over and over singing thanks...

Somehow this week brings October to an end, and with it our last 3 concerts. There is a countdown on the bus that will say 3 days until we reach Mirembe house when we start our drive tomorrow. There is a plane ticket now booked for December 17th in my name to take me home from Chicago. There are less than 2 months left in tour, and already looking back on the evening as I get ready for bed am wondering how time so quickly stole one of those evenings with the girls...

Sometimes when I get behind in writing I put it off more and more to a time where I feel like I will be able to catch you up. Unfortunately as time goes on I just feel as though I've stored up an even larger collection of memories and for fear of forgetting some want to at least make note of some of them even if it doesn't bring you completely up to date.

In the final weeks in host families I feel very blessed. I will surely leave the memories I have in host homes with some lasting impressions of true generosity. Two weeks ago the host I stayed with who gave us the money to buy Scovia's new jeans and sweater that I wrote about the next morning gave a gentle knock on my door to ask if she could come in that morning to talk. Seated on my bed she told me that she had $700 cash left from her mother who recently passed away and would like to forward the cash on to us to use that "the rest of your kids and get what they need off the wish list and you can pick it out best." I was blown away. Again and again, over and over, I am blown away, and we are uplifted and carried on the wings of these generous spirits.

Linds and I went on the biggest shopping spree of my life the next day and had a blast filling carts in Old Navy imagining who could fit into and look good in which pants and shirts...we found new Sunday dresses for the girls and the lady at the store gave us a 40% discount as soon as she found out we were from the African Childrens Choir.

The next church we performed at fond out we needed winter jackets for the children. That afternon they asked for sizes and after writing them down, 2 hours later one of the staff from the church came to me asking if I wanted to "go out and see them". So I go out to their car thinking I am going to "see them" at the store and we will drive over together, but no- they had bought them that afternoon and were quickly showing me 21 new winter jackets and hats. I later walked up to the man who put this all together to thank him- to which his attitude was that of "Laura- some things you just have to do. This is one of them. I just knew in my heart I had to do it. I didn't really have the money for it but any parent with a child in this church knows the importance of keeping them bundled up and warm here. I'm sure if we ask around for people to help purchase one coat that has been bought we can come together." Not half an hour later he had 9 coats sponsored, and within the hour all 21 were covered.Thanks to just this past church stay we now have scarves for all the kids, and some made for all the chaps too

"these are always your stories" people and friends say...and I agree with them- it is "unbelievable".

Going to bed on a good day...

I haven't blogged in awhile I know...a part of me holds off on some evenings when I have the time and the internet- holding out for some big special event or story. I don't know when I started waiting for those times...today, peeking into the girls room for hugs when I got in from clothes shopping with Lindsey was just one of those small moments that all put together create one of those all around good feeling days.

My host gave me money to go shopping with to get items off our wish List, and so with Lindsey's car we drove to the Old Navy sales and had so much finally getting to pick out the clothes for our kids ourselves! Dear Scovia so badly needed new jeans, and so we looked through all the different ones to find a pair with flowers knowing how much she would love them. It is quite rare that we actually get to do the picking out- and it was so fun! One big successful bag full of good deals later I got back to the house where the girls had just said prayers and had quietly lied down to rest. My host was waiting up for me to have the chance to visit, but I just felt like tonight I had to tell her to just wait a moment as I really wanted to hug those girls before bed. I snuck into their room and whispered their names only to be met with two preciously huge smiles. I quickly jumped in the middle of the bed and lied down to tell them I just had to hug them goodnight and asked if they'd like to see the clothes I'd been able to find. I told them I would bring them into bed and we'd look through them together there- they were so so excited and quickly pull up the covers to their chins as they sit up and settle in to see. When I got to Scovia's new jeans I told Lillian to hop out of bed and hold them up, and then I told Scovia to cover her eyes and wait till the count of three to open them and see her new pants. This is an image I will never forget...

