“I’ve got a dream! I’ve got a dream! Yes, way down deep inside I’ve got a dream!”
Last Friday I had one of the coolest experiences ever. I was able to share my dream with a complete stranger while standing on a volcano in Guatemala! I mean, how awesome is that?
In my past blogs, I talked about how I’ve always felt a call to missions but that my idea of what that will look like is changing. And that’s true but it would also be true to say that I’m just finally starting to acknowledge a dream that has been in my heart for a long time. It seemed too big to do so I didn’t really consider it possible until recently. As I have learned more about who my Father is and who I am in Christ, I have realized that it isn’t too impossible if God is calling me to it.
Growing up, I danced a lot. I took ballet classes for about 14 years as well as up to 4 years of classes for other forms of dance such as tap, jazz, modern, and character. At one point in time, I was spending about 7 hours in class every week. If we were preparing for a performance, then I would often have an additional 7 or more hours of rehearsals. In other words, dance was a huge part of my life. Despite devoting so much time to it, I never seriously considered doing anything with it in the future. Occasionally, I would wonder if there would ever be a reason for me to use dance again in the future.
I can clearly remember the moment that I first told someone about my dream. I had just performed for one of the last times in ballet. I had been telling people that I would be done dancing after that year. I was talking with a friend and she asked me if I thought I would ever pick dance up again in the future. Without thinking about my answer, I said something like, “Oh, yeah, someday I’ll use it for therapy with kids.” I walked away from that conversation confused. I knew where that statement had come from but I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. That dream was too scary and precious to share with anyone.
Over the next few years, I let myself think and dream. What would it look like to start a program that uses dance as therapy? What would I need to do to prepare for that? Was it even possible? What would other people think? I went back through all my journals reading all the times I had mentioned this dream. I quickly noticed that although I would occasionally mention this dream, I never wrote down the name of the program: Project Butterfly.
I can’t remember not thinking of it as Project Butterfly. When you dance, you have to have some level of self-confidence. I’ve seen people who are normally wall flowers go all out and dance their hearts out without caring who watched. I’ve seen and felt how dance can bring people from different backgrounds together. Dance has a transformative power and to me watching people start to dance is like watching a butterfly come out of its chrysalis and start to fly.
So back to last Friday. I had decided the day before that I wanted to try to find something with a butterfly on it in every country. While hiking Pacaya, we came across The Lava Store – a little shop that sold things using the volcanic rock.
In it I found a necklace with butterflies. The light part is from a coconut shell and the black is the volcanic rock. I was so excited to find something with butterflies that I started telling my teammates that I had found my butterfly thing for Guatemala. One of the guys who worked at the shop heard and asked if there was some special significance about butterflies which led to me being able to share my dream of Project Butterfly.
