The Emmanuel Quartet: Phillip's Journal

Back in 2008 we’d ventured down South to sing for our old friend and former Emmanuel Quartet member, Will Labrenz and the churches he pastors in the Pensacola, Florida area. We hadn’t seen him since then, and because we’d recorded “A New Day” after our visit, Will and Joey got together and put together another tour to Will’s churches. Also since that time, Will and his wife Christy had a son named Elijah whom none of us had gotten to meet, so we were glad to get the chance to see him for the first time. And it’s always nice to hang out for a while with Will, Christy and their daughter Bailey.

It was a long trip down, and we were tired, but we cheered up when we met Will at the Milton church. We’d called him when we were close and he came out to unlock the church so we could
set up our sound system. It always helps to be able to set up the night before so we don’t have to rush around Sabbath morning in our suits and ties trying to lift all the heavy equipment. Another benefit is that we don’t disturb any Sabbath Schools or meetings going on in the sanctuary during the morning. So after setting up and chatting with Will about the next day’s details, we headed to the hotel and a good night’s sleep.

Several weeks before our trip, Joey and I had been talking with our good friends from the Mobile, AL area, Gary Hilton and Jonathan Stewart, about them coming to the concert at Milton. Joey told us a few days before leaving that they wanted to sing the barbershop version of “The Lord’s Prayer” with us as a double quartet. Ryan, Joey and I know the song pretty well from performing it when Daniel Warner sang baritone with us. Tim, however, didn’t know it that well, so we rehearsed it on the way down. It’s a very difficult piece to learn, especially the baritone and bass parts, but we all agreed to give it a try.

Sabbath morning after we drove to the Milton church, Gary and Jonathan arrived along with Scott Roberts and Jimmy Ely, the other two members of their barbershop quartet called “N2Deep.” It was Jonathan who, years ago, had sent us the sheet music of “The Lord’s Prayer” so we could potentially sing the song with them at an event they were planning. It never worked out for us to sing with them, but we learned the song and performed it many times in our own concerts. So after handshakes and introductions were over, we got down to the business of rehearsing the song on the church’s front steps. We went over the song about three times, and it was helpful to me, Ryan, Joey and Tim to have the other guys there to remind us of how each part went and to help correct any mistakes we had learned.

The concert went very well and we even asked Pastor Will to come up and sing a couple of songs with us. We did some of the older songs like “Dry Bones” and “Steal Away” from our first album called “God With Us.” It was a treat to sing with Will again and to bring back some of the memories that went along with those songs. We were a little shaky on some parts, and I even switched the lyrics around on “Steal Away” but the congregation seemed to love it. And when N2Deep came up and we did “The Lord’s Prayer,” it was a very beautiful and moving sound. After the concert and the honor sales were over, the guys from N2Deep sang a beautiful barbershop arrangement of “Fairest Lord Jesus” in the foyer. It’s always great to hear a familiar song done in a unique way, and a lot of the church members stayed around to hear it. After we packed up and said goodbye to the guys, we headed for Will’s second church, Crestview.

Will rode with us since Christy, Bailey and Elijah weren’t going to Crestview right away, so Will was able to show us the way and point out interesting things in the town. It also gave us a chance to catch up on how he’s been doing. He told us that Crestview has a mid-afternoon service so that he’s able to preach at both Milton and Crestview on the same day. When we arrived at Crestview, the church members were starting their Sabbath School classes, so we joined in the class being held in the sanctuary after we set up our equipment. Even though it’s small, Crestview was a very friendly church and we felt very welcome.

During the concert, Will came up and told the story of how he’d joined the quartet back in 1990. He told about how, at Highland Academy, Joey and Tim had posted a sign-up sheet in the boys’ dorm for all those interested in singing in a quartet. Will told how excited he was when they asked him to audition and Joey spoke up from the front and said, “He was the only one who signed the sheet!” When the laughter subsided, Will continued telling about his time with the quartet before it was called “The Emmanuel Quartet.” In those early academy days, the guys had decided to call themselves the “Highland Academy Men’s Quartet” or HAMQ. They taught themselves enough songs to perform a concert and began singing around campus and in local churches and nursing homes. I joined the group in 1993 and, after changing our name to The Emmanuel Quartet, we began touring while Will was still in academy.

