After the Final Bow: Reflections on Choir Tour 2014

On my first day back in the continental United States in just over a week, I sat on the couch and watched Super 8 with my mom and tried to readjust to the life I've known my whole life--flat land, the English language, colors and a view that, while familiar and welcome, were hardly as vibrant as that of the Puerto Rican landscape I examined every day from my picnic table in Bayamón.

It's funny what just a week somewhere else can do to you.

If you've been keeping up with me or my blog, you know that this year's choir tour took place in Puerto Rico. It's hard to believe it's already been three weeks since we went and two weeks since we got back. I had been ecstatic about this opportunity since last May, when we found out it would be happening. A week in Puerto Rico right after graduation? This was a seriously sweet deal! People paid big bucks for a trip like this, and my choir-mates and I were getting it for the price of $150 and some concerts.

Obviously, I had my hopes up. I think it would have been harder not to have my hopes up. I was thinking of beautiful beaches, relaxing in the sun, the luxury of being on a tropical island...

I'll just say this. It was not what I was expecting at all. It was completely different. It was not bells-and-whistles; it was nitty-gritty.

And thank God, because it was so much better that way.

People keep asking me how Puerto Rico was, and I kind of don't feel like I can ever adequately describe it. I'd need to sit down with you for a few hours and go over it all, day by day, with a fine-tooth comb to even give you an idea of how amazing this trip was. But I have this space, so I'll give you what I can give you. Get ready to read.

It was a four-hour flight, nonstop. I'd never flown before, so for me the flight alone was a thrill. When we got there, we went immediately to the mall to do some prayer partner shopping.

Take this how you want to take it, but my first impression of Puerto Rico was that it was basically like summer in Goshen, but with palm trees. Once we got off the plane, all our daylight hours were spent in San Juan at this mall that was pretty much like any American mall--it had all the same stores we have in the U.S., from Claire's to Hot Topic. Everything was in two languages; the only difference from Goshen was that typically Spanish was listed first in Puerto Rico. Everyone we encountered was bilingual and either assumed you knew Spanish and immediately started speaking Spanish to you, or assumed you only knew English and immediately started speaking English to you.

And I swear every time I got the nerve to start speaking Spanish to someone, they'd speak to me first in English. I probably should've just insisted on keeping up the Spanish, but I was too sheepish to do it just then.

By the time we got to the retreat center where we spent our week, it was raining and also completely dark. There was a little, but not much, in the way of exterior lighting, so when I say it was dark, I mean it was dark. We could feel the hills and curves as we drove on the serpentine roads in the bus, but we ultimately had no idea where we were going (which would be a great devotional topic, by the way, if any of you feel like taking that up). We had no idea what kind of terrain surrounded us because it was aggressively dark everywhere except the space we had at the retreat center, which had pretty basic outdoor lighting.But, whatever. It had been a long day, and we were all too slagged to go on a night-hike or anything. We checked out our accommodations--no air conditioning, which we'd been expecting but it was nice and hot; spiral staircases that, while beautiful, caused me to fear for my life basically every time I stepped on them; the occasional lizard in one's bedroom--you know, the norm. Some of us went for a swim, because the retreat center mercifully did have two swimming pools (though a bat was checking us out pretty dutifully while we were in there). Then we went to sleep on beds that creaked every time we moved--or at least, mine did--and let it catch up with us that in the last eighteen hours we had hopped two buses and a plane, flown across five states and an ocean, and shopped at Puerto Rican Wal-Mart.

The next morning I awoke to the vibrant sun and voices speaking Spanish outside my window. I couldn't help but smile, get ready for the day, and go outside to do my Bible reading.

Remember how I said it was too dark to see what was around us when we arrived the night before? Well, here's what was out there.

Right??? There aren't even sufficient words to describe it.

We had no concerts on our first full day in Puerto Rico, which was kind of nice except that we (okay, I) occasionally forgot that the entire reason we'd come to PR was to sing. That Tuesday, we sight-saw. I saw the ocean for the first time, and it was amazing. We swam in it, found starfish, explored. Then we headed to Viejo San Juan for lunch and buying way too many tourist trinkets. The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the retreat center--swimming, eating, playing games, eating some more, and staying up way too late considering we had to be on the go by 6 A.M. the next morning. 

