Category: 2017 Journal

Calvary Baptist Church was a great host church! They fed us well, both dinner Saturday and breakfast on Sunday morning. Their service is a contemporary service, so it’s right up our alley! The choir sang several songs before the service and about 4 during the service, and sounded great!

If you’re reading this you probably already know that the homecoming concert was awesome as well!

So to summarize this tour, I have to say that I’m impressed with this group. Drama was minimal, even though we had lackluster air-conditioning on bus 2 for much of the trip, and the kids responded anytime they were asked to sing, whether it was in between the rainstorms at Mt. Rushmore, or outside the hotel in Keystone, for the restaurant and hotel workers. A few of the girls even sang for some random folks in Wall Drug! All along our tour, we heard how great it was to see that many kids who were willing to be part of this kind of ministry. In an era when both church attendance and youth choirs are declining, we stand firm in our commitment to bringing God’s Light to anyone who will hear us!

Yours in Christ, Jeff.

I’m losing track of days. I had to go look at all the other posts to figure out what day was what.

On Thursday we went to the Mall of America for awhile, and then to the Wisconsin Dells. The Mall of America has a small amusement park in the middle, so it’s a fun place to hang out for awhile. My group rode a few rides, ate some lunch, and played some putt-putt. There was a group packing lunches for kids who rely on school lunches and don’t have them in the summer, so we decided to work on that for awhile too. God’s Light packed so many lunches that they had to shut down for a bit so they could save some food for others to pack.

In the afternoon we bussed it up to the Wisconsin Dells to eat dinner. Wisconsin Dells is a tourist place, kind of like Pigeon Forge, TN. It was nice to stay in a hotel again and get a shower.

On Friday we rode down to Chicago, ate lunch at the Navy Pier, and took a speedboat ride on Lake Michigan that got us all pretty wet.

On Friday night we had one of the coolest experiences that I’ve ever had on tour! We rode down to St. John’s, IN to St. John the Evangelist church. It’s a large Catholic Church that has a wonderful prayer walk. They’ve spent a lot of time and money building a beautiful prayer walk with many bronze statues of the stations of the cross and other scenes from the last day before the crucifixion. The walk took about 45 minutes. As we started the walk, it started to rain. I think that might have been a God thing, because there was even some thunder in the distance in some appropriate spots in the narration at the various stops. As we reached the last scene, which is the ascension, the rain stopped and a beautiful rainbow appeared!

After the prayer walk we walked next door to the actual church. Their sanctuary is very new, and magnificent! They fed us dinner and then gave us a tour of their sanctuary. The choir sang a bit, and the acoustics were amazing!

We slept in their school, not far away. Yesterday we just bussed it down to Calvary Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, TN for our last night ceremonies. Their church is really beautiful, and they have been great hosts. I’m looking forward to singing for them this morning.

This has been a great trip, certainly one of my favorites! The kids have really stepped up when asked, and have done well in the services. I think you’re in for a real treat when we get home tonight.

All we did yesterday was bus it up to Edina, MN. The weather was good and there wasn’t much traffic so we got to the church early. It was nice to have time for a good long warmup.

The performance went well! It was nice to see Justin and Chelsea Arnold. My middle brother, Kevin, and his wife, Janet, live in Golden Valley, near St. Paul, and they came over to see us also. They were just in Georgia in March. This may be some sort of record, seeing them twice in three months.

Good Samaritan UMC is a beautiful church, and the congregation was wonderful! They fed us well last night, and were very gracious to us during and after the service.

We had our annual talent show last night. The talent show is a long-time tradition in God’s Light. It’s also a well-kept secret. All perfectly appropriate, mind you, but you have to go on tour to get the details.

Today is a “fun day”. We’re going to spend time at the Mall of America and then up to Wisconsin Dells, the Gatlinburg of Wisconsin. Tomorrow we’ll head down to Chicago.

Today we left Keystone and headed for Chamberlain. In the past we’ve come up through Minnesota and then out through Chamberlain to Mt. Rushmore. This year we’re doing it in reverse. We stopped at Wall Drug for lunch, and then drove through the Badlands before coming to the church.

This is my 5th time going to Mt. Rushmore with God’s Light, and I’m pretty sure we’ve stopped here all 5 times. It’s at least 4, I know that. It’s a small church, but their congregation has always welcomed us and fed us well. Chamberlain is a beautiful little town, right on the Missouri River, on I-90, the last town of any size you pass through on the way west to the Badlands. I-90 is mostly a tourist highway, so it’s all but empty at night. My first time in Chamberlain, I stayed in the home of a family who live only about 1/4 mile from I-90. We sat on their back patio, overlooking the river and in sight of the bridge on I-90 over the Missouri, and I don’t remember seeing a single car.

The service tonight went pretty well, only a few bobbles. We haven’t sung the whole program since Friday, and it showed in a couple of places, but overall it went well. Their congregation received us well, as always.

Tomorrow we head to Minneapolis to sing at a church there.

