AHQ Tour '03 Update #1
2/27/03
Editor's note: After Bible School, AHQ has headed out on a 4+ week tour! We're a good week-and-a-half in to it by now, the Editor has been swamped and unable to keep up with the updates in a timely manner. Hopefully he will improve.
Written by David Krabill
Okay, so we finished our chorus recording Friday afternoon, as has already been said, then we all went out for supper to various places that evening. A good time was had by all, then it was off to a gathering/party at Laverne Eash's house, to which all the BI students were invited. I believe I left the house about 12:30 or 1:00 a.m., then I was up until a little after 3:00 packing my stuff up. Everyone met at the church about 8:00 (yes, a scant 5 hours later) to say goodbye. Most everyone had left by noon, but the quartet didn't take off until about 3:00 or 3:30.
We took one of our friends from BI, Sherri Miller, partway home to meet her youth group at a cabin where they were having some sort of retreat vaguely similar to our BMF Youth Camp. It was good to see another BI friend again who wasn't on tour, Brian Eshleman, as he and Sherri are from the same youth group.
The Editor making a business call.
Since it was late by the time we got there, we stayed at the cabin overnight. We left for our first concert in Reading, PA, about 1:00 and got there about 5:15. Tom was on the phone with his girlfriend basically the WHOLE TRIP!!! I've only talked to a couple of people for that long in my life, and that was in person, not over the phone. (Funny thing, he was complaining for the next couple of days about his ear being sore. Wonder why.)
We had a great concert Sunday night at Fairview Mennonite in the aforementioned town of Reading, although we were highly disappointed that some of our friends, Daryl and Renita Petersheim, had to be in Oregon over the same time we were at their church. For those of you who have heard of the men's quartet Garment of Praise, this is their home church, so we got to see most of them. Daryl is their lead singer, and he was the only one of them who wasn't there, otherwise we could have heard them sing as a group. We still wanted to hear the other three, though, so since the other three parts were there, Konrad, Byran and I left the stage and made Jason, Brian, and Marcus Fox come up and sing with Tom. They did an admirable job, especially for absolutely no rehearsal. (Editor's note: Finally, I got to sing with a real quartet!)
Singing for the early morning chapel at Terre Hill.
Monday morning we sang at Terre Hill Mennonite High School for their chapel
service, which was set up by a friend of mine from SMBI who's teaching there
now. This also went quite well, especially since we so rarely sing together at
all in the morning hours.
Our friend Karen Keller.
We didn't have a program scheduled for that evening, so we took it easy and
did some sightseeing where none of us (except our good friend and tour guide,
Karen Keller) had ever been before: The Hershey Chocolate World! Goodness, I had
no idea so much work went into making a chocolate bar. If you ever get to
Hershey, PA, take this tour, it's pretty interesting.
Karen, her brother Jonathan, and sisters Stephanie and Sheri.
Tuesday evening we were in York, PA, at a Holiness church where Konrad's
friends Wilmer and Linda Paulus attend. (Konrad went with them on a missions
trip last January to Papua New Guinea.) They're a little less reserved than your
traditional Mennonites, it was good to hear numerous "amen's" and things like
that between songs. We were again treated very hospitably at Wilmer and Linda's,
I was blessed to be able to be there with them.
Linda and Wilmer Paulus.
Wednesday morning we left for Milton, PA, where we had a service planned in Derry Mennonite Church. It was wonderful to stay that evening with some people who used to go to our church. Mike and Debbie Gingerich had become dear friends during their time in Oregon, it's always good to be around them again.
Right before the service, I felt like I was starting to lose my voice a little bit, but when we got up to sing, I didn't have a problem. PTL for that, I think it likely had something to do with the little prayer time we had before we started. God is indeed great.
Some people have come up to us after we sing and tell us that they were blessed by what they heard, and that's great, but I also have been blessed by listening to their testimonies, and I still can be blessed by the songs while I'm singing them. Truly this tour is an awesome privilege, but it's also an awesome responsibility to be open to God's leading and to let His Light shine.
