Before the year 2013 ends

oh hello there! i miss you simply gracious.. :))

Before this year 2013 ends let me post the dances i missed to blog here due to "busyness" as always..weeehhh...on another way around...the truth is because of ..............l.a.z.i.n.e.s.s. :))) laziness! well, at times i am like that...that's me..:))

so what did i miss posting here???

starting with, the ROAD TRIP 2013 with our dance "OVERCOMER" of Mandisa on every place where we stopped. that was really fun! memorable time with friends.. i did try editing it to combine all the videos taken from all the places but yah sorry it isn't good, but...but ...but...just allow me to post..okay? :)))

huahin beach

and this is in the deep south of Thailand...

Next on the row was the dance "Lord You are Good" last November in the church.. we were asked to perform one dance during the advance Christmas Celebration of the 5 churches here in Hatyai and was held also in Cornerstone Church.

December was full-packed with practice and presentations in the different places we went to.

Started with Dec. 7 morning @ Namnoi Community.

Dec. 7 afternoon @ Ranot Community

Dec. 8 afternoon @ Banharn Community

Dec. 13 @ Banpruh Community

Dec. 14 @ Hatyai Convention Center for the Joint Christmas Celebration of 5 Churches here in Hatyai.
we presented 2 dances, "Joy to the World -Tambourine Dance" and "Lord You Are Good Dance"

Lord You are Good, ending part

Lord You Are Good, Tambourine part

Joy To the World Costume- a pose before the event started

They're the guest singers from Bangkok on that event...had a chance to take a pose on their tarp..grateful that we able to perform with them at that night.

had our dinner before the event started and had our pose :)))

the thai dancers: Plew, Nafia, Wann & Plume...so blessed with the life of these young people

A pose with one of the singers after the event

In all the communities that we visited, we all had the same presentations.
1. Joy to the World
2. A skit - My Name is forgiven followed with our dance "Hello My Name Is" by Matthew West
3. Our Dance "Overcomer" by Mandisa
4. Feliznavidad Dance which we taught to the kids

some vidsss... Joy to the world at Ranot

Feliznavidad

"My name is forgiven" & "hello My Name Is" at Banpruh

Dec. 14 @ the same place- Hatyai Convention Center

The  Eksilah Dance Team was invited to present a Philippine Folk Dance in a Charity Show for Haiyan Victims. As a Filipino, I am thankful that i had been a part of this event as to extend a little help to our kababayans who suffered from the strongest typhoon-Haiyan/Yolanda. We decided to present Salidumay and ended it with "Kuradang" a famous folk dance in Visayas-the middle part of the Philippines where the typhoon Haiyan occurred.

Salidumay Costume

Kuradang Costume

A pose with the other dancers and with the Emcee of the event

here's the video of all the dances presented on that night...we were the first who presented.

Dec. 22 Christmas Celebration @ Cornerstone Chapel Hadyai
we presented " Mary Did you Know Dance"

Dec. 25 @ one of the schools in Songkhla

with the elementary pupils

talking with the kinder pupils

we only presented one dance in this school, only the Joy to the World..here's the video of it..

Dec. 29 YES CHRISTMAS and New Years Party!

Time to go to church!!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

OVERCOMER Dance Tutorial

Problems and trials are unavoidable part in life. Broken relationship, death of loved ones, losing jobs, natural disaster or any other unpleasant scenario that happen to us are all circumstances in life. We might question God why is it happening. And this line, "why me" may cross to our minds. yep, painful and difficult to face it. We might have negative responses to it.. we may say unfair....and we may say i surrender..i give up.... But the reality is, we have the control to how would we react in all of these to make us a better person...to make us stronger...to turn things which are best for us.. We cannot change the past but we have the chance to make things right for the future.

1 Thessalonians 5:18  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

It isn't easy i know, but we can overcome all of these circumstances in life as we trust and cooperate to God's plan for us.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

1 Peter 5:7 says, Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you!

Yes, He does care for us more than how we do care for ourselves....

So whatever situation you are having right now, have HOPE! You can overcome cause we are always victorious in Jesus name!

Time to dance.... :)) and declare that we are all "overcomers"!

OVERCOMER song of Mandisa sums it up....Don't Quit , Don't give in.... You're an overcomer!

here's the dance tutorial... :))

here's the whole dance with music...

we did have our second practice after the Sunday worship...having fun while practicing..:))

God bless!

