ESD Bell Choir performance

It's been a busy, crazy weekend. Before I get into it all though, I have to tell you that I am sitting on the porch outside the dorms watching a thunder and lightning storm. We got home from our day at the beach at about 5:00 PM and it's been raining all evening. It's now 9:30 PM and the storm is getting going again. Thunder and lightning are really rocking the area. If it rained like this in SoCal, there would be big headlines on the news, "storm watch 08" and most everything would be flooded. Not to mention the usual idiot would jump into the storm drain and cause a several thousand dollar rescue by the fire department's swift water rescue team to be made on his behalf. Man the rain is really coming down in buckets now and the thunder and lightning are right on top of each other. I could watch this for hours!!!

This morning the ESD bell choir played at Jenny's church, the Palmas Community Church. (Palmascommunitychurch.com) I had never seen the bell choir do a performance and they put on quite a show. The first song the bell choir did was directed by their oldest student, James. He is 16 and has been at the school since he was 6.



Along with playing several songs on the bells, the students sign the words to the songs being sung by Teresa and Julissa, with Betsy on an electrical organ. Also along to lend a hand were Megan and Juliaanne, who played the bells, and of course Jenny who played the bells, led the students when they signed the songs, and assisted in directing the bell choir.

Jenny's church supplies lunch for the students at ESD as part of a missionary project. They provided us with lunch last Friday and it was delicious. While the mothers were cleaning up the kitchen, Betsy had four of the young girls who came with their moms come into the chapel and learn a brief song on the bells. The group played that song, with the help of the four daughters, while the offering was being taken. Their parents were quite surprised to find their children up there playing bells. Those four girls are shown in the photo above being directed by Jenny.

And then there is Betsy. Betsy, shown above directing, played some bells during the song that James directed, directed the group for a couple of songs, played the organ for a few songs, and even provided a message for the children of the congregation. Betsy is truly amazing. We'll learn more about here in another posting.

As for Jim and I, we got to be roadies. You know, the unsung heroes who set up and tear down stages and equipment for rock groups. We assisted in unloading our stuff, which included tables, bells, music stands, and music books. We worked up quite a sweat in that humid PR weather.

Another fellow was unloading sound equipment for the church so I offered to give him a hand. This "fellow" turned out to be the pastor. It's a small congregation and he sets up the sound equipment, chairs, fans etc. before church. I didn't realize who he was until he got up to lead the worship service.

In my humble opinion, the performance was a huge success. I'm glad I finally got to hear them perform. I had heard them practice many times, but this was the first time I got to see it all put together. "Great Job" goes out to not only the students, but the staff who worked so hard to put it all together.