I think the real fun began with the concerts, though. Our very first concert of choir tour was nothing if not memorable. It took place at a school, and the school did not have a piano or functioning keyboard for us to use. This meant--SURPRISE!--we had to do our concert a cappella. Since not all of our songs are a cappella, we had to cut a few of them from the performance and make a few a cappella that weren't previously. But the kids and teachers didn't know the difference, and they wouldn't have cared regardless. From the moment we began singing--and we quickly realized this was a trend in Puerto Rico, as choirs are a pretty new concept there--phones were out, capturing as much of our performance as possible. Enthusiastic applause was given after each piece. I swear, we've never been so popular.

After our concert at the school, we had the opportunity to hang out with the students before eating lunch. There were some basketball games going on with some of our guys and some of the older kids--like, high-school-age guys--while the rest of us mingled with other groups of students, usually in bits and pieces of two languages. Then a few younger boys--probably all under the age of ten--were looking for some people to play basketball with. They got the bright idea that maybe I, one of least athletic people ever, should play with them, along with a few other choir students.

I mean. I wasn't going to say no to kids.

You know those moments in life that humble you before you can say look at me? Yeah. This was one of those. 

Let me just tell you, I didn't stand a chance against those kids. I was immediately reminded of why I was cut from the team in middle school (twice), and I had even less remorse about the loss of this sport in my life than I did when it happened (twice). By the end of the game, I was a sweaty mess and I was the perfect opposite of victorious--and yet, I couldn't stop smiling. It had been seriously fun. I'm by no means aching to play basketball again, but I'll always remember that one time in Puerto Rico when those kids took me to school on the court. Literally.

There were these moments throughout the week that just got to you. For me, one of these moments was at our concert in Cabo Rojo. Weeks earlier, at one of the let's-get-together-and-prepare-for-Puerto-Rico meetings, I'd signed up to share a testimony during the concert. As that date inched closer, I was continually asking myself, Why did I commit to doing this? I am terrified of public speaking; I'm always afraid that I'll mix up my words and convey the wrong message to all these people I'll never see again, and that's how they'll remember me. There was this voice in the back of my head saying, Just back out. Someone else will step up and do a testimony that night. It doesn't have to be you. But, either out of stubbornness or or conscience or whatever, I decided I couldn't do that. I sat outside at one of the picnic tables at the retreat center, the whole Puerto Rican landscape before me, and wrote out what I wanted to say. When I'd finished writing, I went over and over it. I didn't want to recite it like a robot, but I wanted to drill into my head the story I was telling and the order of things, because it was my story. 

When the time came to tell my story, I mean, I was nervous. I kept to myself before the concert. I paced a lot, prayed a lot, and went over and over and over my testimony. When the time officially came, I walked up to the microphone and I told my story, interpreted into Spanish by Jeff Santos.

It was awesome.

For one thing, I have to say, being interpreted feels a little like being Rocky after he fought Drago. Those who knew English pretty well reacted to what I said after I said it while those who didn't know it so well reacted as Jeff was translating, but they always reacted. I didn't think my story was that interesting, but they showed me otherwise. I saw my story impacting people that night in the two-ish minutes I spoke, and it was so cool. Two minutes that night equaled laughter, tears, cheers, applause, and many, many hugs and kisses from appreciative audience members (whom I'd never met and will likely not see again) after the concert. 

One woman sought me out before the concert was even over. We were circled around the congregation to sing our last piece, "Give Me Jesus." We'd just sung it and the pastor was speaking to the congregation in Spanish. I don't remember if she was being interpreted or not, because a woman pushed past everyone--congregation, choir members, etc.--to get to me. (This does not happen often. I'm just saying.) She clung to me and said words I'll never forget. 

I'd spoken that night, among other things, about graduation and the anxiety I had about going out into the world to live life. She said to me, "This is the hardest part, because now you have to be strong. But my name is Gloria, and I will be praying for you. Remember me." I always will.

You think you don't have a story to tell? You do.

Then a bunch of people from the church wanted to take a picture with us, which also doesn't happen very often at our concerts. For one night and one photograph, we were one body. It turned out great.