It’s been a fun and interesting journey for the past 21 years, and even though we’ve had several members change over that time, many people still remember The Emmanuel Quartet as Joey, Tim, Phillip and Will, probably because we were together the longest amount of time. It was nice to hear Will sing with us again.

When the concert at Crestview was over, and we finished the honor sales, we headed to Blue Angel Parkway, one of Will’s churches that we hadn’t been able to visit the last time we were there. The people there also seemed to enjoy Will singing with us and telling about how he joined the group. After the evening sales and everything was packed up, we all went to a local Mexican restaurant along with Christy and some of her relatives. The restaurant was getting ready to close, but they went ahead and let us come in. The food was good and it was nice to spend time with one of our closest friends and his family.

It was a great weekend of music and friends, and we hope to be able to sing with these guys again someday, if not here on earth, definitely in heaven.

We headed to Cartersville, GA on Friday evening and even though we’d been to the Cartersville church several times, it had been at least two years and we always receive a warm welcome there. Plus the drive down gave us time to rehearse some new songs we’ve been working on. Next day, the concert at Cartersville went well and we drove to Douglasville, GA to sing at the Heritage SDA Church, pastored by our good friend Sam Ball.

I attended Southern Adventist University with Sam and we both graduated in 1996 together. He went into the ministry and the quartet had the privilege of singing at one of his churches back in 2002. We sang at the little church in Macon, GA then, but we didn’t get to see Sam because he was away at a meeting in Chattanooga. Sam’s wife Traci was gracious enough to put us up in their home and we got to spend time getting to know her and their kids. Joey knew Traci from when they both worked at the McKee box factory at Southern while attending school there. On that trip Traci had suggested we go see “The Big Oak” which is a 320 year-old oak tree in the heart of town. I remember that as being a highlight of that trip. It was amazing to think all the history that tree had been through and to read how it had been preserved through the years.

The last time we saw Sam’s and Traci’s family they only had two kids, Kaitlyn, who was about 3 or 4 and Alex, who was only a baby at the time and was affectionately called “Bubba Chunk.” Now they’re both operating as older brother and sister to two younger siblings, Paxton and Zachary, who are about the ages that Kaitlyn and Alex were when we first met them. It was strange to see Kaitlyn being so motherly and Alex acting so grown up. But I think Kaitlyn remembered me and Joey, especially when I reminded her that we watched Mark Lowry videos at our first meeting. She told me that Alex didn’t really like to be called “Bubba Chunk” any more, but he didn’t seem to mind when I told him that I pinched his cheeks when he was a baby and that I thought “Bubba Chunk” was a cute nickname. I noticed that Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy bringing up that nickname again. She also liked reminding him that she remembered our first visit and he didn’t.

During the concert I noticed that Kaitlyn seemed to know the words to every song we sang from our album “The Hand of Mercy” because she was mouthing the words. Afterward, Traci said that they’d had a cassette of the album that Kaitlyn had worn out and that she was planning on getting a CD along with our newest albums. Kaitlyn seemed happy to hear that news.

When our product sales were over and most of the people had left, we all had a chance to sit and chat for a while. Sam showed me his new Droid smartphone and went through some of the applications that are available. We talked about our old professors at Southern and some of our classmates. As we talked Sam started thinking about having the quartet come to his other church in Carrollton, GA. He and Joey worked out some of the details there on the spot, and now I think we’re scheduled to be there in July.

It had been a long time since we'd traveled to South Carolina, and for this weekend Joey had been able to book a concert in Columbia, SC and he also managed to get us back to Augusta, GA.
We left Collegedale a little later than we intended because Joey's plane was delayed and his luggage took a long time to arrive at baggage claim. But we still arrived in Augusta at a decent time. I have relatives near Columbia and since we were going to be so close, my sister Crystal rode with us so she could spend a week with my cousin and her daughter. The vehicle Joey had rented was upgraded to something slightly larger than we normally rent, but it was still a tight squeeze for five people with all our luggage and all the sound equipment. It was fortunate that we only had a four hour ride, and we were all glad to stop and stretch when it was time for supper.

