Hey Everybody!
Well, the wireless has been hit and miss so I've been writing posts and saving them till we get to a place where we can connect! Below you will find several postings from the trip! All is well! Keep praying for us!
Musings from the Bus…
We are on day two of tour and have just entered the state of Mississippi. (Still have to sing it to spell it, what a sad story…) This morning we had beniegts at Café du Monde in the Quarter, walked through Jackson Square to St. Louis Cathedral. We went inside the Cathedral, which is incredibly beautiful and then some of us went to the gift shops and I took the youth who weren’t interested in taking that route to see the Mississippi River. (Dang it, I had to sing again!)
Following that, we met up with Cruz, our excellent driver and then drove through the Upper Ninth Ward. Seeing the “X’s” on the doors of the homes where they had posted body counts is pretty incredible. We were hoping to meet up with a former TPUMC Youth, Jacob Steubing, who now works in NOLA but he had to go to a conference for work in Baltimore, MD. Long story short, we couldn’t find the Lower Ninth Ward. Several of the kids were disappointed, even though I told them that the Lower Ninth at this moment is basically a big, grassy field. To see how tightly packed the Upper Ninth is with houses and then to see the Lower Ninth in all of it’s desolation is overwhelming. As we headed east out of the city the youth saw all of the abandoned apartment buildings, just miles and miles and miles of abandoned apartments. It’s incredible.
As we are headed out of the city I find myself thinking (even after my second trip to NOLA post-Katrina) “is this possible?” THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!!!!!! (I haven’t shared this with the youth.) But, really, it is just unbelievable. Perhaps the best course of action for the rest of the country to take is to write hand-written letters to their representatives demanding action in the gulf coast region, continue to send money to the people working here for good, like Catholic Charities, keep coming to the city and take lots of mission trips there.
Right now we are headed up I-59 towards Selma, Alabama so we are off I-10. We will be coming back on our way home on I-10 pretty much the whole way so it will be interesting to see the rest of the gulf coast.
I’m hopeful that we’ll have time to find the Lower Ninth Ward on our way back through New Orleans.
Man, I love that city! All of the culture, the great food, the incredible music, and the people are just great. What’s happening to NOLA right now is truly a sin.
Later today we are going to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, which should be a pretty amazing experience. The kid’s tour book has an article about the bridge and “Bloody Sunday” and it’s importance in American history. I hope they find it meaningful.
Well, I’m going to shut this thing down and try to get some sleep before our next big turn off, only 161 miles to go to I-20!!!!
A Morning in Montgomery…
Last night was an excellent example of the importance of faith! When we arrived at our host church in Montgomery, AL, we were informed that we would not be giving our performance that night: huge bummer! But, our church was very friendly and cooked some excellent hotdogs for dinner. We used our newfound night off to play Frisbee, soccer, and basketball (where I once again was reminded of the fact that I’m not 18 anymore). Some of the ladies created awesome art on the sidewalk with chalk. (I especially remember a very lovely bird from Emily Curry!) Following our free time and dinner, we tweaked the show up a bit and made some decisions about what we were going to do as a choir: more on that later!
Right now we are all waking up, brushing teeth, looking for coffee, etc. Our host church is bringing us donuts in a few minutes and then we’ll load the bus up at 8:00 and hit the road! This morning we are headed to the MLK National Park in Atlanta, then to lunch at The Varsity, the World of Coca-Cola, check in at our hotel (thank you Mike Bandor!!!!!) and then to the Braves v. Red Sox game!!!!!!
Yet One More Example of How Good God Is…
So, we roll into Montgomery and we find out our gig is cancelled. Everyone is more than a little disappointed…. (Several hours later) All right! We are on the bus headed to Atlanta and things just keep getting better! We are going to see MLK’s National Park this morning, then have lunch at the ATL establishment “The Varsity” and then we’re going to World of Coca-Cola, then the hotel and then the Braves game (we’ll trudge on, even though there’s a 60% chance of storms, figures…) So, back to the many examples of how amazing God is! Our gig last night was cancelled and there was a surprising amount of weeping and nashing of teeth (not literally, of course). This is where my (essentially) brother Ryan Baer comes in. Ryan and I met in middle school in the band and we also went to church together. We have developed an incredible friendship that has spanned four degrees, three states and different family situations and careers. Ryan is now a Presbyterian pastor in Conyers, GA. When we were in the initial stages of planning the tour, Ryan and I tried to figure out how the choir could sing at his church. We just could never find a way to make it work with all that we wanted to do in the ATL. Once our gig was cancelled I called Ryan to tell him what was up. As it turns out, he teaches a Wednesday morning Bible study class in Conyers (which is a suburb of the ATL.) He graciously invited us to come and play for his Bible study and then he even offered to feed us lunch! (Pizza and salad!!!) We put it up for a vote and the kids unanimously voted to do the gig!!! Their vote was a big deal because it meant we had to give up doing one of our fun activities. The choir voted to check out the MLK stuff instead of CNN and to do the gig. What an amazing thing! This choir is truly a special group of youth. We might not be big but our spirit certainly is! So, we’ve added a gig and a free lunch (singing for our supper, I suppose?) at one of the churches we originally wanted to sing at! Then, to make it all even cooler, our gig on Thursday got changed from 1:00 in the afternoon to 7:30 at night in the chapel at the retreat center, which will probably give us a much bigger crowd! The esprit de corp is doing very well right now!
Post-Braves Game…Let the rain continue!
We’re all back at the hotel in Buckhead (thanks, Mike)! As it turns out, the meteorologists in Atlanta are quite good. It rained all afternoon until about 7. We got about six innings of the game in (of which we saw three, the traffic in the ATL is terrible!) and then the rain came again! Fortunately, the youth got to witness one of the great miracles of sport at the moment: a homerun by the phenomenal David Ortiz!
Bottom line: Sox 4, Braves 0. We finally made it back to the bus in the rain, and barring one minor incident, we got back to the hotel, where we are all now headed to sleep. Be sure to ask your youth about Cruz and the traffic cone…
We are going to have a great day tomorrow but now it’s time to go to sleep!
God bless you and I hope to have more tomorrow!
In Christ,
Joe
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