The week I spent in PR made very evident the fact that God answers prayer. Maybe that sounds kind of cliched and Christian-girl-y, but it was very clear. The night I shared my testimony, I prayed for a lot of things; but among those things was the prayer that even if I was nervous (because I knew I would be), I wouldn't look nervous. My hands and voice tend to shake when I'm about to talk to a lot of people, and it only serves to further my nervousness. I didn't experience this that night. In addition to making me feel like Rocky, being interpreted also gave me a chance to take a breath and think about what I wanted to say next. I was told later that my speech sounded well-crafted and that I didn't look nervous at all.

(THEY TOTALLY BOUGHT IT!!!)

The next night, we kept experiencing power outages once we arrived at the church we were to sing at in Humacao. The first came during rehearsal, as we were running through our concert pieces. Power outages are always bad when it comes to a performance, but these were all the worse because we had to rely on an electronic keyboard instead of a piano for our performance--meaning, once again, we'd have to go a cappella again if the lights didn't come back on. Worse yet, the power outage wasn't the result of a blown fuse or something at the church; it was affecting the surrounding area, meaning we couldn't expect much of a turnout if the lights stayed off.

All we could do was pray, and we did. We prayed as we finished our rehearsal in the dark. We prayed as we started to feel the affects of the air conditioning wearing off. We prayed as we got dressed and ready for our concert in the dark, and as we began to congregate for pre-concert devotions.

And just like that, as the last woman applied eyeliner by the light of a cell phone, the lights came back on.

We were beyond relieved. The show went on with accompaniment, thanks to the electronic keyboard. But we weren't out of the woods yet: In the middle of the concert, as the men of the choir were singing their piece, the lights went out. Again.

The women were waiting outside when it happened. After a split second of oh, crap, someone called out, "EVERYONE START PRAYING," and we did. And as God, the Bethel College Concert Choir, and the good people of Humacao are my witnesses, we prayed the lights back on. Again. We finished our concert without any more uh-ohs or ay-ay-ays.

Maybe it sounds like a nice coincidence. But if you were there, it was so obvious that it wasn't. It was so obvious that Satan was trying to keep us from singing that night, and that he didn't succeed. And, in case the devil is reading this, I'll have him know that we were going to sing that night no matter what, lights or no lights. So suck on that. (End Satan rant.)

The power of prayer was especially clear once more at our Friday night concert. Before the concert, Bob asked us to spend a few minutes silently praying over that evening's performance. I don't know what everyone else prayed about, but I prayed--among other things--that the concert would make an impact on us and on them. I prayed that it would be a concert congregation and choir alike would remember forever. 

After a beautiful and powerful concert experience with a very enthusiastic audience, we were chilling in the back of the church nomming on the doughnuts they'd bought for us and downing cold Coke after cold Coke when the pastor got our attention. He spoke through an interpreter and told us the news: A young person had accepted Christ after our concert.

I still can't get over that.

To think that our music, our stories, our ministry impacted this young man enough to make this life-changing decision still blows me away. While I'm confident our choir impacts people to some extent every time we sing, we don't usually see the immediate effects of what we do. This was living, breathing proof that we had the ability to change lives just by doing what we love to do--sing and make joyful noises.

Puerto Rico is also the place where I sang my final concert with the Bethel College Concert Choir. To be honest, I went through finals, grad dinner, graduation, and most of choir tour without shedding a tear about the end of my college career. I guess I was saving them up for that last concert.

It was surreal to put on my dress for the last time, because it didn't hit me till after I'd done it that I'd never put it on again. It was weird to line up for our concert formations knowing I'd never have to get to do it again. It didn't hit me till after we sang each individual piece that I was done with that music, that arrangement, most likely for good. But it was the last piece and the final bow that really did it. Bob had the seniors line up in front of the congregation for "Give Me Jesus." As soon as we all linked hands, most of us were in tears. We took a final bow, then--just kidding!--took one more. Then it was over, and the choir gathered up front and exchanged hugs. Some laughed, some cried; most of us did both. Our percussionist, Clay, told me, "Don't let any of those old fuddyduddies tell you when to go to bed now that you're graduated." I liked that enough to put it in here.

