originally emailed June 30, 208, 8:43am
Dear Parents and Friends,Whew -- what a day we had yesterday! Despite our late night on Saturday, most of the kids were up early for a 745am departure from the hotel. They were divided into four groups and over the course of the morning and early afternoon, they rotated through worship at First UMC Austin, working in the kitchen at the Salvation Army, and taking a walking tour of Texas.
In the Salvation Army kitchen, they prepared nearly 500 bag lunches, peeled and rinsed hard boiled eggs for egg salad, chopped lots of carrots and cabbage, sorted fruit (good grapes from the "fuzzy" ones), and served food to the homeless people who visit and live at the Shelter. Regulations required the kids to wear hair nets, aprons, and gloves. They were ok with the apron and gloves, but the hair nets-- well, they weren't such a hit. I happily snapped away as the kids begged me to put the camera down. As Eric said, "You may have a camera, but I have a knife!" Yikes. (Note: I still got a picture of him in his hairnet and I have no stab wounds.)
One of my favorite moments -- Chamber was chopping carrots and cabbage. I was in another corner of the room, making concert plans with Brie when I heard it... the unmistakable sound of Motown. All 8 kids (in aprons, hairnets and gloves) were singing the Motown music from last year, chopping as they sang. It was quite a sight-- and sound.
Our worship performancs at the 9am and 11am services at First UMC were a hit, a good thing because their music program is AMAZING. Their pianist/organist was spectacular and they had a harpsichord for the 2nd service. A harpischord, accompanying a soprano and countertenor duet of a lovely JS Bach piece. I ask you -- when was the last time you heard a good harpsichord? The church was gorgeous and featured a fantastic dome in the ceiling -- great for singing.
In the afternoon, we led a worship service/concert at the Salvation Army Center. For many kids, this was an eye-opening experience. To get to the center, you had to walk down this kind-of alleyway, lined with some, um, questionable characters. The inside of the Center smelled of stale smoke and folks in need of a shower. Before the concert, we had an orientation with their Volutneer Director who explained the work of the Center. And then it was concert time.
These types of experiences are always a test for a choir-- it's pretty easy to sing in worship, in a concert of family and friends, even for a place like a retirement community. You're singing for people who are, mostly, in a good place. They're happy, healthy, and glad to see you. To sing in a homeless center is a different story entirely. The singers must push past their feelings of fear, nervousness, and apprehension, and do the job they've been trained to do. In our evening devotional, I asked the kids how many were scared when they walked through the doors of the center. Lots of hands shot up, all from rookie tour singers. But as they sang the concert, the audience started to respond. Empty chairs were filled as people heard the choir and came in to listen. The audience clapped, shouted encouragement (like You go girl" when Kaitlyn Hynes started her solo) and tapped their feet to the beat. It was neat to watch the faces of your kids, as theyabandoned all that fear and simply sang from their hearts for the audience they were there to serve. They let go and filled that room with God-focused music. We closed the concert with a standing ovation -- and I couldn't have been more proud.
After the concert, we quickly changed into play clothes and went to a pizza parlor and chowed down. Then I took the crew to a famous Austin ice cream place called Amy's where they consumed a staggering amount of sugar. Jeff was pretty proud that he got a flavor called Tequila Sunrise and Jenna Tucker debated the difference between vanilla and Mexican vanilla.
From there, we boarded our own "bat cruise." We sailed up and down Town Lake and watched nearly 1.5 million bats emerge from the bridge. As we were sailing, the Captain was telling us that the lake often is used for the sport of rowing, and sure enough, a row team came into view. What did the choir do? Burst into a rowsing rendition of "Row, row, row your boat." Which led the kids to sing more. We're performing a great arrangment of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and they sang tht more than once to cheers from people on other boats and people who were standing on bridges. They ran through all sorts of tunes from one of our warm-ups call Too-eh (taught to us by former VIP Iain Sturrock) to Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat (from Guys and Dolls) and a little Queen-- not sure how that came to be but the basses started it!
Watching the bats emerge was so cool! Well, it was cool until one of us got hit with bat poop. Wanna guess who? Go on, take a wild guess. Me. 38 people on that boat and somehow I get hit?! What is up with that?! The kids were (of course) thrilled and whipped out their cameras to capture the moment. Lovely. Our boat captain warned us that this might happen and that it would bring 5 years of good luck. Really, I was lucky enough to begin with. After all, I do have the joy of directing the greatest choir on the planet! Doesn't get better than that...
Off to another day with your kids!
Love,
Holly