"This is the Day" Tambourine Dance Tutorial

Glad to be back in Tambourine Dance mode again!

 i was asked by a friend from the Philippines to have a simple tambourine dance tutorial for her students which they can use as an opening salvo for a thanksgiving celebration in school. this is the school were i worked for 9 years as a math teacher way back in the Philippines before i came here in Thailand.The school that i am talking about is my beloved Enfant Cheri Study Centre, Inc. They will celebrate its 21st founding anniversary this month of October! I am grateful for a chance to share a little help in this celebration. They will only have a week to practice for this dance so i was asked to make this dance very simple for grade school students! :))

So here it is, 4 STROKES for the whole dance...  ;)

-intro(1x)
-Isaiah (revised) (2x)
-intro action(1x)
-Isaiah (2x)
-Genesis (2x)
-Proclamation (2x)
-intro action(1x)
-Isaiah (2x)
-Genesis (2x)
-Proclamation (2x)
-Dancing (2x)
-Intro action (1x)
-clapping (1x)
-bridge action (4x)
-Circle formation (1 1/2x)
-Proclamation (2x)
-Intro action (1x)
the end... :))

Here's the whole dance with music!

OVERCOMER Dance

Yahoooooo!!! just so excited to be back on my blog post...

Need to overcome my boredom in creating dances nowadays....just felt so weak again and seems everything is so tiring.. i thank  GOd for reminding me after hearing this song n KLOVE! :) "OVERCOMER" by Mandisa.

As i ponder on this song, i realized that i did overcome a lot of trials in life and that is because God was there and is always there for me, holding me up high!

My prayer that "YOU" who could watch this dance will be blessed and be reminded that YOU are an OVERCOMER! Don't QUIT... DON'T GIVE IN! JESUS is there for you...

Here's the first video attempt for this dance... try to make the tutorial of this later with the other girls!

got some probs on this vid, it won't play in mobile...mmh..hope someone could tell me how to make this available in mobile..can't view this in my ipad..:((

Anyway God bless everyone!

August Flashback!

For us(Eksilah Dance Team), August is the busiest month so far for this year 2013. Full-packed Sched made us more energetic to dig deeper to our passion.

As i recall,

3 years ago, at the same month, i did a  hulking decision in my life that made me disconnected to this kind of "busyness". That "disconnection" led me to a realization that "I am happy when I am busy"_ busy to give Him glory! Now that I am reconnected by God's grace,  I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to be working again to the pipeline that He really meant for me. Indeed, only by His Grace!

August 2013,

God has really proven how amazingly He holds and loves us that even if how hard we try to let go,  He never gives up on us!

Flashback to the full-packed sched on this month.

1st Sunday ,

We celebrated the 9th Anniversary of Cornerstone Chapel Hadyai - a blissful celebration with a theme "Forever Grateful", declaring God's faithfulness and greatness to His people.

Part of this celebration is our dance "Today is the Day" which is originally sung by Lincoln Brewster. But, this time we dance this with the version of thai.

Here's the video of this dance..

we also had the dance for that song "Forever God is Faithful". This is the dance that we never had a general practice for everyone who participated..lol.. so you know already the result but then still it was fun! :)))

2nd Sunday,

Celebrating the Mother's Day here in Thailand.

 And as a tribute to all the mothers, we had this thai dance taught by the thai dancers in our team, Wann & Nafia. I don't understand the lyrics, i was even confused with dance steps and felt awkward in moving, but seriously, I enjoyed this dance and thankful that i able to wear a thai costume at last! :)

Here's the video! 

(psst... we did practice twice only, as in the song was played twice only a night before the final performance..hehehhe..:) 

(okay fine, i admit....i am the Best in Cheating in this dance..... haahahha)

3rd week, 

the team attended thePlan13 in Penang, Malaysia. Certainly soooooo blessed in that conference. God has taught and reminded me a lot of things. Really it was a refreshing... really an awesome gathering... Thankful that God has used people so we can join to that conference!

We were asked to perform a Malay dance which was part of the production or the opening part of the said conference. We were nervous cause it was our first time to have a Malay Dance and the fact that in front of us were mostly Malaysians. But thank God, we did it! :) mmh sorry don't have the video of this though...
but here's during our practice in the house..

(actually this dance tutorial was made for Faith for she was "out of town" again during our rehearsal..:D)

Aside from that Malay Dance, we were asked to give an exposition of Genesis 37:1-23. Honestly, got a hard time of understanding what it is.. :)) another first time for us... to present this passage in the Bible through dance...........the story of Joseph the Dreamer! yeh...i heard this story since i was a kid in our Sunday School with my mom as our teacher!weeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh...... A day and a night of headache... had brainstorming with the girls..til we ended sleeping all in bed and hoping to have an idea on what to do through our dreams! when we woke up on the next day, did try to recall if we dreamed something but nothing ..hahhahh...then we prayed and surely, God is the God of wisdom and He gave this idea to us. 