What else can I say? We pulled ourselves together, had a party, and came back to the States the next day. I tried for weeks to write a blog post before coming up with this meager offering. I could write a book. In fact, I almost did--I filled half of a Moleskine journal just with the snapshots, the big moments in the little time I had to write, of PR while I was there. Even that wasn't enough to truly express what it was like. So how does one root through all that and still offer a good understanding of a life-changing week? That's why it took so long, and still I've left things out, of course; I had to pick and choose what to share, and this is what I have. If you'd ever like to hear the whole shebang, day by day, snapshot by snapshot, I'd be happy to sit down and talk to you about it. But still, it won't be everything. I don't think that can be done. 

So. What can I tell you that I haven't already told you? Here are ten more "snapshots." Thanks for hanging with me this long. Y'all rock.

10 Snapshots of Choir Tour 2014 in Puerto Rico

1. First flights. I'd never flown before this trip, and apparently this was a big deal. Who would have guessed that farm kids don't get out much? HA. It surprised me how many seasoned flyers were nervous, but I really wasn't--not the first time, and certainly not on the return flight. I realized that takeoff--or "the GO part,"as Victoria (who also had never flown before) called it--is basically my favorite feeling ever. Like, in that moment, you are moving so fast that you actually leave the ground. It's like a refund on the fact that no matter how high you swing on a swing set, you can never go all the way around. I ate it up. I was greatly amused by it, as you may notice from this Snapchat I sent.
   
2. Ocean. This, though, I literally ate up. I had also never seen the ocean before. Technically, the first time I saw the ocean was on the flight to PR. The first time I experienced it was several days later on beach day. My first impression, and the thing I still can't get over, was just the vastness of this body of water--which sounds kind of stupid because, duh, it's the ocean. But there was something about the fact that this water never ended that just kind of had me dumbfounded. Basically, it was just
   forever.
   
   Superficially, there was the whole saltwater thing. It was weird--I'd heard all my life about how the ocean was saltwater and all that jazz, yet somehow I managed to forget this once I was actually in it, and the first time I caught a splash of ocean water in my mouth, I thought I'd bitten something in my mouth and was tasting my own blood. Yeah. That was awkward. But the saltwater made my hair look pretty cool, which was a nice little bonus.
3. Morning person. LET THE RECORDS SHOW...that I've never been a morning person. In fact, I've always been, like, the exact opposite of a morning person. But you'd become a morning person, too, if this was the sunrise you got to wake up to every day.
   
   Going out there before most others were stirring, reading my Bible, and doing some writing while watching the sun party on the landscape was the absolute greatest way to start the day. I sacrificed sleep so I could wake up early enough to do this. It became one of my very favorite parts of the trip. I even started doing my Bible reading in Spanish. When in Bayamón...
4. Plantains. Basically, they're non-sweet bananas. We didn't eat them at every meal like we did with rice and beans, but they were definitely a staple of the food we ate. I hate bananas, but I love plantains. Go figure. I couldn't get enough of them. I mean, it probably helped that they were fried. Also, I discovered these snack chips that are similar to potato chips except they're made of plantains. Dude. They're my new favorite thing. Except, sadness, I've never seen them in the U.S. So I bought several bags at the airport before I left, but those will eventually run out. The hunt is officially on...
5. Color. So I don't know where Americans got the idea that houses need to be painted in practical colors, but we have GOT to ditch that philosophy. I'm telling you, that's probably 90% of the reason people are so unhappy in this country. The houses and buildings in Puerto Rico looked more like this:
   
   And this was totally normal. We drove past a guy painting his house once, and he was painting it this bright, banana yellow. Because why would you go with something neutral when everything around you is so bright? Even the trees were greener and the flowers brighter. It was crazy. I didn't know colors could be so colorful.
6. "Alleluia." Okay, story time (again). So, there's this piece we did this year by my favorite composer. It was Eric Whitacre's "Alleluia." I was ecstatic when I saw it in our choir folders on the first day of the year. I love Whitacre, and this piece is seriously gorgeous and I just couldn't wait to get into it. But throughout the year, as I went about my senior year and we got more and more intimately familiar with this arrangement, this song came to be so much more to me than just a song by Eric Whitacre. The thing about this piece is that it is about eight minutes long and the only word in it, save for some amens at the end, is alleluia. The music itself, however, conveys a range of human emotions--reverence, despair, rejoicing--in those eight-ish minutes, using only one word: alleluia. You can actually hear the different emotions in it as you listen; but through it all, the only word is alleluia. That really got to me. It's easy to sing alleluia at church or when everything is hunky-dory, but that's not how life is all the time. There are times when you're in the pits and your voice is barely a whisper, but that doesn't mean you can't sing alleluia through it all. This song was a continuous comfort to me as I faced the many emotions and uncertainties of the year.
   
