Catching up!

Dec 29

My apologies for not writing an entry for Wednesday… but honestly it was such a long day, we had a very early wake up.. and I knew we would be on a bus for many hours … so I knew I could journal a bit on the road.

Right this moment we are driving through the countryside of Slovakia on our way to Zakopane, Poland…. So I am going to recall a bit of yesterdays highlights:

            After our typical breakfast together we boarded our bus… which I cant go any longer without pointing out that this bus is the longest line built in Europe. Seating over 70 passengers, it truly is LONG! It stretches 15 meters (45 feet)!!! To watch our driver Atur maneuver this equipment is unbelievable! BUT, as I was saying…

After breakfast we began our 3 hour city tour of Vienna! So much history, art, culture, religion, economics, architecture, music, … oh the list is long! All compressed into 3 hours by our city guide Rikki. I must say the highlight of the morning was collecting Betsy Owen!!! If you have not heard.. there is quite an incredible story involving a passport, DC, Joe Wilson, and much more…. A story with a glories reunion of our biggest smile in the choir! Our bus erupted in screams of joy and laughter as we pulled up to the Belvedere and the kids see Betsy standing on the sidewalk with Mr. Angel and Mr. Courie! Our choir is complete!!! It would take 3 blogs to tell the whole story… so make sure to ask once we get back!

Our city tour ended at St. Stephen’s where we all grabbed a coffee and headed to get dressed for our concert. To begin our concert we walked to the front entrance of this 700-year-old gothic cathedral and stood outside (yes in the cold) and sang our Nigerian number! The crowd they drew was to large to count and the mass of people that gathered followed this little choir from South Caroline into the Cathedral for our first formal concert! I could go on and on about the concert, but the video can show you more. What I will say is I began to tear up many times at the faces of our singers, the voices of our singers, the maturity of our singer…. Here they stand in one of the most amazing spots in Europe, in the city that is known as the music capitol of the world… Here our singers performed for God knows how many people from all over the world. So at times it was difficult to maintain my composure…. I was so proud!

Following the concert, those gathered would not leave… so I dismissed the choir and charged them with greeting their audience with “Danka”, “Fillen Dank”, DankaSHein”… acknowledgments of appreciation that they came to the concert… Our kids were so warmly received… I wish you all could have been there to see them!

We then broke for lunch in St. Stephenplatz!! There was such an electricity in our group! The only thing left on our busy agenda for that day was a “quick” visit to the Shoenbrune Palace! Dusk was setting in an the magic of the concert carried well into the evening! Dinner was loud and rawcus… and I loved every bit of it!!

An early morning came this morning as we needed to be on the road by 7am to Poland… We are now driving through Solvakia… and there is so much happiness on this bus!! I thought they would be sleeping most of the time (and some are) but really they are SO ALIVE! It is good to see  so many smiles. Old friends, new friends…. God I love my job!

THANK YOU PARENTS!

Hillard