Living Pages First Tour – A Miraculous Turnout
How Living Pages Began
All right, so Living Pages Theatre was, at first, kind of an accident. It started about half a year after Eli, Isaiah, Ashley, and Sarah had met at a discipleship training school in Tampa, Florida. They were all on their separate paths, and God brought them together into Youth With A Mission, Tampa, where they had their lives changed. They went to Mexico to perform and sing for unreached Huichol tribes. After this life-changing ministry opportunity, which is its own story full of God’s miraculous and crazy work, they had to part ways and return to their homes. Isaiah, back to Idaho, Sarah to Washington, Ashley to Wisconsin, and Eli stayed in Florida.
It wasn’t half a year after parting ways when Ashley decided she wanted to visit Sarah in Washington. Hearing about this, Isaiah asked if he could come too. Eventually, what was a desire to reunite became a desire to do ministry while they were together, which became the desire to perform, which eventually became what was sounding more and more like a mission trip. The mission trip, in turn, became a non profit theatre company.
It was shocking how it all came together. Before they knew it, they were writing music, dancing, and trying to pull together a full-length musical online and over the phone in a few months. Isaiah and Eli began writing music for the show, Sarah added choreography, and Ashley started creating posters and marketing materials. The presentation they created is called “To the Church in Rome”. It’s a full musical of the first 8 chapters of Romans, word for word, with music, acting, song, and dance. Isaiah started memorizing the first chapter of Romans when he was twelve. As time went on, every couple of years the Lord put it on his heart to memorize another chapter. Once he was in YWAM, he knew that he was supposed to memorize the first 8 chapters to be able to perform them by himself, but he never dreamed that it would be a musical performed with 3 other people and characters. The show was putting Romans into its context and, ultimately, bringing the scriptures to life in a way that people had not seen before.
This show was made possible only through God’s guidance and power. Rehearsing, creating, marketing, and working as a team was very difficult when the whole team was spread across four different places in the country. The tour took place in Idaho and Washington, in Isaiah and Sarah’s hometowns. Two churches: Evangelical Free Church in Jerome, ID, and Hillcrest Church in Bellingham, WA. Both churches supported us in many ways.
The next several months were filled with marketing and going around to churches in the surrounding areas to invite them to the shows. Isaiah performed small excerpts and talked about the details. The date of the show slowly crept closer and closer and the team was still not together. In fact, Isaiah, Ashley, Eli, and Sarah were not all together until 3 days before their first show in Idaho. It really was a miracle that the show was ready to go by the time of the first performance.
“It baffles my mind how God even managed to start this whole thing.” -Isaiah
“I would like to say that I was optimistic for the entire process, but I just wasn’t. God really worked in me to show how He made this whole thing happen. The show really was His!” -Sarah
Performing in Potato Land
The first venue was Evangelical Free Church in Jerome, ID – Isaiah’s church. While in Idaho, the team was working hard to put this whole show together, but once the performance began, the unexpected began. Isaiah said he would have been happy if 20 or more people showed up to the performance. They honestly had no idea what to expect. On the first and second nights, their numbers were close to the 50s, and by the final night, they had around 80 people come to their show. This was mind-blowing. The turnout was way larger than they had expected.
“I watched person after person come up to me and tell me how encouraged and impacted they were. We were invited to so many other churches, other states, and even other countries to come and perform this show that we had hardly any expectations for.” – Isaiah
The Living Pages team also performed at a prayer retreat in the mountains. This was beyond encouraging and uplifting.
“The amount of support we were met with in Jerome and the prayer retreat was so encouraging! There was no doubt in my mind that God was guiding our team to continue forward.” -Sarah
Washington – Where Will We Stand When the Trials Begin?
When the team arrived in Washington, the matter was different. On their first night, they had 6 people come to the show and many obstacles were in their way. Trials began to grow in the team: miscommunications, anxiety, and stress put everyone on edge. Things were starting to heat up. But every performance was an encouragement as the team watched God’s hand at work. The most valuable lesson in all this was this: “No matter who comes, we put out 100 percent. We perform for the Lord and His glory”.
“I was very discouraged at first, seeing that my work at advertising our show in my hometown was falling short. But in talking to the people who came, I was reminded that it is not in my strength God makes everything happen. God had and has a plan.” -Sarah
And it was clear, the people who did come to the venues in Washington were obviously supposed to be there.
“I was able to pray for and encourage many people whom I knew were supposed to see the show. We prayed for political leaders in Bellingham and also other actors and performers who sought to build the Kingdom of God.” -Isaiah
Discovery Bay – YWAM
Their best performance and the most encouraging was when they were able to perform at YWAM Port Townsend, where they were greeted with love and appreciation, and received constant encouragement that they were doing a very powerful thing for the Lord.
“This YWAM base was so peaceful and encouraging! So peaceful in fact that I went back a month later to stay and help with maintaining the base.” -Sarah
Continuing Forward
After the performance in Washington, it was clear to the team that the Lord wanted them to keep performing. They had received so much encouragement, they saw how God used the performance, and were invited to so many different areas, that they could not ignore the call God had on this show and on their lives.
“I had no plans after these performances in Washington. My life was an open slate for God to direct me in whatever direction that He wanted. And in that moment, I saw that He wanted this vision He gave me to go further and deeper. So, within a week of returning home from Washington, the Lord told me I was to leave everything I knew once again and move to Florida.” -Isaiah
“When I went back to Washington, I knew that God wanted us to continue. But I was unsure of when or how. But God had a plan for me and for our team, so when I finally surrendered my personal plan to Him, the world started moving very fast. As soon as I fully trusted, God revealed this beautiful opportunity for adventure with Him to build His Kingdom. -Sarah