   Well. At the final party of choir tour, Bob always gives away his personal copies of the year's repertoire to the graduating seniors--so each senior gets a piece of our music with his markings and whatnot. I got Whitacre's "Alleluia." I've gotten a lot of gifts in my life for various occasions, but let me just tell you, I can't think of many that are more precious to me than this score. You know how people ask that question, "If the building was on fire and you had ___ seconds to grab something, what would you grab?" I'd grab this piece of music. I'm not sure what else, but I'd take "Alleluia." I don't know if Bob quite knew what he was giving me when he gave me this song, but I'll be forever grateful.
   
   If you've never heard this piece, or maybe you've never heard any of Whitacre's arrangements, I feel very sorry for you and would like to share the link to this song--my (!!!) song--with you here. It even has pretty pictures to go with it. You're welcome.
7. Lizards. Basically, lizards are to Puerto Rico as squirrels are to Bethel--which is to say, you're really excited to see them till you realize that they're everywhere. I never got tired of them, myself. I thought they were kind of cute. It was so cool to watch them leap from place to place--these huge, death-defying leaps when compared with their own size--as though it was nothing. Like, "What, human? You can't jump ten times your height? Pssh. You're weak." Maybe so. Here's one of our reptilian little buddies:
   
8. Coffee. If you like your coffee ridiculously strong (like I do), this was for you. No matter how awesome breakfast was, the coffee always stole the show. It was rich and dark and beautiful. A second cup wasn't necessary, but it sure was nice. Seriously, the perfect coffee.
   
   But I got this espresso one day at a cafe, and that was an experience. It came in this innocent little cup that seemed to say, "Hey! I'm adorable and just want to be friends!"
   
   but then you take a sip and it's like, "NOW I OWN YOU, FOOL!" It looked so harmless but tasted so dangerous. It took me the entirety of one meal--which includes waiting for said meal to arrive--to finish that "innocent" little cup of espresso. Was it good? Once I got off the floor, yes. And it kept me wide awake for the next twelve hours, which was handy. 
9. Fellowship. Since we stayed together in a retreat center this year rather than breaking off every night to go to our respective host homes, we had many more (and better) opportunities to spend time together as a choir family. The retreat center had two swimming pools which we gladly made use of every day, rain or shine, usually with an interesting array of pool toys (including the inflatable cow I brought along, which was accidentally popped by a fellow choir member who shall not be named...poor Besita). But the retreat center was also surrounded by gorgeous foliage that we had fun exploring on random hikes, which were exciting because we just didn't know what to expect (though as we walked the trail, we came to expect lots of random piles of poop, the origin of which is still a mystery (yes, you did need to know that)), since the plant life was so very different from what we were used to. At any given moment, you could walk the length of the picnic table area and find a different game being played at each table, any of which would have been happy to have you join. Some of my favorite times at the retreat center, however, were spent doing nerd stuff like reading or writing for fun with my fellow English major graduate, Andrew. Those picnic tables overlooking that gorgeous landscape were the perfect place to finish a good book.
   
   Oh, you need another picture? Here you go, then. Reading in action:
   
10. Concerts. I saved the best for last. Our music was so very warmly received in Puerto Rico, largely because choirs haven't really caught on yet in PR, so they're still very new and interesting there. Like I said earlier, we only had to sing a few notes to see camera phones pop up throughout the congregation. We were filmed, photographed, and Facebooked more times than we could count. We were hugged by more nice ladies than we were at any concert our family and friends ever came to (which should say something, because some of us come from very huggy families). The congregations we sang for in PR were the most enthusiastic I've ever seen. They would unabashedly join us in whatever our music conveyed--rhythmic clapping, movement, closed-eyed reverence, hand-raising, and the inevitable cry of A-le-LU-ya! It was contagious, infectious, and amazing. If I truly had to take a final bow with this concert, I am elated that I got to take it in Puerto Rico among such amazing people.

Did I leave anything else out?

Oh, that's right.

"Yes, Andrew, we can really go to the freaking fort!"