Scovia jumped a foot of the bed and squealed the most delighted, purely joyful scream. Her absolute delight caught me off guard and just tugged at somewhere deep in my heart...a year later of watching these children receive and I was for a moment completely choked up and close to tears as she frantically ran around in excitement to try them on. She then runs into the bathroom to try them on and then comes running back into the bedroom announcing frantically " Oh no! I forgot to bring my underwears to try them on! Oh oh, do I travel without underwear? No! I must get them for trying them on!" After such a confident announcement it kind of cracked me up that she then shyly grabs the underwear and tries to hide them!

As I tucked them in again once the bedtime fashion show excitement had died down, they eagerly tell me that they made me a pot of chai tea and set it for me at the table to have when I came home so that I would "have your tea you love when you get in!"

2 more bedtime hugs later- I love these kids. What an all around good day.

p.s- I thought I'd post some pics from my last stay where I did an impromptu fashion show with the girls (Racheal, Esther, Immaculate) of all the clothes in my suitcase...figuring there aren't many moments left (and that we should always take the chances when we get them) I decided to enter their play and dress up too...in their clothes! Another one of those just genuinely good nights together.



Both nights I have called Ang to start off the conversation each time with "Oh Ang...I just had to call and tell you about what a good night it was!......"

We have only 10 more stays with host families until we reach Mirembe house. May we always make the most of our moments together- the end is bittersweetly so soon. I think I will take inspiration from Angela's night with her girls and wake up a bit earlier to set up a fancy tea for the girls breakfast tomorrow...

friends and canoes

No one can quite imagine what it is like to stay in so many different host homes in one year- just this past week with more concerts I’ve slept in 6 different beds. Julius just asked me if Ohio and Michigan are close to our stays in Texas…as I tried to help him visualize how far south Texas is from where we are right now, it was just a reminder to me of how far we’ve come- how many people we’ve met since then…how to each of them it is an opportunity uniquely theirs, and although the memories I have because of each host is different, being in someone’s home has become very routine by now.

Months and months ago now I stayed with an elderly widowed woman for an evening after a Friday night concert. She was the most insightful host to what the hard parts and realities of tour must really be like. I remember her hugging me before bed and asking “Excuse me dear, can I tell you something? I hope I am not being too personal, but I have just been thinking that tour could be a very lonely experience for someone. You are welcomed into someone’s home four times a week, answering the same questions, and never fully having someone get to know you. I can imagine that without good friends on your team that could be a very hallow experience, as much as it is a wonderful one and a blessing. I am sorry if I’ve said to much of what I’ve been thinking about and observing, but I just wanted to say that I hope you really form close relationships- hold them close, and may they be strong for you. I think what you’re doing is wonderful, but I couldn’t imagine it without the close friends to come back to after staying in my home.”

That woman had a wonderful sense of hindsight and insight about her. She is also very true- I remember talking about this at welcome weekend….just talking over life on the road when the initial glamour of it and spark so to say has dimmed. We talked about spiritual health- how to make sure you are being poured into when you will rarely attend church as you are always the main event on a Sunday morning.

To be honest I have always felt abundantly and deeply blessed with the friendships I have. There is a card at home that I want to frame someday that has 3 friends holding each other close out of the rain under a small umbrella. The quote on top says “it doesn’t matter where you are and what you do, it is your friends that make your world.” On tour, it could be very lonely- there is no one else that can quite understand what makes tour so wonderful and joyous and difficult all at the same time. As you travel with such a close knit team the people who you draw strength and energy from are the same people that may hurt you and frustrate you, and the same children that may sometimes make you want to pull your hair out, are the same ones you love so deeply and have given you a childlike spirit and utter joy.

