Crossflame Tour 2010 Day One: Fireflies

Welcome to the first day of Crossflame Choir Tour! The tour theme: “Lord, You Are the Music, We Are Your Song”. Trying to think like an instrument is kinda a fail at the moment. Really, can you imagine being a flute or a guitar or a bassoon? Or a drum set? That might be the worst. Though we did watch August Rush on the way up/over here (which got cheers from the bus at the end) so we have had some musical thinking going on. As far as choir activities go today, we packed up the bus, had a great send-off from our parents and drove and drove and drove, with a lunch break at J&S and some bathroom/frisbee breaks. Also- learning the lyrics on the bus? Priceless. I'm thinking Amber-Drew got a video of it, so if you're curious, look out for that. We arrived safe in Nashville and are currently living it up at the Scarritt-Bennett Methodist Retreat Center. There was a wedding here tonight and like a billion fireflies. Awesome.

For people who are new to Crossflame, we try to keep track of our God-moments during the day. God-moments are times when we notice God in the world around us, whether He's visibly working with people or whether we just see something that reminds us of our awesome Creator and His awesome Creation. One of the first examples of the trip occurred on the bus today. We all brought snacks on the bus for the trip. This led to the Great Wheat-thins Crisis of 2010, where an entire box of wheat-thins was dropped into the lap of a choir member. That was the end of the crisis, though, as the choir member, full of grace and kindness, didn't flip out but helped to clean up the mess. Kinda puts your faith back in the goodness of teenage-kind, despite the evils of the cereal game and chin tap (it's so on!).

The second one comes in the form of our beloved bus driver, Doug. He's driven Crossflame tours since the first (except for the Scotland trip- you can't really drive a bus overseas) but he won't be able to be with us this time. Keep him and his wife in your thoughts and prayers- she's had cancer for a while, but they've found a tumor in her brain. They're headed over to Duke on Tuesday to see what needs to be done, so Doug's spending the week there. He drove down to Hickory with Ron this morning and drove us up to Asheville. It's wonderful to see someone care this much about something, and even better to see someone care about something that I happen to have a partiality towards as well.

So today was the road trip, getting us set for tomorrow. We're singing at Grand Old Opry in a show called "Sunday Morning Country." Breakfast is early and the day will be long, but definitely worth it for the experience we'll be having. Spoiler alert- we'll be on TV! But for now, we'll sleep (hopefully) cooled by the air conditioning beating the intense heat and humidity, watching the fireflies flash outside our windows. Or not, you know. I'm going to go patrol a hall or two. Little hooligans.

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"Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work.
I give you my feet to go your way.
I give you my eyes to see as you do.
I give you my tongue to sing your words.
I give you my mind that you may think in me.
I give you my spirit that you may pray in me.

Above all,
I give you my heart that you may love in me,
Your Father, and all humankind.
I give you my whole self that you may grow in me,
So that it is you, Lord Jesus,
Who live and work and pray in me."

- Lancelot Andrews, 17th Century -