Yesterday we left the Admiral Digby Inn and drove to see a couple of historic churches. The first was Eglise St. Marie, which is the tallest wooden church in North America. We heard the history of the church and sang a couple of songs in the beautiful acoustics before taking the short ride to St. Bernard Church. St. Bernard is a stone church which is also very beautiful. We sang there too, just to compare the acoustics (they were both great).
From there we went back toward Digby, to Annapolis Royal to eat lunch and explore. My group ate lunch in a little sandwich shop and then went to explore Fort Anne, a beautiful Canadian National Park that is, as the name would suggest, a French-Canadian fort. It is a beautiful setting with stunning views of the sea. The weather was perfect so it made for a perfect day, all in all.
From there we went back to the ferry for the trip back to Digby, and then took the short drive on the buses to St. Marks church, the church that hosted us on Monday night. They were gracious hosts once again, and very complimentary of our performance. They had taken all of our Thank You notes from Monday night and posted them on a bulletin board in the front hallway!
This morning we left for North Pennington, VT, but God had another plan.
As you’ve probably heard by now, Gavin Westmoreland had a bad seizure at lunch, and had to be taken to the local hospital, where he was then flown to Maine Medical Center. I’m happy to say that, as I write this, Gavin is responsive and talking, his pulse and blood pressure are good, and he’s breathing on his own. Kim chose to cancel the concert tonight so that we could stay in Portland near Gavin until we know what his status was. Kim called Tasha, the manager of the Hampton Inn in Portland where we stayed on Sunday night. They did not have enough empty rooms to take us there, so Tasha called several other hotels until she found one in the area that had enough room for us, and made all of the arrangements for us! She has been nothing but complimentary of your kids since the moment they showed up at her hotel. She not only made all of the arrangements for us tonight, and negotiated a better price, but she drove down here herself to check on us after we arrived! Tasha said that she has read through the Thank You notes four times, and she even got them out of her car to show to the hotel managers tonight!
We have been nothing but blessed on this trip, by your kids, who have earned all kinds of compliments for their performances, politeness and hard work, and by God, who has watched over us, even in the face of challenges like the one Gavin and the Westmorelands faced today.
Tomorrow we will pick up our tour again, as we head out early in the morning for Maryland.