I reassured that dear woman that morning that I left her place that indeed I am blessed by some wonderful friends as we travel. I thought that again as I enjoyed one of the best days off with two of my closest friends Ang and Patrick. In Mt. Pleasant for the day, we walked the morning through the park- I love that fall is finally here to change the leaves and cool off the weather! We found a farmers market and enjoyed the morning picking up multiple loaves of pumpkin bread for an afternoon picnic, and picked a quart of fresh raspberries for the picnic…but they got eaten on a picnic table instead. That afternoon we packed up all the pumpkin loaves for a canoe ride down the Chippewa River. It was beautiful- I love being on the water- so peaceful, and having the whole day to just enjoy and share in the company of my two dear friends.

p.s- we only bottomed out in the shallow water a couple times….and about 20 minutes in I’d say were a lot better at avoiding crashes into the trees!!

Before bedtime thoughts...

Tonight I don't know how many thoughts of mine I will be able to weave together...I must admit that my second wind of the evening seems to be fading and I am feeling quite tired. It has also been awhile since I wrote and I do want to. Sometimes I look back on the notes I jot down on the small saying and memories that bless my day and I am so thankful that I kept a record of them to remind me of all the simple joys in life. Angela wrote me the sweetest card today and recounted so many fun memories of our times shared together over this past year. She had written of both the simple life and the adventurous life we journey on together. Tour is full of change, new people, new places, lots of seeing, doing, and much more feeling than I ever have felt before. I believe we both said this past week that we have never loved more deeply or hurt so deeply all within the span of one year. But amidst all the excitement of such an opportunity as this it really is the simple life that brings me the most wonderful memories to recount later on nights like tonight where I don't have the energy to do much else but scroll through pictures, think, and just be remembering...

A couple jot notes from this week that I don't want to forget:

- The kids got new backpacks from our Friday night church in Detroit. The next day when the kids brought them onto the bus I was explaining to Mo what the circular part of the backpack is that holds headphones. He is so excited by the fact that his great new bag can hold a CD player and earbuds that he says "I will never take my eyes off my great new bag for the rest of the ride!" He was so excited- smiles all around and many "this is my best day ever!" and more "I love my big! This is my best bag ever!" it made me think back to my back to school shopping and my generous parents who would help me out with the nice new binders and fun looking colourful notebooks I felt I just had to have. I remember excited but guiltily walking out of Staples around $100 later on new school things...that's just the way it went for school shopping. Seeing the kids just fit with the idea of "the simple life" Really, a reminder that it doesn't take much.

- The kids also got new Sunday shoes (Being a Mum for a couple kids is going to seem so simple after fitting 22 children for new dress shoes in under an hour!) especially for the girl who despises shoes shopping! But our kids are now decked out and looking smart in their new Sunday clothes. Saturday night looked like this: 1. Girls get into the host home 2. take off shoes and are shown their room 3. Take out their bags to find their new Sunday clothes and set them all out for the next morning all within 3 minutes of being there! (I'll have to take some pics soon...they are super cute)

We had our African manager, Abraham, and Andrew visit within the past couple weeks too- it is always so great to have people visit. Andrew's parents were able to come which was particularly special- the children have prayed for his father's health all this past year fervently.

Abraham challenged the children and our team to really persevere to the end and keep the big picture in mind the whole way. "To be an Auntie or Uncle to these children is for life" he said. "it isn't just for this one year, this one chapter of their lives, it is forever. Your love and involvement, interest, and prayer and guidance over and commitment to their lives, although in a different shape and form, continue on after tour. You were brought into each others lives for this year and from here on, to carry on that relationship for always.

What's been on my mind most lately is the word 'perseverance'. In a just a moment I am sure September will slip away from me just like August did and I'll just be left wondering how it is even posssible. And so for the mere months left I want to never give up trying, loving, disciplining, discipling...Today reminded me of that. As poor Christopher sturggled so much in school. In the morning working with him seemed hopeless, but then after having him sit out and encouraging him later when he was less frustrated with himself he did so well for the rest day and it was the most productive and focused I have ever seen him. Pour out all your energy and it will never be in vein. And when it seems so have patience and persevere. That's what I've been learning lately.

And now I must be off to bed, I am surprised the contacts even made it this long! I guess that it is only when you start to really dig through your thoughts and sift through emotions that you begin to see just how much can collect there over time to think over...

climbing sand dunes...

