Preparing for the Primary Program

This week was all about Primary Program prep.

The Primary Program is an annual event where the kids take over the worship service. Usually they work for months in Primary (Junior Sunday School) to learn songs in ASL and practice talks. The weeks before, we go to the chapel and practice using the microphone. It's sorta my main job at church.

Not to say the same thing in every. single. thing. I. write - BUT....this year has been different!

Despite not having any Primary meetings since March, we decided to go ahead with a simplified program by Zoom. We gave each kid an assignment (a song, talk or scripture, depending on age) and asked their parents to record their contributions. Then our local tech-genius will put them together into a program to be played at our worship service on October 18th.

It seemed like a great idea on paper, but getting the kids to record their parts was more than I bargained for! Sunday afternoons, my kids turn into....wiggle worms.... We got one song recorded, but hadn't been able to learn the second song well enough to record last week. I was really nervous all week about how to get my kids to show up on camera this week!

The answer came in the form of...revelation! I had a little voice whisper that my kids might do better if they had an audience to perform for. Hmmm....so one night, I got my parents (who were up really late in France) to watch my kids show-off their songs. The kids totally took the bait. Everyone was so happy. Family ties were strengthened. And I got my precious video!

The last thing I needed was a video of Sam playing the accompaniment for one of the songs. I thought that one would be easy, but it ended up being the hardest of all, as he hadn't practiced the song much lately and kept messing it up. After an agonizing hour of trying to record it and messing up, we decided to make it into a duet - he played the top hand, Lillian played the left. And that worked out. We got the video. They got cake in a mug (b-r-i-b-e....) 

I can't wait to see the Primary program in its fullness in a few weeks! I know some of the other parents were resorting to b-r-i-b-e's too, but the idea of having a normal, cute, perhaps hilarious Primary program just makes my heart happy, and I think the difficulty of extracting normalcy-on-camera from a kid are all worth it!

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In another observation, Martha has been praying for her extended family lately. Some aunts, uncles and cousins who live close together all got coronavirus from one of the high school students, so they were in our prayers. Only I didn't realize Martha was praying for them. She's always prayed for her family, but she's started doing family REALLY big. 

Family in ASL, from www.lifeprint.com

 

Martha will do it so big, she'll almost fall off her knees reaching in front of her. Sometimes she bonks her mom or dad kneeling across from her. I sorta laughed at her gigantic family sign, and noted to myself that we need to hang out with more Deaf people, so she can stop doing weird things. Then the other day, she bonked me, and I mentioned that she didn't have to do it so big. "Oh, no, mom, this is how I sign my big family - all my aunts and uncles and cousins. The little one just means the family that lives here with us." First off, I love the way kids use lots of descriptive language to express things they don't have the vocabulary for. Second, I love the way she gets ASL - that's exactly the way it works. You draw it with your hands. I don't know if an adult deaf signer would ever do that exact thing, but the principle was sound.