The Sound of Music, Lesa’s 9th show at our school, and the first one featuring Sydney in a major role, finished 2 weeks ago. See photos from the show and read more about the 11 weeks of rehearsal, 85 cast, crew, and orchestra, 5 sellout performances, and 1 drama teacher to rule them all.

Tonight, Andy heads to Egypt and on Monday, Iraq. He will be serving as a videographer with International Christian Concern, an organization whose mandate is getting the world to notice Christian persecution and to fight on behalf of those who are enduring this persecution. Read more about this trip, and how you can be praying for Andy, and especially for the christians from these countries.

2 days after he returns, Andy starts casting for “A Distant Boat”(working title), the first feature-length film his team has ever taken on, and with Andy as director. Andy’s team will weed through up to 400 actors in 2 days to get down to a cast of about a dozen. Watch a short video about this film project and how you can get involved.

A little under two weeks later, and the whole family will be in Amsterdam, riding the canals and checking out the Anne Franke house, on a short 1-day layover on the way to the US for furlough this summer.

Browns in Africa, Summer 2012 world tour dates:

We don’t take it lightly that there are nearly 100 people in the US and Canada who sacrifice financially, regularly, for us to serve the church in Africa, and even the church in the middle east occasionally. We are humbled and blown away every month to see who God will use to provide the $6600 it takes every month for us to live modestly and serve effectively here.

As we’ll be starting our 3rd term as missionaries in August, we are forecasting a $27,000 shortfall in our support over the next 2 year term, due to inflation and the rapidly rising cost of living here.

• Would you please be praying about joining our support team, either financially or in praying for us? 
• If you belong to a church that values missions, would you consider letting us be a part of your church’s plan to fulfill the great commission in Africa?
• Would you please be praying for our furlough? That we would find much-needed rest in a short amount of time, especially with great distances to be traveled and quality family time that needs to be spent.

Thank you for taking the time to read our update, and to pray for our family and our ministries here in Africa.

-Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery and Sydney Brown

85 cast, crew, and orchestra

5 sellout performances

1 drama teacher to rule them all…

Our high school’s production of “The Sound of Music” took place recently over 2 weekends. It was the biggest show Lesa’s done since “The King and I“, in terms of length, numbers of students involved, size of the set, and the size of the undertaking. The show was a smashing success, and for our family was a particularly memorable experience. With Lesa as the director, Robbie playing in the orchestra, Sydney as Gretyl (the youngest Von Trap child), Avery running projection in the tech booth, and Andy running spotlight (and as technical director), it’s been an exhausting but rewarding couple of weeks leading up to opening night. The opening night was a smashing success, in everything from set to costumes to singing and acting.

 This past weekend has been a rough one, though. Friday night’s second act was nearly drowned out by a thunderous rainstorm. Sydney woke up Saturday morning with a 103 degree fever, and we quickly arranged for the other Gretyl (Lesa double cast the children’s roles for situations like this). Then, minutes before Saturday’s matinee was about to start, the piano player suffered a grand mal seizure. The cast and crew were pretty shaken and scared, and the performance had to be cancelled before it started (while Andy was desperately trying to prepare to sight-read the piano score for a 3 hour long show).

The show will resume on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, with a new piano player (not Andy… someone who actually has time to practice) and hopefully Sydney back on her feet.

Our Masai friends who’ve been staying at our house this weekend must think every day is like this…

Lesa’s first concert in her new role as Choir Director at our school here in Nairobi.

Lesa and the cast/crew of LW&W

The semester has started off with a bang this year. The students who were freshman my first year of teaching are now seniors, I can hardly believe it! Our high school production this semester is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which takes place the last weekend of October.

We have invited several local Kenyan schools to a special matinee outreach performance, which is a first for us. After the performance we will hold discussions about the gospel message found in Lewis’ story.

I’m teaching “Introduction to Theatre” for the fourth time, so I’m finally getting the hang of it! We’ve started a drama ministry team for chapel, as well, which gives the students a chance to see how effective drama can be in ministry.

