Monday, April 28, 2025

Chattanooga Children's Music Mission: Final Day

If you read yesterday's post, it may not surprise you that the kids slept a lot more Saturday night. They were worn *all the way* out! We had to get up a little earlier to be ready to leave for church, but I think we all got more sleep than we did on Friday night.


I enjoyed  traveling with Stitch. If you've been wondering where he slept at night, he took the top bunk.


Breakfast this morning was French Toast Sticks and sausage. And the good bananas as well as rice krispies. Interestingly, the kids sorted themselves mostly by room. I feel like the kids really connected with each other while we were away, especially with the others they roomed with. Since that's mostly what we're trying to do--build relationships--that's great!


Ms. Jennifer always takes such good care of us when we come up to Camp Lookout. She picked up the supplies for our ice cream sundaes on Saturday. The staff of Camp Lookout (all of them) are the very best to work with! Everything is always just as it should be there...and I've really come to rely on them. Thanks for being awesome, Camp Lookout!

After breakfast we loaded up the bus and headed toward First Centenary UMC. It's the same place we went last year. The sanctuary is absolutely beautiful.

We sang a few songs by ourselves, and we joined up with their choir to sing one song as well. Here we are in warmup before the service.


Stitch asked to play the finger cymbals for one of our songs. It was a good effort.


Ms. Jan (the music director) gave the Chancel Choir the week off, so we were happy to sit in their usual location. We especially enjoyed using the top secret door in the back to get in and out!


This was the view from my seat. I've posted pictures of that stained glass before. It's glorious. And it's a delightful place to sing.


After church, First Centenary treated us to lunch with some of their kids and parents. I took some pictures, but for whatever reason they were all blurry (see one example below if you dare).


Sorry about that. The little purple blobs are our kids. The not purple blobs are their kids...


We got on the road home and achieved the trifecta: significant traffic. Unfortunately, unlike the other times we encountered traffic, this one stung. Because I had a rehearsal at the church at 3:45, the 30 minutes we spent stopping and going here meant we didn't have time to stop for Bucee's. I hated to do it, but I had to be a crusher of the dreams of children and tell them we couldn't stop.


Does this break your heart?

After that...a couple of hours back to Atlanta. I went around the bus and asked all the kids to act like they were asleep so I could post pictures of how tired they all were. They all did it! But then, about 30 minutes or so from home, this happened:


I think Colin speaks for all of them here.

So that's it. Another trip in the books. I want to believe we made a positive difference in the world and in the lives of these kids who did an amazing job. They sang well. They visited. They grew closer together. They were good citizens everywhere we went. They listened and followed directions. Honestly it was a pretty easy-going group.

If you want to hear them sing, they'll be in concert this Wednesday night (4/30) at 6:00 in the sanctuary along with our other children's choirs and the youth choir. Then they sing in Modern worship on Sunday, 5/4...and then their season is over. Hard to believe, honestly.

Next up for Music Mission (and the blog): Youth Music Mission starts Saturday, May 31! You can read about it right here!

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And a little lagniappe for you today that has nothing to do with anything at all...a picture I took a year ago in Arkansas (just because it appeared in my photo list while I was processing music mission pictures, and I thought it looked cool).


2 comments:

  1. This was a fantastic trip! My kids had a wonderful and fulfilling time. Thank you John for your leadership and organization in making this a success.

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