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Praise God because when we are weak, then are we strong. So last night we were all up pretty late because our dearest Rachel (a freshmen/new droplet) got really sick and was barfing all night. It was rather frightening because we had no cell phone reception, it was around midnight, and we didn’t know whether we should just pack up and leave or try to make it through the night. As horrible as the situation was, it was encouraging because everyone in the group was up, printing directions, taking shifts taking care of Rachel, calling the staff members at the Pine Mountain Settlement School, and working together to try and do whatever possible to help out. But more than just “doing things” God brought our group together and caused us to fall before Him and cry out to Him through prayer, in our time need. Thankfully, Rachel finally stopped throwing up around 1 am and was able to fall asleep. In the morning, we had to drive for three hours to get from the top of the mountain to Berea, which was somewhat tough because Rachel was still throwing up in the car and people were just really tired. But praise God because we arrived in Berea in one piece, just in time for our gig at noon. However, because we were now without a soprano (since Rachel couldn’t sing), everyone had to either sing their part alone or parts that they usually never sing (ie: Susie had to sing the solo for “Psalm 139” which she hasn’t done since freshmen year, Jesse had to sing half of the solo for “What Wondrous Love” which he has never done before, etc). Our concert was far from a perfect, but it was again awesome seeing everyone step up and seeing God pull through for us. I can say without a doubt that I will always look back on that gig with fond memories and good laughs. Afterwards, I went with Jesse and Jason to take Rachel to Urgent Care while the other half of the group toured Berea College with some of the students there. We found out that Rachel thankfully did not have the flu (meaning that she didn’t have a viral infection or anything) and that it was probably just something that she ate yesterday. Then I hung out at Walmart with those folk while we waited for Rachel’s prescription. Later we returned to Berea and attended their Concert Choir’s rehearsal before singing again for the President of the college. After that we ate dinner with Justin, a freshman at the school who spent all day with us, showing us around and making us feel welcome. In the evening, we attended a concert featuring “Anonymous 4,” America’s most successful female a cappella vocal ensemble. It was super folky and I’m guessing somewhat characteristic of Appalachian music. They performed religious ballads, folk songs, and shape note hymns. After the concert, we looked outside, and it was SNOWING!! Absolutely ridiculous! So we rushed back to the warm dorms we were staying in, debriefed, and went to bed. So one thing that I was thinking about all day was that certain things about Berea reminded me of Yale. Berea, like Yale, was founded on Christian principles, but has recently started to shift its focus away from these Christians ideals. Like Yale, Berea has become all about accepting all peoples and all religions. Jesus has become a preference rather than “the way, the truth, and the life.” A couple students who came to our concert were sharing that it is challenging to be a believer at Berea. And my heart started to yearn and break more and more for Yale and the state of the gospel at our campus. I was reminded of the untruth that blinds so many Yalies, and I was really burdened, but in a good way. It was a great day for God to remind me of His desire to shine the light of the gospel in people’s hearts. I’m excited because I know that He will continue to use Living Water for His kingdom work at Yale and restore His glory to our campus.
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Day 8 was a pretty flippin’ awesome day of last gigs with all nine of us and extra sweet time of guy/girl’s night bonding. We started off the morning at Canaan Christian Church singing a short concert and holding a college prep session for middle and high school students in the area. Singing was a bit tough this morning: Derek woke up with some major neck pain, Rachel was still feeling sick, and Alice and I were struggling with sore throats, having belted our way through Move Forward and I Understand so many days straight. However, the college prep session was really well-received. While we had originally expected some 150-200 kids, we ended up with a small, more intimate circle of 12 or so kids and ended up answering questions and getting to make more small talk. After that, we headed over to the Mohammad Ali Center, where we viewed the exhibits and toured the museum before singing a concert. It was our last performance as a group before we had to take Jason to the airport for his Habitat For Humanity trip. It was a great last concert singing our full repertoire. I think singing after hearing about all of Mohammad Ali’s ambitions and searching for success and meaning put us in a great place to meditate on how Christ is the answer to all of that. It felt right to declare that – that the answer in life is not only generic love and peace and brotherhood, but the love and peace and brotherhood that come through faith in Jesus Christ, who paid for it all upon the cross. We finished off the day with a great time of bonding with our separate guys’ and girls’ nights. The girls apparently got massages and spent hours giggling or something while the men had an excellent time cruising 4th Street Live (the most happening downtown place in Louisville!) and spending 3 hours trying to find a restaurant before