Urim songwriting workshop: Closing ceremony

The seven days of the Urim songwriting workshop were really outstanding. People heard the teaching sessions with eagerness and were very quickly repeating back what they had heard. The Bible verses seemed to sink deeply into their thinking. And once the songwriting began, I had a hard time keeping up with them! We did two days of songwriting sessions as I've already described, and then I set up a recording area inside the house I was living in and began the recording process. (For the recordings, I used my beloved Marantz PMD-661 digital audio recorder, with a Rode NT4 stereo microphone.)

For three days (Wednesday through Friday) I stayed mostly in the recording room, with individual groups coming there to perform their new songs. While one group was recording, the rest of the group was continuing to compose new songs, going through the critiquing process themselves in the classroom. Never before have I had three full days of recording new songs, and by the end of the week we had recorded 63 new songs! The final recordings were the bamboo-and-kundu group I described earlier. Then it was time for the closing ceremony.

In each workshop, I like to let the participants themselves plan their own graduation celebration. They can invite the whole community to be involved, or just the class. They can organize speeches (an important part of every ceremony in PNG), sermons, songs, dances, prayers . . . whatever is important to them. The Urim participants planned a nice ceremony for just the class. The "Master of Ceremonies" led everyone through the program, which was written on the blackboard in the classroom. One of the groups sang a couple of songs, there was an opening prayer, and then a set of speeches. The speeches came from people representing a number of domains within Urim life: the church, traditional life, local government. Pastor Peter (who played the mtark, in a previous post), gave a speech of appreciation for what the participants had learned and experienced during the workshop.

Pastor Peter

The most moving speech for me was from Cornelias, an older Urim man who had been a very enthusiastic part of the workshop. In fact, he was one of the first people I met as I walked around the Urim villages on my first afternoon in the area. Cornelias walked to the front of the classroom, holding his kundu. He set it down and said, "When I became a Christian, I put down the kundu. I didn't play kundu, didn't play bamboo, didn't play garamut. I turned my back on all of it. I thought our traditions were sinful." Then he smiled big (as he often did during the workshop week), picked up the kundu, and said, "But now we've finally learned that we can use anything to praise God--even our traditions! Before, when we only used guitars in church, not many people came to church. The sound of the guitar just doesn't make us feel happy. However, now that we're going to be using our own instruments in church, you just wait and see--church is going to be packed! Everyone is going to want to come!"

What an amazing speech! I was absolutely thrilled to hear about people discovering the freedom of worshiping the true God. I pray that the Urim people will continue to enjoy turning their traditions toward praising God, and that people will hear the truth through these new songs.

The speeches concluded with a final opportunity for me to address the whole class. I went back to Mark 12:28-31--the passage I'd read during my devotional talk on the first day--and reaffirmed the challenge to live fully for God, following Jesus in the strength of the Holy Spirit. I said that the new songs, and the ability to compose new songs, are part of what we are to offer back to God for his glory; and that sharing these songs and this knowledge with others is one way to love your neighbors.

After my talk, the participants surprised me with a number of beautiful gifts. But before they gave me the gifts, they told me that their real gift that they wanted to give me was 1 Corinthians 15:58:

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

This familiar verse will now always remind me of the days with the Urim people, enjoying a fantastic songwriting workshop together.

Cornelias gives me a bow and arrows

Receiving a bilum--the woven string bag common to many parts of Papua New Guinea

Peter plays the mtark . . .

. . . and then places it in the bilum.

Receiving another bilum

Sosaia, the leader of the group that composed the traditional songs with bamboo trumpets

Presenting me with the lead bamboo from the ensemble