When Grand Canyon University senior theatre major Jessica Mangels received a phone call from a friend in Japan about an opportunity to teach theatre to schoolchildren there, she couldn’t say no.
“Hey, you like music and drama, right? Japan really needs that.”
That is all it took for Mangels to gather four other College of Arts and Media theatre students and begin planning a trip.
“I told her, ‘Let me see if anyone at GCU is available and would like to do this.’ I sent it to Dr. Craig Detweiler (College of Arts and Media dean) and Bill Symington (the college's assistant dean). They approved the idea, and we were on our way,” said Mangels.
For three weeks, the students traveled around Japan, visiting different schools and teaching theatre workshops.
Their first stop was Urawa Lutheran School, where they hosted a drama camp and taught improv games, songs with motions and short skits.
“It was really hard to explain improv games in English,” said senior theatre major Reese Tate. “Instead, we would show it by playing the game first in front of them, and just seeing that, they caught on.
“The most beautiful thing about the trip was that no matter the language barrier, we were all able to speak just using our bodies and emotions. Theatre connected us.”
From early morning until midnight, they spent all their time at the school, teaching multiple acting exercises and short skits that included the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, to roughly 90 schoolchildren per session.
“We wanted to have a time of worship with kids, and it was really awesome how we got to see God work,” said Tate.
In addition, they taught them theatre songs, including "Tomorrow” from "Annie the Musical." At the end of the week, the schoolchildren performed what they had learned in front of their families and congregations at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
“It was beautiful because there are two churches that meet in the same building,” said junior theatre major Thomas Heggem. “They never do stuff together, they don’t coordinate at all. But after both services, a lot of the parents and congregation members stuck around, and we were able to perform for all of them.
“After they performed, we got to perform (GCU theatre professor ) Michael Kary’s “Bible in 40” and were able to teach God’s Word to people who haven’t heard of Christ or were just discovering Him.”
The GCU students spent their second week in Japan traveling and exploring the culture. Traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre, Disneyland, the national temple and various boutiques were just a few spots they visited before they traveled to another school to teach theatre to more schoolchildren.
Their last week was spent at a daycare in Fukushima called The Blessing Room. In similar fashion, they taught young children various skits and worship songs, and even a few games such as duck-duck-goose.
“They loved learning all the American-kid things,” said Mangels.
They, too, performed the songs they learned in front of their parents. Whenever a parent came to pick up their child, they would all line up and sing their songs. The group performed the same song roughly 15 times by the end of the day, said Heggem.
“It was evident we impacted the kids because every time a parent came, the kids didn’t want to do the song because they knew they were leaving,” said Tate. “They would start crying, so we had to start performing the song for them and they would do it little by little.”
Though the intent behind the trip was to teach theatre, the GCU students also wanted to teach and spread God’s love with the community in Japan.
"We wanted to communicate God’s love, and we found that communicating through the kids was most effective, because they are most receptive to that message,” said Heggem. “It was a beautiful thing where God was using elementary-age kids to reach out to their parents and other members in their community.
"We all came into this thinking it would just be fun, excursion, touristy stuff. But God had a whole different plan. He flipped the whole trip around and gave us the opportunities.”
GCU staff writer Izabela Fogarasi can be reached at [email protected]
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