Spring Break

Its that time of year. Warmer winds are blowing (somewhere), grass is getting green (in North Carolina), wood piles are diminishing (ours is anyway), and schools are...well, out of school.

Which mean that, for a special group of my friends, it is also SPRING TOUR!!!

This special group of friends is the Ambassador Baptist College 20-voice ensemble. For four years I was privileged to travel with them throughout the school year, and for 10 days over spring break. And while I sit writing this blog post, they are out on the road, singing and ministering in churches.

I WANT TO GOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Ok, so I really miss being out with them. (In case you hadn’t noticed.) So I thought to bring more cheerful thoughts to my mind, I’d tell you all about spring tour and share some pictures of the years I traveled.

Our #1 ministry (yes, I said “our”, old habits die hard!) is people. This means ministering to the people we come in contact with, in their homes, at their churches, and stops along the way. Our #1 activity is eating singing. Ok, so we do a whole lot of eating, but we really are out there to sing.

Unfortunately, while I am singing it is quite hard to take pictures of us singing. So here is my one and only picture of the whole group singing. This was my freshman year:

We usually had about 20-25 songs in our repertoire, and sang about 6-8 of them a service. We had services every night and Sunday mornings for 10 days. Sometimes we also did some Christian school chapels during the day. Translate: a lot of singing! But we loved it!

I absolutely loved meeting new people and being in people’s homes. You learn so much that way! Seeing how other people live is so eye-opening!

For those 10 days, the 20-ish of us that traveled formed quite a tight bond. Here was our schedule: get up late, travel, eat, sleep, eat, sing, sleep, get up late, travel, eat, sleep, eat, sing, sleep...you get the picture. :) It seemed like that was our schedule anyway. But really we squeezed in some fun stuff together, too!

Sometimes we passed some time away at a mall. Here are a few picts:

This is Amber freshman year. She got in one of the show cars. :)

This is Kenny being...Kenny :) My freshman year Amber, Kenny and I would walk through malls together and do crazy things like this!

Senior year. Christy, Jaimie and I all bought new shoes!

Malls were always nice, not only to spend some time shopping (which didn’t happen much during school) but also to get some much needed exercise! If we went to a mall on a Sunday afternoon, that meant we were dressed in our matching outfits. 10 girls in one mall = weird looks and questions. People would stop us and ask if we were all together...no duh. Others would ask if we were all related...oh yes, we are dectuplets. (???)

Doc loved to stop at Goodwill, too. This was way more practical than a mall anyway...what college student has $$ to spend at the mall? At one Goodwill, Christy and I found the coats of our dreams....

Just kidding!

We also took fun pictures while waiting:

Melinda and Karen, senior year

Junior year

Lara, Amanda and I sophomore year.

This is Doc, talking on a cell phone. You have to know Doc to know the significance of this!!

Sometimes a church would put us up in a hotel instead of in families homes. This was always a little more relaxing and we were able to get some more rest...when we weren’t doing things like this...

Senior Year

The time spent traveling together in the van is probably my most favorite time of all. We did so many fun things together!

Sleep...

Here’s Scott driving...

Oh no! Uncle Beaner took Scott’s toilet seat cover!!! (Ok, some things you just had to be there!)

We would take lots of self-portraits to capture the fun, but they always came out blurry because we were driving down the road. :S Oh well!

Senior year

Sophomore year

Here is a picture of our vans, sort of. We traveled in three vans my freshman and sophmore years, and two vans my junior and senior years. My, wasn’t I spoiled those first two years! When we switched to two vans, we also pulled this small trailer for our luggage...which was extremely minimal, let me assure you!

Probably some of my most precious memories were from my last spring tour. Almost every day, a small group of us in my van would share what we had learned from our devotions that morning. We would also periodically have heart-to-heart conversations about things the Lord had impressed us with or things he was teaching us. It was such a precious time of edifying each other! Not only was it spiritually refreshing, it was fun too. (Like the morning Dan T. said, “This morning I read about the purification of a woman after child-birth. What!? I can’t help it that I’m reading through Leviticus right now!” :D)

There are many aspects of spring tour that I don’t have pictures of. Banquets, a favorite of mine...watching movies....getting pulled over (anyone remember who was driving?? :D).... studying together...passing a football in a church parking lot...listening to Doc and Dan beat world records in snoring...drinking slushies...the list could go on and on!!

I hope you will take a minute to pray for the Ensemble as they travel this week. They will get back to school late Sunday night, and have classes at 7 am. the next morning! :S Pray that their voices and overall health with hold up, and that they will have safety on the road. (No hitting deer this year!) Most of all, pray that each one will be a missionary to the people they come in contact with. Pray for the salvation of souls!