Joyeux Noel!

MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody!!!!!

GOD JUL alle sammen!!!!!

Even though I am in Louisiana, I still have my phone. So it would be nice to hear from some family and friends while I'm away this Christmas... +1 561 707 0914

Love you all, and have a blessed Christmas!

Christen and I during act 1

Mary and baby Jesus who was only 14 days old that night! The one I had the last night was 3 days old! Unfortunately there are no pictures of Mary and Joseph yet. But I think someone took a picture, so we'll post them as soon as we get them.

Another blog so soon? (!)

My exams are hereby over, and I have some time to update my pictures. Elisa, Christen's sister, just arrived from Louisiana by bus (it took 21 hours!). She is sleeping right now, but soon we're going to take her out to dinner.

She's here to see where we live, and to see our show. Last night I had a baby who SCREAMED!!!! It's bad enough trying to sing in front of 1500 people a night, but when you then have a baby you have to try to calm down, and sing at the same time. Oh boy. It was one of the craziest things I've done. It's so much fun to be challenged like that. But they said that baby is fired. So hopefully I won't have another screamer- cause all the other ones have been fine.

Christen and me at a Christmas party.

Mary Beth and Drew- some really good friends of ours (I know them through acting at school).

And this is just showing what Florida mosquito's do to me...

My beautiful family

I'm done with four exams out of 6. Just thought I'd post two pictures I found of the Tree that a friend took on her camera...

Nativity

The nativity scene captured from an audience member's camera

Tree update

Just updating and letting you know the Tree is going really well!
All the mishaps from dress rehearsal we've gotten rid of, so things have gone smoothly. Last night the baby cried, but otherwise the babies have been terrific! It was so funny, I sing a ballad, "Who would imagine a King", together with Joseph, and the baby was screaming!! The audience was trying their best not to laugh, but I think it was a pretty funny situation...
God is doing great things, and several people have been saved already!!
One more performance tonight, then exams Monday morning, and we start the tree up again on Wednesday.
Hope you are all having a great beginning of Christmas !
PS: Several people have taken pictures of me when Im in the tree, so I'll post them up as soon as I get them.

www.sct2007.com

The day before

We had our dress rehearsal today, with a full audience! People from my school had the offer to come see it for free tonight, and they came. More people than anyone expected, around 600!

Just wanted to write a quick one, to ask you to pray for us these next coming weeks. We are performing for two weeks, until the 16th. I am performing with a real baby- a 3 week old (I play Mary)! Please pray for all of us- that we will be safe, and that the baby won't cry. He was great today, when I was singing he just looked up at me with his big blue eyes. It was great.

It was dress rehearsal tonight, we open tomorrow. A lot of things went wrong (mostly back stage), but we are running around, and stressing a little. Unfortunately I am feeling a little bit discouraged these days, so please pray for me that God will give me His peace. I should be feeling fine, but everytime I perform I feel so bad about what I just did, and it carries over to the next time I perform, and I feed off of my bad feelings... So please, I am praying a lot, but I need your prayers too:)

Pray that I'll get my belly out between two scenes (it was wrapped around my ear piece and microphone!), that people won't collide into me while I am holding the baby, that the donkey (aaargh it is so stubborn!) will want to walk down the aisle so Joseph and I can get to the stage on time... A lot of things went wrong today. And my nerves, please pray that I wil get rid of them. They come right when I'm opening my mouth getting ready to sing, and it is really bad because then I become not confident, and I sound bad...

Thank you for being awesome! I love you guys,

God bless you, and please let me know if I can pray for you about anything. It is so meaningful and great to be praying for eachother!

To let you know what's going on

Hi! Sorry about empty promises of new blogs... I said I'd write a new blog after I went to Indiana, but those days came and went so quickly... After I was in Indiana at the National Christian Multicultural Student Leadership Conference, time started to fly. Exams are coming up in one week, and I have papers due, and I'm in the Singing Christmas Tree, which is a HUGE church production. There are approximately over 200 people who are on stage, and 10 000 people come to see it during the course of two weeks. So I'm busy rehearsing every day and every night... I have had auditions for next semester's one act festival, and I got cast as a lead role in one of the shows. I'm excited about that! One of my friends from Leeds (Katy, from California) has just got engaged, so I'll be going to Cali in the next year or so! I am involved with Acting on AIDS on campus, and World AIDS day was this Saturday. So all of Friday we had programs that I coordinated, and it was a success! Things went really well, and God is the only one who can fix so many things that could have been disasters!

Life is happening!

Christen and I are doing well- being in the Tree together we get more time together, so it's fun. We are looking forward to going to Louisiana for Christmas, and having Reidun and Kjetil over for New Years. It is so hectic these days, though, that we haven't even had time to decorate for Christmas... Here in the US people put in their trees and decorations on November 22nd! I will miss the Norwegian Christmas, but I'm glad I'm in the warmth. It is so nice to be able to wear shorts and t-shirts still, I can't believe that it's winter!

Well, hopefully I'll update pictures soon, as well, but you'll just have to keep waiting for now... Have a great advent time! God bless,
love Marianne