Sunday: Children's Music Mission Wrap-up. Or: Our Kids Are Awesome.

I'm sorry I'm not getting this written until Monday, but I hope you'll take a moment to read it nevertheless because Sunday was another amazing day! If you've missed the last couple of days, you can find them here: Friday | Saturday.

Sunday started a little earlier than Saturday. We had to leave the hotel by 7:30 to arrive at the church by 8:00 for warmup. But I made sure to get up early enough for...

...because it's my last one for a while. Today I used the waffle iron on the right, so I got one big waffle rather than 4 small ones. You'd think they taste the same. You'd be right. They do.

It was great that we had been in the room the day before and talked through what we were going to be doing. We had a warmup, and the service began. The pastor mentioned us in the sermon in a meaningful way, and the service was lovely.

When the service was over, we had about an hour before the next one, so we did a few different things. We went down to the choir room and had a snack (thanks, Ms. Jan!). She even gave us permission to write on the whiteboard. Once we went back upstairs, she introduced us to someone who told us all about the imagery in the stained glass window, which is the largest of its kind. None of our pictures really do it justice.

I'm sorry. I really tried to get those pictures to be side by side, but I'm having some kind of an issue here, and honestly I don't have time to sort it all out. I feel bad about it, but not bad enough to spend any more time on it. But I digress.

We started getting a little restless in the second service, so Ms. Jan led us on a little journey during the sermon. We went across the bridge and back.

We also sang a concert with Ms. Jan's children's choir! I wish you could have heard us. We did great! Wait! You can! If you'd like to see us singing (throughout the service), head over to this link and then scroll down a smidge to look for the service on 5/1.  https://firstcentenary.com/past-service-library#entire-service

From there we went to the Incline Railway. The car in the picture below is actually the car we were riding. Many thanks to Karen for picking up pizza and driving it up the mountain to be waiting for us...and then grabbing pictures of us coming and going!

We ate pizza on top of the upper station. It was Mr. T's. I thought it was good. We also had Moonpies up there, because apparently they are made in Chattanooga. I said a little prayer of thanksgiving because the rain, which had been threatening, stayed away and made this work.

Your Music Makers Choir:

I'm so proud of these guys. They sounded great, even outside with no keyboard. They behaved well all weekend long (prompting the staff of the hotel to comment on how great our group was). They greeted residents we sang for. They were, as a rule, patient and attentive. They're just the best. In short, the represented themselves and the church (you!) very, very well.

And an interesting thing happened. I haven't done a kids music mission like this before. We had a lot of parents along, which at the beginning was just because I needed them to be there for our Darkness to Light policy. I don't know about them, but I felt like, as the weekend went on, they got closer together as well. I had not considered the ways in which building the community of the children's choir would be boosted by building the parent community as well. I was so glad they were along. Not just because at about 9:30 at night they took responsibility for the kids and let me off the hook. They were super helpful all along, and I'd like to think they got closer together too. Here are you Music Makers parents:

You'll remember on Friday the bus driver alerted me to the importance of Buc-ee's (I called it Bucky's, but you knew what I meant). I had mostly dismissed it, but on the return trip it came up again, so we decided to stop.

Holy. Smokes.

That place is a zoo. The Taj-ma-bathroom was spectacular (I mean, the men's was. I'm not sure about the women's, and I didn't take a picture because that would have been weird). But I want to say this: convenience stores should have shopping carts. It isn't natural. This visit took 4 months off the length of my life.

One more thing. For this trip I had to go with a bus driver I hadn't met. I always like to find a driver I know, build a relationship, and always use them, so I was nervous. But Wayne is the best driver at American Coach right now. He was great with the kids and very easy to work with.

Thanks, Wayne!

We got back just after 4:30 (because there was an accident, of course, but at least it wasn't us). I sent the parents off the bus and had the kids clean it up. I thanked them, told them to thank their parents, and sent them out. Grabbed my bag and headed in to youth choir rehearsal. The first children's music mission was over.

I had high expectations for this weekend, and it exceeded all of them. I'm so grateful to everyone who made it possible, including the singers, the parents, the staff of Oak Grove, and any who have donated to support Music in Mission (which you can still do if you'd like: just go to the giving page at the church, select "other" and then type "music in mission donation.")

If you've made it this far, please know I also appreciate your interest in our kids and what they are doing!

Next...it's onward to the youth music mission. We head out on May 28. I hope you'll follow us!