By Lebishka Seloska, YES Macedonia '14

Everything started when I came back from school one day, and my host mom told me that she had some ideas for my volunteer hours. She had been brainstorming unique and fun ways for me to complete my hours. Through all that talking, more and more ideas came up, which resulted in a brilliant project. The best idea that we came up with was Christmas caroling. My host mother found locations for us to perform at, while my host sister and I tried to combine some Christmas songs. After we decided what song we wanted to sing, then we started practicing. We had plenty of time to practice because we started two months before Christmas. Before we took on this project, my host mother said, “You don’t have be a professional to make something beautiful. Just be yourself and have fun.” This meant that my host sister and I weren’t professional singers, but if we sang the right notes and if we worked as a team we could make music.

The start was a little bit difficult for me. I had to learn the lyrics of the songs, the rhythms, but the more we practiced, the better I got. We tried to practice karaoke, but we decided that the best form of singing for us was acapella. And finally, when my host mom found a place where we could sing, from then on, this was a serious thing. We had to be well prepared, so we practiced almost every day. Christmas was quickly approaching, and we could feel our heartbeats and our nerves. My host mom never stopped telling us that we had to be confident and that confidence leads to achievement.

The place where we were supposed to sing was a military installation. And yes, now was the day that we had to perform. We knew that we could make it! So we made a small decoration for the place where we supposed to sing, and we started. The people looked and wondered where the voices were coming from. Some people who passed by smiled at us. Others, who were having lunch were also maybe enjoying our singing. The kids were happy, and most of them sang with us and wanted pictures with us. They thought we were famous. We saw a lot of smiles and even got a lot of applause. The whole point was to make people smile, to see happiness in their faces, and to share the Christmas spirit with them. The main thing was also that we worked as a team and reached our goals. We sang for two days, and I can say that I really enjoyed it. The thing that I learned from all of this is, “trust yourself. You know more thank you think you do.”