My grad school studies have helped me become a better teacher/director all the way around, so this past year has been full of many improvements to the program.

I’ve also begun directing the high school choir. This has been a true joy for me, getting back into conducting again. Our first concert (combined with the middle school choirs) is November 17th!

My third area of focus at school is Worship. I teach a Worship class both semesters (this semester is “Worship 2″) and also direct the bands which lead worship each week for chapel. Those of you who know me well know that I am in heaven, doing all the things I love: choir, theatre, and worship music with high school students! It has been amazing to see the growth of my students in leadership, character, and in their artistic abilities throughout each program. I feel truly blessed by God to be able to serve with all of my gifts here at our school.

Robbie, in "the Healer"

Lesa and the kids have had a busy and productive time at school the past few months. Late last year saw Robbie’s theatre debut, in the middle school portion of a night of student-written one acts Lesa produced. And with a giant Bollywood style ending no less!

In January Lesa had the opportunity again to lead a group of high school students to Olepishet, our Maasai village where we’ve been adopted by the community, for a week-long cultural field studies program. It was a great time for her in continuing to build a relationship with this community, helping students to engage with Maasai culture, encourage and support the local church, and provide some basic community health care training.

Lesa, director

In addition to teaching drama, discipleship, and directing the 4 high school worship teams, Lesa is in production week for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the HS Drama department spring play. Following that, in April, will be a weekend production of a musical revue, spanning 20th century Broadway hits.

One of the most important parts of ministry to teens is the discipleship. In all things Lesa sees her most important role as being not just a mentor, but a discipler. Seeing kids develop their full potential in Christ, not just artistically, is very exciting, and what keeps Lesa energized. Check out the portfolio of Sonia Kuguru, and see what caliber of students she gets to work with and develop!

And somehow in there she finds time to work in weekly homework assignments for her Master’s in Theatre Education…

Lesa is currently directing “An Evening of Short Plays”.  In this, she is putting her master’s classes into practice by using a type of theatre she learned about this summer called Devised Theatre, where she takes the kids through a specific process of activities (acting, team-building, etc.) to produce original works that are driven by the students.  The high school cast is producing 7 of these short pieces, two of them being directed by seniors.  The middle school cast is producing one longer piece (approx. 45 minutes).  Lesa’s Intro to Theatre class is also producing a piece.  All of these are to be performed at the end of October as one show.

Lesa has also been thrilled to be the new Coordinator for Worship Teams for the high school chapels.  She has 25 students who rotate on teams to lead worship each week.  She and Andy took them on a retreat in late August to work on skills and to just spend time worshiping together as a group.  They are quite good musicians and are amazing kids who love God.  She has also taken on an exciting new Worship Class which focuses on the spiritual, musical and technical aspects of leading worship music.  It has been so rewarding to pass on what she and Andy have learned over the past 15+ years.  These 35 students in the class and on the teams represent at least 10 different home countries.  What an amazing thought that God will multiply our experience across the globe!

Many of you are keenly aware of the incredible ministry Lesa has, not only in drama, but in discipling, mentoring and training these students.  She’ll be filling you in more in our next update, but she is already learning many things that she is excited to use in her teaching/directing and for helping her students utilize drama as a ministry tool at school and in the surrounding communities.

If you would like to be a part of supporting her in continuing this work, would you consider giving to her educational expenses? Right now we took out student loans to pay for her schooling and books. This summer she is earning 9 credit hours at a cost of $3,500.  She’ll then take 3 hours each semester, another 9 hours next summer, and then 3 more semesters of 3 hours each.  If you would like to give a tax-deductible gift to help with these expenses, instructions are below.

1. go to AIM’s online giving page (https://dlq4.donatelinq.net/qv10/Donation.aspx?MerchantID=aimint)
2. under categories, select “Missionaries (USA sending unit)”
3. under the subcategory, select “Brown, Andrew & Lesa – Cont. education”
4. Click the “Add” button to add a donation to this project
5. Fill in the rest of the information and click “Next”

God bless you for encouragement and support of Lesa and her ministry in Kenya.