Vivian

WHO IS VIVIAN

Vivian has worked at Casa Bernabé, an orphanage in Guatemala, teaching, discipling and preparing children for ministry outreach since 1998.

Vivian Douglas first became interested in missions through attending the Urbana Missions Conference in 1990. After a series of unfruitful attempts to go into missions, she put it on the back burner. Then in January 1995, God spoke to Vivian very clearly that He was going to do something new in her life. She started job hunting and before she knew, God had directed her efforts into a missions organization hunt. After a short-term mission trip to Russia with a choir and orchestra, she was totally convinced that God wanted her to go into missions. She felt compelled and her church confirmed that she was indeed called to GO! She spent time in prayer and fasting; calling prayer meetings for her friends to come and pray with her and for her for Gods direction.

In 1995, Vivian joined Mercy Ships (at that time part of Youth With A Mission – YWAM) to teach in their International Christian School and to work on the evangelism team as well as the worship team. In 1997, she attended a YWAM Discipleship Training School in Belize, which is an intense six-month missions-prep program of classroom and practical training. After that, she attended a Spanish language school in Guatemala. After two years in missions, she felt released enough that she sold all of her household possessions, which included a large collection of music which was waiting for her to transcribe into horn duets or quartets.

In 1998, Vivian joined the staff at Casa Bernabé. At first, she was the teacher for the class that was made up of pre-kindergarten through first-grade and she organized and began the library of Casa Bernabe. The following year, besides her Kinder/ Prepa class, she was also given the responsibility of teaching art and music, as well as being the librarian and supervisor over playtime with toys. The year 2000 brought a special education program called PACE (Processing And Cognitive Enhancement) to her attention, and she was able to get the training and apply it at the orphanage while she also taught Creative Arts &Music classes.

In 2001 Vivian was able to begin a band program and put to good use all her musical training (BM St. Louis Conservatory, MM Cleveland Institute of Music (3/5 of BME from Baylor University). Depending on the number of kids involved, she directs the program of 2-5 bands, and supervise a staff of up to 2 besides herself and short term volunteers, though she is responsible for teaching most of the classes. In 2001 with the twin towers terrorist attack, Vivian focused the music program to include more discipleship training and in 2016 implemented an even more focused discipleship training curriculum to go alongside each rehearsal. Discipleship training as primary and musical training as secondary. The Performing Arts Group (PAG), was designed from the beginning to be primarily for discipleship training so the band program was shifting to be more like PAG.

In 2004, Vivian began the Performing Arts Group (PAG) , which includes drama, puppets, dance, clowning, music, juggling and other performing arts. Discipleship is the main goal of the performing arts group, with evangelistic outreach excursions being an end product. Team building is also a major focus of this group. Each year on tour, many people from all over Guatemala have received Jesus as savior and had their names written in the book of life.

In 2006 Vivian became aware of the possibility of the band kids attending a Summer Music Camp in the USA but for several years her students weren't accepted (the caliber of the MW camp was for late high school and early college age students; her students are Jr. High level in years playing.) In 2009-12 Vivian has taken members of the advanced band to the USA to do a concert tour and attend a Music Camp (MasterWorks Festival, & Csehy School of Music).

In 2011, even before attending the Csehy summer camp, Randy Hayes asked about starting a Music Camp in Guatemala. The germ of the seed of vision was planted and in 2012 Music Camp Guatemala was registered with the government in Guatemala as a legal not for profit entity. The summer of 2012 the first Music Camp Guatemala was held in Chimaltenango at Finca de la Loma Dona Tina. The camp is held the last week of June when both school systems here in Guatemala have vacation time. Since 2012, the camp has also been held at Campamento Horeb, and Campamento Divina Promesa. Each year kids have accepted Jesus as savior, and many have rededicated their lives to Christ. The lives of the staff has been transformed as well, with a number of the USA staff sensing a calling to work as long term missionaries in Central America or with music. The camp with it's discipleship training focus allows for everyone involved to be challenged in their faith walk and given opportunities to make deeper commitments to live worthy of the Gospel.

In 2013/14, again while on furlough, God birthed the idea of expanding the program at Casa Bernabé to include more orphanages and put to better use all the resources God had been sending to the band program. In 2016 while on medical leave, God put an urgency to step out in faith and bring that vision to a reality. Thus, SoFaMa was born and is an outgrowth of the music and performing arts programs I have been doing at Casa Bernabe as well as the ministry of Music Camp Guatemala. The mission of Music Camp Guatemala is more in line with SoFaMa and because the target population is more than just one orphanage, it was decided that SoFaMa should come under the umbrella of Music Camp Guatemala.

Vivian Douglas

viviandouglas4@gmail.com

Director of Music Casa Bernabé

www.webwizardry.net/~lyttled/Band 

www.foce.org  

Director of Music Camp Guatemala

www.musiccampgt.org

216-769-5664 (USA)

011(502)5602-4180 (Guatemala)