Sometimes when there are so many good things to look forward to I find it so hard to live in the moment. I'm enjoying myself so much at the time that my mind races ahead to the next thing and then the something after that...when there's just so many great things at once or to follow I just can't seem to help myself! I'm reading such a great booked right now called "Too small to ignore"- on the importance of children. Not just because they are our future and who they will become and how they will greatly be of influence, but for how they are of influence NOW, and how they are valuable NOW as the children they are. I wanted to write down a brief part of one chapter:

"But on one scale, they are fully equipped from birth and are on par with every proud adult. What is this scale? They have as uch time as anyone else. Twenty-four hours each day, 168 hours each week- children enjoy the full allotment given to us all.
Of course, they don't know it as such. Their gift of time is subconscious. They certainly do not know how to measure time and thus how to allocate it scientifically. They keep no datebooks of palm pilots to tell them what should happen next.
Early in children's lives big people endeavor to teach them how to tell time...but while the science of telling time is difficult, the daily enjoyment of time by children proceeds unhindered Only gradually do time constraints start to make an impact."

These kids remind me of that- there is always time to play, there is always time to make something mundane and routine play, there is always time to be together without watching the clock for the next activity, the next something...

It's just one of the many lessons that these children re teach me, and what this tour has shown me. We were not meant to live the North American life of being "too busy" that has somehow become so glorified- we need more to just breathe, enjoy, wonder, and simply relax.

There were so many good moments to enjoy in this one evening. Our hosts took Sarah, Rose, and I to climb huge sand dunes and for a picnic and campout bbq. While my hosts did all the picnic preparations I tried to keep up with the girls (too quick) pace up the dune, but I did a great job after reaching the top keeping up with them on the race back down! (I got beat out by the energetic toddler climbing up beside me but felt some reassurance in the two 10 year olds who fully collapsed halfway and just rolled in the sand)
Running down sand dunes for the night with two precious 8 year olds screaming, holding your hand, chasing you, and yelling at the top of their lungs in sheer excitement as their feet carried them uncontrollably downhill is one of the most carefree feelings.

Lydia, Scovia, and Ang joined us at the end of our picnic and ran a couple more times with us- Lydia took the jello from our picnic as her "mountain snack", conveniently needing a rest break every 10 seconds for a piece of purple jello square. Scovia turns to her and accusingly says "Lydia. Are you a snacker?" I mean really, taking on the same concerned tone as if she was asking someone "are you a smoker?" Quite funny. Sometimes I wonder if all the children I've ever met have ever made me laugh and smile so much.

One good thing after another, we went to the lake and swam- one of my ultime favourite feelings is to jump the waves- even better with 2 girls jumping with you clinging like little monkeys to your side!

After putting the girls to bed my host treated me to Moomoos icecream- a local icecream store on a dairy farm. Everything is home made and it was voted best icecream in the entire nation- I can no say I have enjoyed a waffle cone of the best white chocolate raspberry creamy iceceam in the nation! And I say goodnight to you now, already looking forward to when I wake up and get to enjoy my day off by the beach and in downtown Traverse City!

Deja vu?

Read back to Saturday October 11, 2008 when we had just driven into beautiful Appleton Wisconsin in the fall. Half the choir lived within one block of each other, and my hosts in Appleton gave the kids their first fireworks and s'mores experience. Just short of a year ago later- last week found us reuinted with our same host families from this church! Pulling into the parking lot was surreal in an experience where nothing apart from the tour family I live with is ever familiar. I could remember "that parking lot where the kids placed soccer", "that area outside of the church we met at as a staff deciding how to explain halloween", "that part of the grass where little Raceal and I ran accross the parking lot at full speed to collide into each other with hugs"....I recounted with Angela that afternoon how strage it was- looking at that church, remember in detail the concert, how we celebrated hers and Lindsey's birthday there, and looking back on how much has changed. How we have gone from originally a team of 10 to now a team of 7. I can picture the children playing soccer from mental photographs and I can't believe how much they've grown. And then I can picture myself there too- where I was at, the lessons I'm still learning, but the many ways in which I've grown and changed too.