Here it is...a spontaneous dance presentation of Genesis 37:1-24. 

the music on the last part in this presentation wasn't the correct version of the song, you could see the confusion at the middle of that dance and  that was my fault coz i didn't check it before we performed..another lesson learned.. :)) but i guess it was still okay though coz we managed to finish the dance still!...hehehhh... Praise God!

4th Sunday,

we had our YES-Hatyai August (Youth Empowerment Service-youth gathering in our church). Actually we supposed to dance this- "Hello My Name Is" by Matthew West.

But, since we were busy in our work (our students joined an inter-school competition), so we ran out of time to have a practice... hoping to dance this next time.

Some pics to remember..

9th Anniversary of Cornerstone Chapel Hadyai

"Today is the Day" dance costume

"Forever God is Faithful" dance uniform ..:))

Taken after the celebration

Mother's Day Celebration

Thai Costume

From the left: Josephine, Grace, Plew,Wann, Yvonne, Nafia, Joy, Karisse, & Rose

just a pose after we danced..:))

thePlan.... in Penang, Malaysia 

.....all pics---credit to thePlan13 Photographers

Malay Dance Costume

Grateful that the 5 of us had been part on this event. Hoping that the other members of the dance team could join next time.

With Auntie Lilian-the head of the Creative Arts Team and with Ate Janet!  Blessings to these kind and humble women of God! 

Genesis 37:1-23 Exposition

Samantha- the very beautiful and talented daughter of Ate Janet and Kuya Peter, on her split in the ending part of the performance. In such a young age, i see her passion in dancing. so glad that she joined in our dance!

In our Floral pants and Dance Team T-Shirt with Ate Janet our MANAGER...:)) i mean our mentor, supporter, make-up artist, photographer, videographer....etc... :) we are really blessed to know this beautiful lady in red!  

Last Minute Practice

YES-Hatyai August

after the Fellowship in YES

With Luccas- Our Brazilian friend whom we met in thePlan13 and who played the saxophone during the exposition. We are thankful that he shared his time in seeing us here in Hatyai. we are blessed to the life of this man!

AUGUST 2013 is a breakthrough indeed! THANK YOU LORD!!!!!!!

Glory and Praise to His name.....

"FOREVER GOD IS FAITHFUL" Dance Tutorial

Back to my post! :) yeh JULY is almost over... How really time flies so fast! August is about to welcome us... Excited for this next month coz of the coming activities that we will be attending..and most of all, excited for the the things that God wants us to learn and to experience!

First Sunday of August,
....the 9th Anniversary of Cornerstone Chapel Hadyai...yeh! and my 4th year in this church.. :)

Second Sunday,
.... Mother's Day Special Celebration...

Third week, specifically, 15th -18th ... will be in Malaysia to attend the ThePlan13...excited to be part of the Creative Arts Team!

Fourth week? don't know yet! but for sure there will be somethin..:)))

So, let start with the first... the Church Anniversary!

Part of this celebration will be a DANCE which will be participated by the people from the different communities. Very much excited to this... For these past two weekends, we indulged more of our time going to the different communities to fellowship with the other believers and to teach this dance.

The theme of this celebration is "FOREVER GRATEFUL". So we decided to go for this song "Forever GOD is Faithful" by Chris Tomlin for the opening of the celebration. Ah yah, we will use the Thai Version on this.

So here's the Dance Tutorial.

Here's the whole dance ..in Thai

Here' the whole dance ...in English

God bless!

Music Night Dance Presentation

For the first time, the Eksilah Dance Team was invited by the other church to perform. This was during the Music Night of the Chinese Christian Church here in Hatyai, Thailand in celebration of their 70th Anniversary.

The said Music Night catered the talents of God's children in singing, dancing and playing musical instruments for His glory. It was really a night of fun! I did really enjoy it. I love the way how the word of God was shared in the middle of every presentation. Another good idea that could be used as a concept when we go out in reaching the people and sharing the love of Christ. 

Yah, we danced the part of the "Desert Song-Thai Version" for the intro and followed by our Tambourine Dance "God is Awesome" by the Hillsongs.

Have i mentioned in my previous post that this was the song that we used when we first had a Tambourine Dance Presentation here in Thailand? :) yeh! that was during the 6th Anniversary of Cornerstone Chapel Hadyai last August 2010. 

And yesterday, we used this again with the same strokes that we had on the first presentation. :) but yah, this time with different formation cause we're only 7 unlike the first time we had this, i think we were 10.  

After 3 sessions of rehearsals, we ended up with this performance ....it isn't still perfect though..:) but the point is, we did enjoy the dance as we give praise to the Father!

Enjoy watching! let go of the mistakes..hahah..

