“Our group started planning and praying about our Large Group Human Video months before the actual competition,” said TPS student Emily Renken. “We started our rigorous practices in January and continued until the actual state competition in April.”

What started out as just an idea will bring Emily Renken, her brother and fellow TPS student Timothy Renken and four others from their youth group to the National Fine Arts Festival this August in Orlando, Florida.

Emily said, “We needed a group that was committed to working their hardest. We ended up with six people … that were willing to give 100% of their time and energy.”

The Renkens’ group decided to perform a slightly unusual version of the story of David and Goliath set to the song Bethlehemian Rhapsody by Apologetix. “We wanted something that was humorous, but still had a great message,” Emily explained.

Tim explains exactly how the video plays out. “The first part of the video … shows Goliath (Curt), and the Israelites. The Israelites see Goliath and they’re really scared. Then [Bonny and I] … walk up to the Israelites and are basically challenging them. And it shows how Goliath is so big and strong and he will be able to defeat them. Then we go into a next scene and David (Shawnie) is pleading to his mother (Emily) to let him go fight Goliath because he has God on his side. While David is pleading it shows me and Bonny frozen and the second that the David says, “He’s a big and crazy guy,” Goliath starts choking me and he throws me down. Then David says good bye to all of the people/sheep. David and Goliath meet in the middle and have a fight scene (which I choreographed). And it ends in that Goliath dies and [Bonny and I] turn good.”

To try it out, a week before the competition they performed it for some kids at their church. “We … received a great reaction from them,” said Emily.

When they got there, Emily admitted that they all were “extremely nervous.”

“The tough competition and daunting judges were obviously a different audience," she said. “We tried to keep our focus on the real reason we were there: to worship God with our performance.”

Their concentration and hard work paid off. “We ended up tying for first place with an invitation to nationals,” said Emily, “and they also asked us to perform for the celebration service.

“It was amazing being up on the platform in front of 1,200 people,” she said.

“Our main goal was to glorify God through our hard work and our final performance,” said Emily. “We didn't want to give Him less than everything we had.”

Emily also advanced in three other areas: solo human video, graphic arts and short story.

“It took me four months and hundreds of songs, but I finally found what I was looking for [for my solo human video],” Emily said. “I used He Will Carry Me by Mark Schultz. The process began of developing a complex enough storyline that would be clear enough for the audience to understand … I ended up altering the song a bit by recording and adding a clip of a little girl singing Jesus Loves Me. The story is about a little girl dying of brain cancer and how her mother deals with the pain. … She ends up giving all her pain to God. The song in and of itself is emotional, but combined with the storyline, it has touched a lot of people.

“There is just something about looking into the audience and seeing people in tears that makes all the work worth it.”

As to the graphic arts competition, Emily said, “I had been playing around with a certain idea for a couple months, and finally decided on what I wanted to do. I ‘remade’ my project numerous times, but each time, something just was not right. My last attempt ended up leading to a totally different idea. I spent many hours working the little glitches out of my graphic, but I finally came up with something that I liked.”

The last category, the short story, was a bit of a surprise. “I have never been a big writer,” Emily admitted, “but the past two years on TPS with Mrs. Troxell have completely changed my writing habits. At first when I suggested to my mom that I was thinking about writing a short story for Fine Arts, she thought I was kidding. I had an idea in mind of a plotline, but I needed to get it down on paper. I always write better in the wee hours of the morning, so one night I pulled an all-nighter and wrote the basic story. The next couple weeks was my revising process.

“When I started, I had no idea how much work it would be, but I quickly figured that part out. I had a lot of trouble with the word limit, but finally narrowed it down to one word less than the maximum. I used the opinions of others' to help make my story's theme become more apparent. In the end, all the work was worth it.”

TPS student Marlayna Harp advanced to the finals in the keyboard solo category. “I had picked one of my favorite songs titled The Heart of Worship, and a made a few changes,” explained Marlayna. “For example, I did not really care for the beginning of the song which sounded like banging to me; instead I made it sound more flowing like the rest of the song.”

“I chose this category because back four years ago, I had been in Fine Arts and I played in keyboard solo then,” she continued. “The judges had told me to make the song my own when I played it, not just to play it, but feel it; make everyone who is listening and watching know that I mean everything that the song is trying to communicate.”

Although she qualified for the National Fine Arts Festival in Orlando, Marlayna has chosen not to go. “I thought and prayed about it,” Marlayna said, “and I think that God’s will is for me to wait until next year.”

TPS student Elizabeth Poulin also advanced to the National Fine Arts Festival.

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