My host family asked me as we eagerly spent the drive home catching up on each others lives my plans for next year. Last October I wouldn't have been able to answer that at all, and now I could talk with her about how tour has grown passions within me I never fully saw before, and the incredible sense of joy I've felt from working relationally with the kids, children, and using music with them. On the ride home she asked how San Fransisco with Josh Groban went- I had to rewind the memories of tour to last November- last November! It seems so far away now, but I had just found out I would be going to San Fransisco when I met this host in Appleton. It made me stop and slowly playback the highlights of tour so far in my mind. When you live day in and day out with someone you easily forget how much you've been through together, and really just how close you have become.


That night Lillian, Gladys (the same girls I'd had before at this stay), and Lydia now too, as well as Esther and Racheal who stayed right next door with Ang came over for paddleboat rides on the pond behind their home. Later that night Patrick and his boys joined us too for boating and smore making too. My hosts still had the picture frames the girls had made with their pictures inside on the fridge, and a photo of all of us on the mantle to remember us in prayer. The girls were so suprised that the hosts still "remember my name! And have my picture up!" as Lillian put it. I thought about how neat it must be for these hosts as we snapped more group pictures that night to be able too see us all again and to also be able to measure the growth they've seen in these children as well.

After the girls were in bed Ang, Patrick, and I went for a long walk together- it isn't until I'm in the country and can walk around at night by a path lit solely by stars that I miss the vast open sky of the country, otherwise covered up by skyscrapers of city skylines. I finished the night around the fire with two of my closest friends, talking late into the night as flames from marshmallow roasting died into fllickering embers.

rest stop

People stop and ask me questions when we stop for bathroom breaks as we travel all the time. Most of the time it catches me off guard - how do you know I'm traveling with 22 African children? Oh yes, I remember- I am clearly labeled with a massive ACC logo covering my chest and, the logo on my jacket (yes a jacket- it is getting cooler...but I also fear that no Canadian winters and a winter in Texas has left me a wimp!) Anyways, today as Ang and I brought up the must try Wisconsin cheese curds to the cashier the lady at the till asks:
"Where are you performing?"
us: " Well, we just did a performance in Fish Creek, and now we're headed to Washburn to do a concert Sunday evening."
"So where are you from then- Fish Creek or Wisconsin?"
to this we smiled "Neither- the children are from Uganda" (to which she stared at as blankly- so we clarify "Uganda, Africa. They travel as part of this choir to get the financial support they need to get an education back home"
At this point she gets very excited "Africa!" and turns to the cashier beside her "Did you get that? They're from Africa!" To which the lady just nods politely.
"But don't they miss their families?" she asks. We explained that most of them are partially orphaned or come from very vulnerable situations. "What? That happens? Oh my goodness, that is so sad, that is just so sad isn't it?"
As we're collecting our cheese to go, Angela adds "It is but these kids have the greatest joy, love, and happiness for a hope in the future."
At that point all the lady said was "Oh wow."
She was completely taken back by it all- the fact that the children are from Africa, that they live in poverty and come from needy situations, but that they are joyous. That amidst their sufferings there is a hope for poverty that is hard to imagine and shockingly sad.

As we walked out of the store my first thoughts were that the cashier was quite naive. But immediately following was my second thought- that how great that couple minute by chance counter was with her. That lady was both so genuinely concerned and excited by what little information she'd discovered through our conversation together. It just got me thinking how much more I want to influence people here in North America to broaden their perspectives and get them involved, connected, educated, hurting, and caring for those in poverty in this world. This one cashier made me imagine just how many more people there are out there- ignorant to the realities of how most of our world lives. It made me imagine just where we could be with more people aware and ready to help bridge the gap between rich and poor- ust imagine, with people on board- excited, educated, ready to give, where we would be?