With a wave of a flag and a deft shuffle of the feet Sharon Fermin expresses her love for her God.
The praise flag dancer has spent years learning how to speak without speaking, shaping a form of expression that sits somewhere between worship and release, discipline and surrender.
“The driving force behind ministry is knowing that the Lord is pleased with all you are doing and that others are edified, encouraged and pointed towards God,” Fermin told the Kitcharee Friday. “When others watch me dance, I don’t even want them to see me. I want them to receive and be encountered by the presence and person of God.”
In a society where her craft is unfamiliar to many, Fermin has quietly built a practice that is less about performance and more about what happens inside a person when the body is finally allowed to tell the truth.
With Easter approaching, her work takes on a deeper meaning. It is a season built on sacrifice, surrender and renewal. For her, those are lived experiences carried in movement, colour and the quiet decisions to keep going.
A voice without words
Long before the flags and the clarity of purpose, there was a girl who struggled to be understood.
“My mother, whom I miss dearly, often shared with me that my first exposure to dance was being allowed to dance around freely in the aisles at my church when I was two years old,” she revealed. “I would always break away in a dance once I heard music. What she thought may have been embarrassing was met with grace from the pastor who told her, ‘It’s okay. Leave her alone and let her dance!’ That was a seed… the beginning of my journey as a minister of movement.”
At home, she learned to keep her own company as the youngest in a single-parent household.
“With no one to talk to really, I was my own company,” she recalled. “The conversations I had in my mind always sounded eloquent—but didn’t quite translate when I spoke to others. People would look confused, and even laugh at me. But I noticed when I danced, people would smile.”
At 16, she joined her church’s dance ministry, drawn to the idea of expression without explanation.
“We were asked to sit and observe while the leader taught the group,” she recalled. “After a while she got annoyed and said, ‘I’m sure if I call Sharon up now, she already knows it.’”
She did.
“To everyone’s surprise, even mine, I did every step perfectly,” she said. “That’s when I realised dance was a way I could express myself, without saying a word.”
Still, finding a voice and trusting it are not the same thing. Years later, after a period of personal trauma, Fermin retreated into herself again.
“I felt extremely numb emotionally; I didn’t want to do anything,” she shared. “Looking back, I realise I was depressed, and suicidal thoughts sounded like a great option.”
On a Sunday in 2018, sitting at the back of the church, hoping not to be noticed, she was approached by a woman.
“She knew me to be very active in the church,” Fermin said. “She said, ‘Come, let’s go. Take up the flags and dance. I will go with you.’”
She hesitated.
“Overwhelmed by what would others would say, I stood motionless for a while,” she continued. “Then I heard in my heart, ‘Dance with me, Sharon.’ And I started to move.”
That moment changed everything.
“That day I experienced how God used flags and dance as the impetus I needed to step into my healing, and a new way of expressing my heart, first, to Him and also to others.”
Movement as surrender
Fermin still sees herself as a student of the craft and admits doubt remains a part of her journey.
“I always had a deep desire to be formally trained, which I only experienced in my 30s,” she said. “To be transparent I still tend to doubt myself, my abilities and my creativity.”
But when those thoughts emerge, she focuses on her purpose.
“These hindrances are quieted by the Lord’s gentle reminders that He is proud of the work I’ve put in and to just flow and enjoy every moment dancing with Him,” she smiled. “That’s when I am truly at my best.”
Her use of flags, streamers and veils is intentional and symbolic.
“We call them dance instruments or tools of worship,” she explained. “They can add to the message or be the message itself.”
During Easter, that symbolism becomes clearer.
“Sacrifice, surrender, renewal… this is what comes to mind,” she said. “Red reminds us of His sacrifice. White signifies the cleansing effects of His shed blood. And green is the new life we have found in Him.”
Her journey has not always been met with understanding. There were moments of doubt, even disapproval. But there were also moments of affirmation
“It was these conflicting experiences that stirred in my heart the need for me to take a deeper dive,” she said. “To understand what His Word has to say about flags in ministry.”
That pursuit has since grown into teaching, where she has spent the past six years guiding others. She recalls one student in particular, a man who entered the space despite the stigma.
“Despite the jeers of others, his desire to learn more was greater,” she said. “It was the last class that confirmed in my heart that teaching flags and dance was indeed my God-given purpose.”
A quiet invitation
For Fermin, the work continues in daily acts of surrender.
“In my experience, having a relationship with God is what kept me,” she said. “Surrendering my life daily to Him means that I am open to His direction and purpose for my life.”
It is a message that carries weight in a season like Easter, where surrender is often misunderstood as loss, rather than transformation.
“He has given all of us unique gifts… that expression already lies within you,” she said. “It’s only in tapping into Him that you will find how to express yourself in ways that touches His heart and the hearts of others.”
And maybe that is what her journey ultimately reveals.
That sometimes the voice you were searching for was never in your words.
It was always in the part of you that you were afraid to release.
Michael Mondezie
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