Monthly Archive for June, 2006

Just off the plane

Their plane arrived at G R Ford a little before 8 p.m., right on time. After a few minutes the choir and their chaperones straggled down the concourse to meet the small crowd of waiting parents, brothers, sitsters. Most were a little bedraggled, tired looking, but glad to be home. Well, glad to be off the plane, anyhow. I heard from both girls later that they didn’t really want to come home. (I can understand that — when I used to travel, Clay would tease me that everywhere I went was where I wanted to live.)

It didn’t take long to collect everyone’s luggage. The kids lingered a little, saying their goodbyes, making the round of the group for hugs. Then family by family, they all departed for home.

All the kids said they had a great time. Yet Meg and Sus were pretty subdued on the way home. Oh, they talked all the way, but there wasn’t so much of the chattering we usually hear after they spend a few days away with this group. When I commented on that, Meg said, "There’s not really a lot to say. It was more of … an experience." Susan agreed and said there was a lot to think about — the places they sang, the reactions of the people they sang for, some of the circumstances under which they sang. (One of the churches was very obviously struggling the departure of their pastor on the day the kids visited.)

And how was their singing?

"We were really good," Sus said, and Meg agreed. "We sang better than we ever sang before."

In concert at WPC

Sunday:  Today they’re singing their last two concerts of the tour.

Right after breakfast they changed into concert clothes for a 9:30 rehearsal to sing at the 10:30 service at Vashon United Methodist Church, where former WPC member Vonnie Feyen now attends.Following the service they had a quick lunch, then it was on to a retirement home, the Vashon Community Care Center, for their final performance.

It must have been sometime before this that Sus made a surprise phone call to her dad for Father’s Day. She only talked for a few minutes. (The kids weren’t to have brought their phones, but she borrowed from someone who did.) She said they were having a great time and that she’d been to the Space Needle in Seattle and was scared to death riding the high-speed elevator to the top. They also went to a Mariner’s game and watched them beat the Giants.

That afternnoon the group took the ferry back to Seattle, where their chaperones put together a supper for them. At 8:40 they traveled back to St Mark’s Cathedral to attend Compline, courtesy of Gerry VanWesep. The popular meditative service of music and scripture is attended by about 500 people every week. A small men’s choir leads.

Meg called along toward evening, also on a borrowed phone (although I know she took hers with her). Turns out that sleeping in teepees at the hostel was pretty cool — they had a firepit in theirs with a fire going in it. She also said that for her homestay she slept on a "fancy boat," moored in the harbor. The rocking of the boat put her to sleep right away, she said.

By 10:00 they were all headed back to the dorms at Seattle Pacific University, where they stayed when they first arrived in Seattle. Tomorrow: sightseeing.

Meg and the altos

Friday: Collected the singers from their homestays and all had breakfast together before heading off on a short sightseeing adventure (again destination unknown).

At noon they headed back to Queen Anne Presbyterian to lunch with the church’s Seniors before performing a short concert for that group at 1 p.m.

Then it was back on the road for an afternoon of more sightseeing.

In the evening they met up for a cookout at the home of a church member from Bethany Community Church. The choir isn’t singing at this church, but members are providing homestays for all the singers tonight. I believe this arrangment is courtesy of Roger Jensen, our pastor’s brother. How fun for our group to meet part of Riley’s family!

Allie, Erin, Natalie and Meg sign to a musical rendition of The Lord’s Prayer

Thursday: Breakfast at 8 a.m., then a 10:00 rehearsal in preparation for an 11 a.m. concert at Exeter House, a Presbyterian retirement community in Seattle.

Noon: box lunches purchased from Exeter House to eat in nearby Freeway Park.

1:30: Trip to St Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral  (sanctuary photo), where they’ll sing without an audience — just to hear the sound!  They have exactly one-half hour to get in, sing, and leave so the next event, rehearsal, or what have you can take place. Two years ago when I chaperoned the Kirk Singers on their trip east, we did the same thing in the chapel at Princeton Seminary. We stood in a circle and sang our benediction, the same one the kids are singing this year, The Lord Bless You and Keep You (Lutkin). I’ll always remember being in awe hearing the kids and leaders sing together, our sound echoing around the high-ceiling’d chapel. It gave me goosebumps. Hope this experience does the same for these kids.

They spent the afternoon sightseeing, but I don’t know what, since the specifics aren’t listed on the itinerary. After supper it was into concert clothes again, then to a 6:30 warm-up for a 7:30 concert at our pastor’s former church, Queen Anne Presbyterian.

Eight of the singers are being hosted overnight by members of Queen Anne Pres. (It’s a small congregation). The rest will go back to the SPU dorms for another night.

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Another note about yesterday: Both girls made sure to tell JDog goodbye yesterday morning before they left, but she wouldn’t come up from the basement to see them off. In fact, she did not come upstairs at all until just about noon, when she straggled up oh-so-slowly (she’s so lame in the hindquarters lately) to go out for her morning business. After she came back in, she went right back downstairs to her futon — didn’t want her doggie bones, didn’t beg for a walk — and stayed there the entire day, all kinda sad and mopey. I was worried she was getting sick. In the evening she straggled back up again for her dinner and she seemed to be feeling a little better, but still not great.

This morning she was upstairs right away by 6:30, asking to go out, begging for milkbones, waiting for me to chase her and "fight" her for them, whining for her morning walk — she was her usual self. I think yesterday she just got into a funk and was missin’ her girls.

They’re leaving for Seattle on Wednesday morning.

Each year in June, WPC‘s Kirk Singers take their music on the road for a week. They sing in host churches, retirement centers, nursing homes. They stay in college dorms, youth hostels and with host church families.Of course they get in lots of sightseeing, too.

Usually they travel by bus, but every couple of years they take a "big" trip and fly somewhere. This year it’s Seattle.

On Sunday evening the group performed their tour repertoire before a good sized crowd at the church. They’d also sung selections during both services that morning, when they were officially commissioned for their mission — taking their faith to the larger community through the gift of music.

This is an enormously talented group of kids who love what they do. This trip will be an enriching experience for all and their sharing in song a blessing, both for their audiences and for the singers themselves. Godspeed, Kirk Singers.