we finally sat down at a Greek place in between a bunch of Irish pubs with hundreds of green-donned college folks celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. We followed that with a sweet time of just chilling and praying together over manly men issues. As I reflect back on Day 8 and especially times of guy bonding, I’m truly grateful for how enduring and invincible the bond of Christ really is. This tour so far has been filled with plenty of struggles, plenty of tiredness, physically and vocally and spiritually and emotionally. We’ve come at odds which each other a few times on how to proceed and how to best minister to the people we’ve met. But I rejoice in it all knowing that we can lay all those things aside at the cross and lift up our plea to the one who understands completely where we’re all coming from. He is “a rock of refuge, to which [we] may continually come…. Therefore, our lips will shout for joy, when we sing praises to You; our souls also, which You have redeemed.” (Ps 71: 3, 23)
Last day?! This tour has been a challenging one, and I do not say this to be complaining, but still most of us were amazed to realize that it was indeed day ten, the last day of tour. Before I begin talking about today, I want to talk more about the “challenging” aspect of this tour as a whole. First of all, it’s been physically challenging—most of us always feeling the fatigue, catching up with sleep at every possible moment, realizing that we are definitely not made of steel, though when in school we run around as though we are. Also, it’s been challenging in terms of group unity—maintaining pure hearts for harmony, of patience, gentleness, humility and love, that Philippians 4 talks of. Probably more than the most immediately observable division in gender-divided cars. I am talking about myself here—I lacked that “unity of peace in the Spirit” because I was just indulging myself in impatience, pride and even anger, though tensions and disquiet in my heart had been distressing me immensely. Coming clean and praying together a couple evenings ago finally brought me repentance and freedom. And more—the physical affecting the spiritual, the spiritual affecting the emotional, the emotional affecting the physical, and so on. But here is the sweet part: that all these challenges were all so GOOD, as God is good and He disciplines us, guides us, grows us and leads us to lie down in the green pastures. And so I could gladly and freely sing my heart out and dance my heart out, shouting that “He is good, the Lord is good!” yesterday at the worship. Anyway, today was another good day! It was very youthful. And yes I had been telling many of my friends this semester that I had been feeling the lack of the youthful energy in me. People see me and see this crazy, energetic and joyful person, as they tell me, but no lie, I definitely felt a change in me. Perhaps more weary, perhaps the same joy just in a different shape that was calmer and subtler. I am still trying to figure this out—but what I do know is that I am a child of God and He is the source of joy, compassion and love and He is good and these children needed Him. In the morning we went to Bryan Kosair Children’s Hospital in downtown Louisville. When we got there, there were these swarms of children in the lobby, kindergartners visiting the hospital for the day, wearing their cute “Just for Kids” hats (which Kevin and I both wanted but were denied) and learning about the human body, fire safety, hygiene and such with nurses dressed up as fairies and clowns. Whoa! And then when we got to the psychiatry unit where we were to perform, the children and teenagers were already gathered, waiting for us. This was a nice concert. A chubby little cute boy with wonder-filled eyes was especially enthusiastic, constantly clapping in the middle of our singing and waving his hands at us and waving his arms in the air (it reminded me a lot of a Spirit-led worship). I sensed that all the droplets were more at ease and the song introductions also reflected that joy and confidence. Many little children came up to us after the concert and gave us hugs and shook our hands. Then we got to sing Psalm 139 for Cody who was lying on his bed. I loved his smile and how he never took his eyes off but gazed at all of us, one by one, with true appreciation and joy. He was also an artist and there were a couple cool impressionist paintings with great color blends on his door. We pray for his health and for joy forever. Then we sang from one corridor to another in the oncology unit, and Lizzy came out of her room to listen to us sing I Understand. She seemed small but today was actually her 21st birthday! So we got to sing Happy Birthday for her, and everyone did some kind of variations of the song, and though it actually sounded not bad (haha the nurse guy said, “Happy Birthday does not sound like that at my house”), we kept joking around about how Living Water is just full of diva droplets for the rest of the day! (Cool fact: Kosair Children's Hospital is Kentucky's only free-standing, full-service pediatric care facility dedicated exclusively to caring for children!) We then got this fabulous fast sea food (sea fast food? fast food sea food?) at Moby Dick. And we had a good time, except a little humorous accident involving Hush Puppy and Ben’s face. But it’s all good... I think. Sorry. Our next stop was Arcadia Community Center. I had been looking forward to going here, not (just) because I found this place but because I had a vague feeling that it would be a lot like the Children of the Night center in LA last spring tour. In my mind, I was envisioning a dozen teenagers, quietly hanging out and doing homework. It was actually pretty different. So