Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set the example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. I Timothy 4:12
Oct. 2, 2009
Respond Post-Haste!
So back to a lot of AIM stuff that we did but I never wrote about.
We had THREE response team presentations in the space of a week and a half. Kinda nutso, but it was definitely fun. The first one was for a 9/11 memorial behind the Grand Palace. The guy called MY cell phone on Tuesday (9/11 was on a Friday) and left a message asking if we’d be available to do a song for their memorial at 7:30 in the morning (or some time like that). I called Tess and let her know about it, and hoped she’d deal with it. I also secretly hoped that I wouldn’t have to do it, because it was on my off day and I was still exhausted from the combination of schoolwork and Family Camp (in case you were wondering, those two don’t mix real well).
It ended up that I had to do the presentation. We practiced for it on Thursday after practice and the team consisted of me, John, Moriah, Jarek, Courtney, Emily, Rachel, Amber, Ryan, and Jo. The song we did was Always Been (with the small banner). We threw it together in a couple of runthroughs. I grabbed props as we left.
Got there the next morning (a bit late) with John and Moriah and realized that we didn’t have the network signs. *sigh* Jorge to the rescue again. He took off back to the church to get those for us and ended up getting a larger flag too ‘cause Tess said the one we had was too small – child coffin sized. =) We stood around for almost an hour before we went onstage, but the presentation went impeccably. I feel that we pulled it off really well and it was a blessing to the people that were there. I’ve been to so many 9/11 memorials it’s easy to get callous to their importance, but the way this presentation went off was humbling (that sentence didn’t make any sense, but I know what I mean). This was humbling too:
So it was worth it to get up so early in the morning on an off day and stand around for a while.
The second Response Team presentation was even more fun. We met at noon at the church in full costume to get ready for a 30-minute veterans’ set at the Radisson (we did this in 2007). As I recall, the team was… Jo, me, Alex, Maria, Jarek, John, Moriah, Amber, Courtney, Emily and Rachel. We did America the Beautiful, Honor, Always Been, America Again and God Bless. Guess who was a Founding Father in America Again? That’s right, Master John Lilly himself. What a guy. I was really proud of him – he deserves it after so long.
So it was INSANE trying to throw together all those songs in the amount of time that we had. We weren’t really ready when we left (when are we EVER ready) but oh, well. Had a fun drive over – as those Branson-ites that have been there before know, the Radisson parking lot is impossible to navigate and nearly as difficult for mimes to locate each other. Amber and Courtney were telling me that they saw mimes “that way!” and “I think I saw Tess!” so I was going in circles around the whole parking lot, admittedly disoriented, and Jorge was following me. Poor guy. He’d have done better to trust his own navigational skills. I guess you’d have to have been there.
When we got there Jarek was standing in the middle of the parking lot looking for us (he’d gone with Tess, who of course was already inside) and waving at us to hurry. When we got down there he hissed, “They’re ready for us NOW!” so Courtney and I tore through the props and passed them out to everyone while people scrambled to find vests and get them on forwards. We stood waiting until Tess introduced us, then walked on and set props. Same stage as last time – on the floor, with everyone sitting at lots of tables. And we were presenting to military wives (a fact I didn’t know until I realized that there were only two or three men in the audience). Interesting.
Generally speaking, the presentation went off really well. There were a couple of whisperings onstage about what song was next, and Courtney and I had a couple of conversations in double zero relating to both our being too close to the audience (I think we were freaking them out) and how Tess said to hold the flag.
It was super fun to do Honor. I hadn’t done it since Veteran’s Week last year (due to some ministry concerns about the character of the artist, Ray Boltz). Jo got to do the Jeremiah Denton part (which he’d never done before) and Alex got to be one of the guards (ditto). I think both of them did really well.
America Again has got to be one of my favorite songs to present, and it came off really strong. Very proud of John and had a lot of fun with that song making up the gun poses almost ONSTAGE. God Bless got a standing ovation and applause during the middle of the song (once they realized which song it was). When we left they asked us to come back the next day to present for the military husbands and we were trying to pull together a team (which inevitably would have included Jorge and Tess) but then that presentation fell through. Sad day. It was going to be fun.
I'll be remembering / The dark night; the hard fight; the long climb up a hill knowing the cost / The brave death, the last breath, the silence whispering all hope is lost / The thunder, the wonder... the power that brings the dead back to life!
