Day One and Two of tour

Hello everyone,
So, I had hoped to blog about the first day of tour, but did not get a chance. I have good reason to miss the first day, as I will explain soon.

The day before tour starts with the kick-off concert. The kick-off concert has always been a rush for us, as we are throwing everything together at the end of a very busy academic and event heavy week. This year went very well. Some of the stuff was last minute, but made it none the less. We barely had a chance to get the projector up and running, but ultimately made it. For the first concert we had a great crowd. Many of the people in the audience were students still on campus, parents, friends, and family.

After the concert we packed up all the equipment and figured out how we would load the truck. Loading the truck is like playing a large game of Tetris. Every piece of equipment has a specific way it needs to go in and if it does not fit tightly, stuff will shift around in transit. The first time through always takes some time to figure out, but after that, we move extremely fast. We made it home by midnight, which was nice, because most of us had not packed and needed to be back at 8am.

Day One:

The first day of tour started out like so:
8:05am - Dani recieves word that Jensen is locked out of his car and needs a ride.
8:30am - expected departure time
8:35am - while loading truck, a bag full of grocies falls and breaks open a jar of pickles, leaking pickle juice all over the back of the truck.
8:38am - the keyboard is loaded into the back of the van, while it is warming up. Trevor and Staci shut the rear van doors and for some reason all the doors lock.
8:45am - With no luck from security, Jensen calls locksmith to open the van.
9:00am - Locksmith arrives
9:01am - Locksmith unlocks van
9:10am - Departure

Wow, what a fun way to start the trip! Very eventful, but the back of the truck smells like pickles.

Once we hit the road, we also discovered some fun things with our vehicles. We have two white Deery vans. One seats 11 and the other 15. Also, we have a 26ft moving truck for all the equipment. The following chart describes the peculiar problems we have with the vehicles:

Van one: (also known as lockness)
- randomly locks doors
- has drastically different temperature between back and front seats

Van two:
- randomly locks and unlocks doors while driving
- side door does not shut easily and can only be securely shut by being pushed from the back, not the handle
- the CD player/radio only plays in mono, unless the driverside door is open and then you get the sound in stereo

The Ryder Truck:
- the windshield wipers turn on at random times
- the drivers seat is air cushioned (cool) and bounces like crazy (not so cool) I thought I was going to loose my cookies during the first leg of the drive

The vehicles are really interesting. We have had a great deal of fun finding out what is wrong with them.

Once we arrived at Alleluia, we had a great reception. Our contact, Michelle, and sound contact, Scott were a great help with everything. Since we were behind schedule with the locksmith deal, we had to setup on the double. The group setup incredibly fast and we were ready to go faster than any time I can think of.

The service was great, the dinner was excellent, and the concert was wonderful. We had many people in attendance and they were very appreciative of the worship. The church's we have been to have provided wonderful hospitality. The members of Alleluia had a potluck dinner with salad and soups. Everyone was very nice and it was a beautiful sanctuary to play in.

After we packed up at Alleluia, we traveled to Lutheran Church of the Atonement in Barrington. Mike was there to meet us. We looked around the room and decided that it would be more beneficial to use the in-house equipment. By the time we were setup and ready to head to Dani's, it was somewhere around 1am.

There was a very magical moment during our sound check at Church of the Atonement. We were all very tired, but the sound during "How He loves us" was very moving for all of us. It was great to see the pastors reaction. Now back to Dani's for devotion and sleep.

Sleep tonight @ 1am - 4hours - back up at 5am

Day Two
Departure - 7am
Service - 8am
The services at Churh of the Atonement were a great deal of fun. The sermon this morning was on the Prodical sons. Yes sons, as the pastor talked about how both sons had put distance between themselves and their father, but only one came back to the fold. Great teaching! We were all tired, but learned a great deal.

Again, everyone at this church was more than helpful and hospitable. We are truly thankful for all the help and hospitality for our ministry. Thank you to everyone for your generous support.

Also a side note, I saw in the program that the church has a sound engineer named Hans. I did not get to meet him, but would like to say hello to Hans at Church of the Atonement. The Hans sound engineers need to stick together, since I am relatively sure there are only the two of us.

After the three sermons this morning, one of the members of the church came up to us and said that he was the proprietor of a local restaurant and wanted to take us out for lunch. We, of course, agreed and had a delicious lunch at Egg Harbor Cafe in Barrington. Thank you so much for doing this for us! The Malibu Chicken sandwich was great!

After lunch we went back to Dani's. Most everyone went to sleep except for a few of us. Jared, Gretchen, and I started cooking dinner. We made fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, bread, salad, brownies, and lemon bars. Needless to say, this was a large dinner to put together for 16 people. We had a great deal of fun and some mishaps. The bread did not raise very well, so it became more like bread sticks instead. We also had the sauce boil over. Jared tried to catch it, but it went too fast. A couple burns later, we had feast of a meal. By the way, if you would like to try some of the pasta, let me know. I have more leftovers than I can shake a stick at or at least fit in the fridge. Plus, nobody like my idea of pasta for breakfast.

I will write more later, but I need to head to bed for my 5 hours of sleep. Goodnight!