.

We were all exhausted, and since the van was mostly empty, Kristina, Zach and I each claimed a seat for ourselves, stretched out, and fell asleep.

Sometime later, we stopped for dinner at Wendy's. Jenny stepped up to the counter and ordered a baked potato, five chicken nuggets, a Caesar side salad and a medium fry.

Kristina gaped as Jenny rattled off the long list of food. Jenny is known for not eating much at all. She has no breakfast or lunch and eats only a small dinner. She lives on coffee. After a small breakfast and a full lunch, such an enormous dinner seemed impossible for Jenny to swallow.

Kristina shows off one of the huge t-shirts

"I'm not a betting girl," Kristina said as we walked to our table, "but if I was, I'd bet you five bucks that you can't eat all that."

Jenny grinned. "Just watch me."

She polished off the potato and the salad with no problem, but admitted that she was getting full. Kristina simply smiled and continued eating.

"I would never do this if I wasn't so competitive," Jenny muttered as she stuffed several fries into her mouth.

"Of course, that had nothing to do with the reason why I said you couldn't eat all that," Kristina said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Ten minutes later, the fries and nuggets were gone and Kristina could not stop saying, "I'm so impressed!"

Jenny laughed. "I'll be impressed if I can stand up after all that food." But she did and we headed back out to the van.

"I ate it all," Jenny said with some degree of satisfaction.

"Well, you didn't have a Jr. Frosty," said Mrs. Harrison.

Jenny immediately turned and headed back towards the front door of the restaurant.

"It wasn't a challenge!" Mrs. Harrison exclaimed, grabbing Jenny's arm and steering her toward the van. "Let's go."

We did, but before heading back to Branson, we stopped for gas. This particular gas station just happened to have coffee for sale. Jenny bought a cup of coffee and a candy bar.

"Jenny!" I exclaimed. "Haven't you had enough to eat?"

Jenny just smiled that unique smile of hers and took a sip of her coffee.

We arrived in Branson at 1:15 AM Sunday and I collapsed into bed, exhausted but excited. What a trip!

Later that week, Jenny told me that she had not eaten a full meal since that night at Wendy's and that when some friends of hers had taken her out to Ruby Tuesday's on Sunday night, she had only been able to finish half of a cheeseburger.

Some people are too competitive for their own good!

Note: For more about Jessica's trip, check out the Kentucky Drama Festival music video!