Tuesday, 5/31. "Hitting Our Stride" or "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

Tuesday was our final full day in Saint Louis. We'll sing one more concert here and then head to Memphis today. As you may have come to expect, it was packed with awesome from beginning to end (mental image: opening a box that came in the mail from my grandmother at Christmas time in the 80's, but instead of all the packing peanuts it was awesome gifts surrounded by awesome nuggets). [Editor's Note: John's head is a strange place.]

We started our day singing at the Veteran's Home in Saint Louis.

The residents at the Veteran's Home are disabled veterans, mostly older. Not a huge audience, but a great one (we were competing with a trip to the casino, and it's hard to compete with the allure of putting all your money on 36 red?).

You may notice in that picture there's a big projection screen TV in that room. It was on CNN the whole time (muted). It was fortunate that the screen was not where the youth could see it, though I'll admit I was distracted at times. Note to self: look into saving 15% or more on my car insurance. And also consumer confidence is currently low, while the confidence of the commentators is high.

Also, in all the concerts I've done in places like this, this concert was probably the very best one. Really solid singing. We have certainly hit our stride with the concert music (though I'm less optimistic about the next concert following a rather noisy/shouty baseball game).

We've also hit our stride with the mission part of the tour. We didn't have a long time for devotional last night, but one of my rooms mentioned this guy:

I don't have permission to share his name, but he competes in throwing the javelin. This is why the visiting often winds up being the youths' favorite part of tour: they discover the joy of listening to other people and learning what makes them unique. I've been doing this for nearly 20 years now, and each time we do this I am reminded that mission work is deeply impactful for everyone involved. It's almost a cliche at this point, but we gain as much from it as we give, if not more.

After the concert we stopped by the Galleria to eat lunch. I know it was noon on a weekday, but malls are dying.

Our second concert of the day was at the St. Louis Arc. It's a home (actually a collection of homes) for people with disabilities. We sang in a central gym, and they brought residents in from the surrounding houses. I asked my contact, Ann, to tell the singers who we would be singing for and to give the singers some advice for how to interact with them.

We especially enjoyed how engaged this audience was with us. They applauded energetically when we finished each song, and in several songs they started clapping along with us. It was just a lot of good energy flowing around the room.

And of course we visited as well. I had to pry many of the youth away when it was time to go.

After a quick trip to the hotel to change, we walked to Busch Stadium for a Cardinals game. This next part is going to be choppy, but a number of cool things happened...

First, the view from our seats:

Candlesticks make good gifts...

If the WHOLE CHOIR yells loudly enough, eventually they'll throw you a ball...

And if you make a big enough scene, they'll put your group on the jumbotron. (Wesley says we are famous now that we have been on TV)...

FREE BASEBALL! We got an extra inning, and the home team won!

It's a great looking group...

We had to walk a bit to get to the bus to take us back to the hotel. Michael led us, and so we'd be able to see where he was going, he held up Sir Trots-a-lot. You may have seen a comment or two from him. He's our mascot. His social media is fairly tightly controlled, but I understand he has an instagram account.

The youth are having a great time on the trip (see evidence below). All phases. Singing is going well. Visiting is going well. Funning is going well. As usual, we have to adjust here and there along the way, and things don't always go quite the way we imagined. But we're glad to be here, and we're looking forward to what tomorrow holds.