Today, (not for much longer) was the 4th day of the CA tour.
In my experience, this is when the bonding really starts. We have now been going through all the same ups and downs for 4 days together. The choir is really coming together as an amazing group, that I am proud to be a part of.
We met at the church at 8:00 this morning, dropped our stuff off next to the bus, and then went in for the praise and worship and devotions.
While the bus packers took care of business outside, the rest of the group was inside singing along with Jacob Sorensen, Chris Tyson, and Zack Vinson. As our praise and worship leaders they have all been playing various instruments and using their voices to lead us in praising God.
One of my favorite parts about the praise and worship is the quality of the music. While being led by such a talented bunch, and then being followed by a talented choir... the songs are quite amazing. Devotions followed soon after, and Mark had some great things to teach. It's great to be led by such a faithful and Godly guy.
We left the church right after devotions, and headed for Chattanooga. After about an hour and a half in the bus, we pulled up to First Presbyterian Church. After a slightly confusing unload, (because we were only doing half of the performance we were unsure of what bags and equipment to unload.) we headed into the sanctuary to practice and set up the stage.
We hurried our practice and ran to change because people started arriving pretty quickly.
The concert went splendidly, the attendees were extremely pleased and thrilled with what they had just seen and heard.
We hurried over to a lunch that the church had prepared for us, which we all were able to enjoy with our audience from the concert.
The choir then got on the bus and drove off to a nearby high school, where we proceeded to do some great hard volunteer work to clean up and set up things for them.
After we finished up, we were able to spend some time playing in the schools gym until our dinner reservation.
We spent the rest of the evening eating dinner, walking across a bridge, shopping around, running through fountains, visiting an amazing ice cream place, and best of all... singing the National Anthem A Capella for a U.S. Navy event. (that last one was totally spontaneous, Dr. Wilson can work wonders.)
We headed back to the church afterwards to meet our host families and then go get some rest.
big thanks to Mrs. Johnson, she made this day possible.