the neighborhood around Arcadia reminded me a lot of New Haven, the part I see when I walk to Wexler Grant Elementary School some mornings. And, did you know that Louisville has the largest Somali Bantu population outside of Somalia? There are lots of refugees from Africa in Louisville, many from refugee camps such as in Somalia, Congo and Sudan. So Arcadia is a community center primarily for these refugee children who come in to hang out, do homework, and get tutoring help after school. Many of these children have never received schooling (because they were living in refugee camps) before coming to the States, yet they are mainly placed in grades according to their ages. (It was amazing though to see how many of the kids we met were doing well in school, being on honor roll and such, and went on to attend four-year colleges such as University of Louisville.) Kerry greeted us enthusiastically when we came. She and the Americorp volunteers who were also amazingly enthusiastic showed us around the center which basically took a two-story apartment complex. Then we were cutting cheese in the kitchen (literally) and hanging out with some kids who were there early. After a while, we all came down to meet with the kids, and though Kerry told me that usually they have double the number of kids, there were a lot more kids than I expected—about 30 or 40! And we quickly found that many were of Muslim background, from the girls’ head scarves and the boys’ names such as Muhammed. But we did meet some Christian children, such as Tina who was from Congo and now attending U of Louisville. Anyhow, it was “super cool, so cool” singing in front of these children. This was perhaps one of the most difficult performance because many boys were disrespectfully rowdy, trying to beatbox after Kevin or running around. Still, when we started with Siyahamba, the children became immediately interested, and especially with the clapping patterns. Siyahamba, Move Forward, Psalm 139, then Baba Yetu. Oh man, I truly felt that the song was for that moment. Frankly before I had been dubious about the song, it being in another language and all, and felt it did not add much to spreading of the message of the love of God and the glory of Christ. But no no, Baba Yetu (which is a song of the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili) was the highlight of the concert. As soon as we began singing “Baba Yetu Yetu liye mbinguni Yetu Yetu Amina Baba Yetu Yetu~” the look of surprise swept the audience. There were curious murmurs, fascinated that we were singing in their language, especially with Derek’s fluent solo. It provided a perfect opportunity to talk about the song after the concert. Many came up to us to ask where we’d learn to speak Swahili and who had taught us (Yeah Bevin!)—and they told us that our pronunciations were flawless heehee. Really, the song spoke a thousand words in this case. No doubt this was very exciting for everyone in the group! Many kids went back to doing homework with tutors or playing in the other room, but we did get to talk to other kids. I especially enjoyed talking with Tina who was a dancing queen! She liked our swaying J And she tried to teach us how they sway in her church. Later I had the privilege of dancing with her and other girls (Arbay, Arbay and a couple others) to music from Congo: so much fun! Ben helped a guy with chemistry, some helped Sifa with her English composition, Alice played soccer with the kids, some got to talk with the high school and college volunteers, and some hung out outside sharing “yo mama” jokes with the boys. I pray that our songs, our words, and our fun activities—soccer or dancing or tutoring or cooking—all pointed to our Savior and Lord Christ in whatever way. Maybe it was frustrating at times trying to reach out to the kids who didn’t seem interested or who just couldn’t focus for long. Maybe it was perplexing as to how to give song intros or to broach the topic of our faith in general while knowing that many of these kids have strongly Muslim parents. But still I pray that God has blessed everyone we met and sang TLBY for. From there, we went Krogers, in preparation for an epic dinner! Cooking together is totally a Living Water thing! And the men of Living Water totally stepped up and surpassed every expectation—master chef Derek Tam cooked Teriyaki Salmon which everyone was enamored with and Uncle Vance really wanted the recipe, along with Shrimp and Tofu which was also really yum. Oh yeah and also pulled out of his sleeve really good Spinach Soup. Chef Jesse Dong and Chef Kevin Ing made delicious Broccoli and Meat, while Chef Ben Robbins made awesome Cornbread(yeahhh finally!). Chef Alice Kong, of course, prepared the appetizers, Cheese and Crackers and Berry palette cleanser and grapes, while I made a pot full of salad. Chef Amy Jones made a fabulous banana pudding with graham crackers as dessert! Oh it was a feast!! Aunt Vivian, Uncle Vance, Percy and Alivia, Mrs Jones, Sue and Wayne, and all of us joined in for the luxurious “East meets South” five-course dinner. J good memories. From there, from 11 pm to 4:30 am, we had our grand final debrief of awesomeness!! Thus concluded the 2009 Living Water tour of “For God, For Country Roads and For Yale”. Give God the praise for all His providence and blessings, for the people He has sent to us to help us greatly with so much kindness and love, for the doors He opened for us to sing, to serve and to meet people, for all the sweet and fun moments we got to have together, for His guiding and growing hands every day, for His protection and healing, and for His sovereign grace. Yes! God is good. May we stand firm in this truth. GPROV!
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