Today we didn’t leave the hotel until 11a, so we were able to have some free time. Most of the kids went shopping or swam in the hotel pool. I’ve been here before, so I decided to do some laundry instead.

At 11a we headed up to Custer National Monument, and then to Rushmore Cave. We’ve toured the cave each time I’ve been here, and it’s always an event. There is a large room at the back of the cave where we sing and do a communion service. Terry has a service that he has done each time, that involves a dramatic reading that’s very effective. I heard some good responses from the kids who were experiencing it for the first time.

After the cave we rode up to Mt. Rushmore. By the time we got up there it was looking pretty stormy, so we decided to get in the building under cover. Good thing we did: hail storms are common up here and we had a pretty good one. Not very large hail, about 3/8′ in diameter, but a lot of it. At one point is was covering the grass like snow, but it melted soon enough once the storm passed. We had to wait awhile but we finally had a break in the rain so we could get down to the amphitheater and sing. We did several pieces a cappella. The choir sounded great, if I do say so myself. I’m pretty sure this is also the first time that Andrew, Thomas & I have sung together. That later became all four of us when Kim joined us on the last piece.

We had planned to stay at Mt. Rushmore and watch the light show that they put on every evening on the mountain, but with more storms coming, Kim decided to head back to the hotel. A good choice as it has been raining pretty hard and lightning off and on since we got back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we head to the Badlands, Wall Drug, and then to Chamberlain to sing at a church we’ve visited every time we’ve come up this way.

We’re on our 5th day of tour and I finally just now got to do a post. There’s quite a bit to catch you up on.

The first night was uneventful, just the bus ride up to Hopkinsville, KY. The wi-fi at the hotel wasn’t cooperative, but there wasn’t much to say anyhow. On Friday we drove to our first worship service, at Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, KS. There were a few bobbles, but overall it went very well for a first concert. There was a good turnout, and we were fed well. They even had an ice cream social for us after the concert. A few hours of sleep later we were back on the bus to head to Mitchell, SD, home of the one and only Corn Palace. It is a small civic-center-like building with a basketball court and a stage. Every year they decorate the outside of the building with corn cobs of different colors to make a mosaic. Some of them are really creative! This year’s theme was rock and roll, so they had a mosaic of Elvis, one of Willie Nelson, and several others. It sounds pretty cheesy, and in truth it *is* pretty cheesy, but it’s still fun. We’ve gone to the Corn Palace every time we’ve made the trip to Mt. Rushmore, and it’s become a tradition to try to convince the newcomers that it’s a really important landmark.

Quite a few of our group decided to walk the couple of blocks from the church back to the Corn Palace at 9p to see what they call the “light show”, when they light up the turrets on the building. It was fairly underwhelming as a light show, but a success as a social event. Caleb Thome, in a moment of genius, brought his trunk-or-treat costume, an outfit that looks like an ear of corn. He wore it to the Corn Palace Light Show and was an immediate hit. He also wore it for warmup at the church yesterday, and even got props from the minister for wearing it.

Yesterday morning the choir sang for about half of the service at Mitchell First UMC, our hosts. They were a late add to the tour schedule, and their pastor was great about working with Kim on short notice. He was equally nice in person, as were all their members.

On Saturday night I was walking back from dinner and stopped to talk to a man who was sitting outside his apartment across the street from the church. We wound up talking for more than half an hour. He grew up in Mitchell, but had lived in some other places too. He told me a lot about the other religious denominations that are prominent in the area, and about the UMC in that part of the world. He recommended a book to me, “The Heart of Christianity” by Marcus Borg, and I made a note on my phone so I could go check it out. We were loading the luggage yesterday and I felt someone tap me on the back. It was the same gentleman, handing me the book that he had recommended. I’ve just started it, but it seems well worth the read so far.

Yesterday we rode up to Custer National Park for some touring and group time. We didn’t see much wildlife on the way into the park, but that all changed later. There’s a private company that will truck you back into the park on hay wagons and feed you a chuckwagon dinner when you get there. On the ride up, which took about an hour, we saw a lot of buffalo, prairie dogs, deer, and even a turkey or two. They even had a bluegrass band for dinner, whose members led singalong songs on the way up and imparted info about the park and the wildlife. While we were eating dinner, 7 or 8 buffalo wandered up right across the road from where we were. One even ventured into the woods about 80 yards from where were were eating. The guides said that the buffalo don’t normally hang around there, so I guess we were lucky. It was amazing to see them that close up!

We ate and socialized and danced a little bit and then headed back down to Keystone to the hotel. It was only about 10p MT when we got to the hotel, but our bodies thought it was midnight. Everybody I’ve talked to so far today slept well. It is very quiet up here, which helps.

We’ve got some free time this morning and then we’re headed up to Custer National Monument, to Rushmore Cave, and then finally to the amphitheater at Mount Rushmore to sing this evening. We’ll hang around there until they light up the mountain tonight and then head on back to the hotel. It’s always nice to be in the same hotel two nights in a row so we don’t have to pack up in the morning. Tomorrow we’re back on the road to tour the Badlands, stop at Wall Drug, and head to Chamberlain to sing.