Video of the Dance last 2010

 

Some pics of the night! :)

Awesome Night with lots of Fun!

Other performers of the event

From the left: Faith, Joy, Yvonne, Nafia, Grace, Karisse & Wann

a pose before the event started

on the other side..:)))

with the other Filipinos who went with us and with the beautiful wife of our Pastor, Ajarn Liz on her fuchsia pink shirt

At the dressing room..:)))

A pose before we left the Chinese Church

All the Praises and Glory be unto the MOST HIGH GOD!

God bless...

Tambourine Strokes for "God is Awesome in this Place"

Had started practicing the tambourine dance again "God is Awesome in this Place". This is the first tambourine dance that i had here in Thailand. We presented this during the anniversary in the church last 2010. 

We are thinking that this song really fits more in an anniversary celebration of a church. And since, we are invited by the Chinese Church here in Hatyai  in their 70th Church Anniversary, we decided to use this song of the Hillsongs once again. 

Here are the strokes we used in this dance.

war

acts

praise

gospel

Isaiah

banner

triumph A

proclamation

gospel

coronation

Lion of Judah

Arise

walking armor

victory

grace

declaration

Here's the video for these strokes.

We will gonna present this on Saturday, 6th of this month. We did practice this dance twice still and planning to have our final rehearsals on Saturday morning! The event will start @7pm ... so i guess morning is still the best time to finalize this dance.

Costume??? planning to wear somethin redssss...:)) mmmh...we'll see!

God bless us as we dance this on Saturday! 

Simply Gracious on its 1st!

Last Day of June! I only have one post for this month. Sad... :((( but the good news is and i didn't notice it that it's been a year now since i started sharing dances here in this blog site. I have this not because we wanna boast on what we have but to share and help the others who have the passion in dancing as well, not to compete those who are very good and really expert in dancing coz for sure we cannot, but to humbly show the talents that God has given to us and that it could glorify His name, and lastly, we just  want this for some documentations for all the dances that we able to perform already(wish to keep this here forever...:))) for sure when we will be in our old age already, it would be really nice to watch these videos again and reminisce the past where we still have the energy to dance!)

Happy 1st Anniversary for my "SIMPLY GRACIOUS"- Celebrating Life through Dances for God's Glory! I personally wanna thank the people who really encouraged me to do this blog. First and foremost  to Ate Janet of http://www.janetspeaks.com/   who pushed me to do this..heheh... i mean who deeply influenced me to have this blog. And to Lorenzo of http://www.zonetrips.com/ and Kuya Irvin of http://www.thereflectionoflife.com/ and also to Genebei of http://genefaithisawayfromhome.com/ who helped me a lot in starting this blog. :)) Thank you guys for sharing!

There are still a lot that i don't know in this world of blogging and i am excited to learn more about this...

wishing for more years to you Simply Gracious!

"I DON'T FEEL LIKE..."

These past few days? I spell it as T-O-U-G-H... yah tough! I am just consumed of my laziness and my anger i guess! which for sure this is just nothing compared to the other thorns that i went through in life.

can't make dances, can't concentrate in creating strokes for tambourine for our dance "I am not forgotten". (how ironic for that song) i don't feel like doing anything.. mmmh...This isn't what God wants for me though..i know it VERY clearly... it shouldn't be because " I DON'T FEEL LIKE!"

I know we should be motivated in doing things because of God. I know He has been always GOOD to me. In spite of all the trials in life, I could definitely testify that He has been always FAITHFUL to me. But sometimes, i have to admit that i feel weak. sometimes, it is just okay to just be quiet to the people around you and just need to be transparent to God on what we feel...and that we just need time to breathe in and just sit then wait to what God wants us to do.

I've just been sitting these days. as what i said, i felt lazy in doing anything...i don't even want to make a blog. 

BUT!

... tonight, as i browse in the youtube, i stumbled in one of my videos which was taken last year by Genebie (one of the dancers in the church). I can't even remember, what dance we did have on these strokes. I looked and read the comments on it and i am just inspired to share again the talents that God has given to me. I should not stop. I thank God for reminding me tonight that He has given me talents not to keep in the corner but to share them to others for His glory.

... someone shared somethin to me and I have to admit that i am still in an inch-step in learning this...
           "Go beyond what you feel like doing and do what's right. Every time you do what's right when you don't feel like it, you are growing"

praying for more of God's direction and guidance in this life. 

here's the video...i uploaded this again coz i can't view the video of Genebie here in my blog..dont know why... the strokes here were presented clearly in my other posts. just wanna recall this.

List of strokes:

war

dancing

binding

homage

proclamation

acts

banner

shout

shoulder

lion of judah

praise

banner -2

romans

heart

hosanna

victory

God bless!