AHQ Tour '03 Update #4
3/15/03
Written by Tom Troyer
Let's see, in the last update we left off with. . . .learning a new dialect. No, that's not what I want. We left off singing in Chattanooga with Eddy Flick, that's what I'm after! Ok, so the next day we drove to Due West, SC, home of several of our BMA Bible School friends. The Shiloh Mennonite congregation was having revival meetings with Todd Neuschwander, and we were to sing during the service that night.
One aspect of road life that does get old is the constant packing and unpacking we must go through.
Faithful subscribers will undoubtedly recall that on our tour during the fall of last year we sang at some revival meetings in IL where Todd was also the evangelist! We're taking it a step farther this time though, because later on this tour we are actually singing in Goshen, IN, at Todd's own church.
So anyway, we sang for about a half an hour that Tuesday night during their
first meeting. It was good to see Dwight, Mikey, Sherilyn, and Reuben from
Bible School there, and afterwards we played volleyball and basketball until
late into the night. We like meeting other quartets on our trips, and
there's one at Shiloh. Last year when we were here they sang for us, and
after the service this time they did again.
That's Reuben on the left. He has kept his weight off since our little contest, I've been packing it back on!
After playing basketball and volleyball for awhile, we decided to play an Oregon-South Carolina game. So AHQ faced off against the best SC had to offer, and we waxed 'em. Well, maybe not waxed, but we won with a 3-pointer at the buzzer, after squandering a large lead.
Our friend Anthony Miller also came to see us that night, it was good to see him again.
We left the next morning and headed for Kershaw, SC. That afternoon we met with our friend Joel Batson. We went to visit and sing for a friend of his who was sick, then we went back to his place where he fed us a wonderful dinner of chicken, vegetables, and cheese biscuits! As I said before, I remember where we were and what we did by the meals we have! And we've had some good ones. In fact, I just now got an email from my sister telling me that I'm gaining weight.
AHQ with Joel Batson.
Joel had lined it up for us to sing at the midweek service of the 2nd Baptist Church there in Kershaw. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but we were given a very friendly welcome and enjoyed our stay immensely. The preacher even insisted that we do an unplanned second set! We made some new friends and received invitations to come back soon.
The next morning our host asked where our next stop was, and we told him we were singing in South Boston that night. Quizzical looks and disbelief followed. That's a long drive!! Oh, we said, South Boston, Virginia!
We arrived at our friend Crystal Good's house later that afternoon.
As you no doubt will recall, Crystal came to see us in Catlett when we were
there earlier on this tour. After relaxing with her family for a short
while (with some fabulous iced tea), we headed to the Faith Mennonite Church to
get ready for the service that night.
Crystal, broadening her musical horizons with the Hamster Dance!
Now I'm going to give you a little behind-the-scenes information here. For those of you who have never done much performing in public, you may not know this irrefutable fact--it is always too hot on stage. It is something I've come to accept and deal with over the years. Anyway, we were in the auditorium doing a sound check, and it was already really hot. I said something to our contact who was there with us, and he adjusted the thermostat and cooled things down.
That night was wonderful! The first half of the program was one of the very few times I can ever recall the temperature being downright pleasurable up on stage! Then suddenly it happened. A ferocious heat wave washed over us with incredible intensity. Staggering under its considerable impact, we valiantly pressed on with courage and fortitude.
During intermission, he asked how it was up there and I admitted that it had been wonderful but I knew it was too good to be true! He explained that he had been getting some "feedback" from the audience, and had to raise the temp back up a little bit. Ah, well, better for us to be too warm on stage and have people to sing to than for us to be comfortable and have the entire crowd leave because they were freezing!
Ok, we found another Caprice Wagon that we want for our quartet car.
In all seriousness, we had a wonderful service that night and there was a great crowd in attendance, the building was packed out. We did have an interesting wrinkle though. Konrad had been fighting some sickness the previous few days, and that night the upper half of his voice pretty much left him. He did an admirable job of singing around it, but some songs proved a bigger problem than others!
He has a lot of high notes in "I'll Fly Away," and it was a challenge.
Right towards the end of the song, there is a phrase that starts with a bell
chord, Kon starts, then David comes in, then By, then me. We made it (kind
of!) to that place in the song, and suddenly there was nothing. I turned
to look what was happening, and Kon was turned around taking a drink of his
water! He finished, turned back around, started the phrase, and we
completed the song. You just never know what's going to happen next!
Josh Good, Crystal's brother. Josh sings tenor with Voice of Praise, a great a cappella quintet. Click on the link to visit their website.
The next day we went to the Good's bakery shop, where we sang a couple of songs for the lunch crowd and then the bakery treated us to lunch! They sell sandwiches and lunch items in addition to the baked goods. To order a sandwich, you take this little piece of paper and check off everything that you want on it. I really liked that method. I have a suggestion for them though, maybe they could offer a check box with the option "Select All." That would have saved me some time!
Here I am in the bakery showing Crystal that the chips I selected were "All Natural" and therefore healthy!
We really enjoyed meeting the rest of the Good family and getting to know them a little bit. Crystal has organized a chorus tour this coming June, and AHQ is looking forward to being a part of it. "Tapestry" is going to have about 24 members and will consist of AHQ, Crystal's family, and other friends that she has invited to participate. We're really looking forward to it, and that will probably be the next source of AHQ Tour Updates! I'm going to bug Crystal about putting up a website for Tapestry.