Backstage again, under-qualified again, fearful but faithful... again. God is too good.
Another Fashion Week outreach, only this time it was here in Los Angeles instead of New York. The opportunity came unexpectedly, and our decision to volunteer happened quickly. Before we had much time to think, 16 of us young YWAM missionaries piled into vans and headed to downtown LA. We were hired to dress the models, simply because of my one week of experience dressing models in New York City this past September. We were all honored and excited to serve, recognizing that this was a rare opportunity to reach a group of people that may not otherwise be reached by the love of Christ.
One of the most amazing testimonies of the week was simply the great favor we received from our supervisors. In the beginning of the week they were stressed and slightly guarded, yelling directions and bluntly advising us not to steal or leave early. (Not that any of this was wrong, they were bearing a large amount of responsibility in making sure the whole week went as it should.) But by the end of the first night my YWAM girls had done such an excellent job dressing the models that our supervisors were praising our work and insisting that we return the next day to do it all again.
When we came back the next day everything went even better than it did the day before. There were two groups of us sitting on either sides of the room backstage. One side was packed with students from FIDM, (The Fashion Institute here in LA), then we were sitting on the other side of the room.. our anxious group of untrained missionaries. Each time the stylist would come grab a student from FIDM to dress, our supervisor would step in and say, "NO, those are NOT our dressers, (then she would point to us) THESE are our dressers!" Then one-by-one our girls went and greeted the model that they would be dressing for the night. After the show was over we praised God because literally NOTHING went wrong. They were brilliant! Everybody involved appeared pleased with how the show happened! At the end of the evening one of my girls took a bold step of faith and asked if she could pray for our head supervisor, then after what felt like an eternity of a pause, she responded, “Yes! But first let me grab my friends!” So within minutes our entire group circled around our bosses and my friend Dorothea prayed a beautiful prayer over them. Afterwards one of them was crying, Dorothea encouraged her by reminding her of God’s love for her as His daughter. She received the encouragement wholeheartedly and told us that she was a Christian too.
The following night we were unable to go but when we arrived on Friday our bosses were all too excited to see us. They filled us in right away that things had been stolen the night we weren’t there, they actually said, “We really felt it when you weren’t here last night!” I even overheard one supervisor telling another woman, “You don’t need to worry about these girls stealing anything, they are Christians, they wouldn’t do that.” This final night of working happened to be the most intense. It was couture night, so it was the biggest show and had the most fragile, elaborate dresses. They told us before we arrived that they probably weren't going to have anyone but me do the dressing because they needed "the best". So instead of choosing us they were going to choose the trained students from the Fashion Institute to do the dressing. However, things changed, and when we showed up they decided that we were "the best", and that my inexperienced girls were going to be dressing the show- instead of the fashion institute students! So we called our friends back at the YWAM campus and got as many people praying for us as possible. Then we gathered in a back room and prayed intensely that God would move in us and through us. We also asked Him to lift the nervousness and replace it with courage! He did!
The show went incredibly well (I will share details in the next post!) that afterwards I was approached by the designer's assistant, (who was originally a very intimidating woman with a Satanic tattoo on her neck), she said, "We were asked to do this show again so that it could be put on television, and I would like you and your girls to come back and dress our models again because they did such an amazing job." So amazing!
Our supervisors were deeply grateful for our presence there. Acknowledging the peace, joy, and positivity that happened when we arrived. There was real trust and safety that happened because they could feel God in us. It was completely beautiful. They have already asked us to return in February for their next season of shows!
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