God's Wonders of Choir Tour

March 5th, the first day after choir tour - verse of the day, "Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God," Job 37:14

Each night after a day on tour we would debrief as a choir.  I asked the kids, "what was your favorite part of tour, and what was something that was hard."  I was amazed at the things the kids said.  On Friday we talked persecution when two of the adult audience members laughed at us our first concert when we raised our hands to share our prayer and blessing at the end of the concert.  

On Saturday, we had all prayed for safety because of the mud and rain and saw how God kept us from getting stuck in the mud.  We were amazed and humbled when our first concert that morning forgot we were coming and still fed us the best meal they could.  The students had so much fun as we went back and forth sharing songs with each other for hours.  One student said, "it was wonderful to have fun worshiping God."

That afternoon was hard as many of us were tired.  Visiting a Catholic orphanage for aids children was a new experience for many of the students.  It was obvious that the "home" (the name of the orphanage is home in Swahili) was Catholic and that the children were sick, but it was amazing to see Jesus Name proclaimed as we worshiped together.

We also received traveling mercies on Saturday and were back to our overnight location with an hour to spare for showers and down time.  

Sunday was another early morning with breakfast at 6:00, but the students did a great job of helping out so we could leave by 7:15.  With the rain dripping we set up for a concert at the church of one of our Kenyan friends and an AIM worker.  Both the choir and band had planned to visit his church last year but neither of them worked out.  As the service began we learned that the Pastor's brother had died in an automobile accident the day before.  For me, it was sobering to come to worship with this Pastor and his congregation following such a tragic event.  One of the assistant Pastors shared the message including the song, "Jehovah will make the final way."  Even in the midst of tragedy the congregation worshiped God together.

With tired students in tow we stopped back at RVA to unload and head to our final concert that Sunday.  Due to the rain we found out there was not enough time to fit in our concert before our students had to be back to RVA for dinner.  As I deliver the sobering news and we got back on the buses the students sang our songs in praise to God continuing to have so much fun worshiping Him.

As we all got off the students sang "Jehovah will make the final way" as the sky opened up with buckets of rain.  We quickly unloaded and one of the students reminded me that if we had stayed through our concert we would have been pushing our bus out of the mud for hours, missing dinner.  We went out with joy and God brought us home to RVA in peace (paraphrased from Is. 55:12).  

Looking back my hope was to see the students take ownership of this tour, to serve others through music and to lead in sharing God's message of hope through Jesus Christ.  Going in, I had read their testimonies, but it was amazing to see them fleshed out the past 3 days.  I will never forget the words of the students as we unpacked and headed to our perspective houses on campus, "That was fun."

So, with 42 students, one extra seat on 2 buses, 5 concerts, countless roads traveled, hands shook, songs sung, prayers prayed, and relationships made, we glorify our 1 one and only Lord Jesus Christ.