We arrived at the Augusta Hampton Inn around 9:00 PM and my cousin Jennifer was already there to pick up Crystal. She brought her 3 year-old daughter Donnia with her and Donnia was happy to see Crystal. Crystal had stayed with them for a few months back when Donnia was only one year old and she still remembered her. She got a little shy around the guys and they all thought she was so cute. As the guys went inside to check in, I said my goodbyes and the girls said they'd see us at the Columbia concert the next day.

Joey had asked for another single room with a hide-a-bed and we were fortunate to get one. Ryan realized that Augusta is where The Masters golf tournament is held and we thought it was also fortunate that it wasn't the weekend of The Masters or we probably wouldn't have gotten a hotel room at all.

Our concert at the Augusta church the next day was a first in the history of the quartet. Joey had arranged the date with Pastor Boles before they realized that it was communion Sabbath. Since we'd never sung during communion before, we weren't sure how things would go, but the pastor had everything organized beforehand. We did a half hour concert before the main church service and we used that time to also present the ministry of AWR. We went five minutes over our time, but we managed to sing eight songs and tell our stories of hope in only 35 minutes.

In addition to communion, it was also Thirteenth Sabbath and all the children's classes had a special program planned so there was a lot going on. The kids did a great job singing and reciting verses. I was particularly impressed with one of the primary classes which gave a presentation about the Israelites' tabernacle in the wilderness. They were very knowledgeable about all the articles of furniture and how everything related to the plan of salvation.

When the kids’ program was over, it was time for the communion service. There were about 160 people at church that day, so it took a while for all of us to separate into the different rooms. I had the privilege of washing Ryan’s feet and praying with him while Tim and Joey washed each other’s feet. The Ordinance of Humility always makes me grateful for Jesus’ life and for the fact that He “humbled Himself and was obedient even to death on a cross.”

Pastor Boles had asked us to sing a song during both the passing of the grape juice and the bread. We chose to sing “Softly and Tenderly” and “My Savior First of All” and it was a moving experience. I’ve never heard music during the communion service before, and I think it added a sense of quiet reverence to the service. We stayed on the platform after our each of our songs and the deacons served us the bread and juice. We felt honored to be a part of such a sacred service.

We found out later that there was a lady in the congregation who had been able to go to church for a long time because of illness and today was the first day she’d been able to go in several months. Augusta wasn’t even her home church and she’d been invited by a friend. She said that she was so blessed that there were so many special programs going on that it was almost like it was just for her!

Pastor Boles had arranged a special meal of haystacks in the fellowship hall for the quartet and some of the church members. As we ate, we shared stories of God’s protection during our years of traveling and singing. We heard an amazing story of an angel that was over 100 feet tall guiding and directing semi trucks during a heavy storm and protecting a church member from being hurt in an accident. It was a wonderful time of fellowship.

We weren’t in a hurry to get to Columbia, so we took our time getting there. We still arrived early and, since no one was there yet, we dozed in the car while we waited. When people started to arrive, we were let in to the church to set up, and not long after we got ready, Jennifer and Crystal arrived. Donnia still acted a little shy, but she started warming up to us as the afternoon went on. She heard us during our sound check and told Crystal, “Aunt Kristie and Aidan are going to love this!”

Kristie is my cousin Joshua’s wife and Aidan is their son. They live close to Jennifer and Donnia, so Aidan has been sort of a big brother to Donnia. Josh and I spent most of our childhood together and it was unfortunate that I didn’t get to see him at the concert because of his work schedule. But it was good to see Aidan and Kristie, and, true to Donnia’s word, they both loved the music and Aidan seemed impressed that four guys could make music the way we did. My aunt Donna and uncle Jamie also came to the concert and I had the privilege of showing off a whole row of my relatives during our introductions.

Tim’s sister Stace and her husband (who is also named Tim) have been trying to get us to come for a concert at the Charleston, SC church where they live. We’re still working on that, but since we were going to be in Columbia, they decided to make the two hour drive to hear us sing and to see Tim. They seemed to enjoy the concert too, especially our songs from our album “The Hand of Mercy.” They’d brought their son Kasey with them, and he’d requested before the concert that we sing “I’ll Fly Away” which is his favorite song from The Hand of Mercy. We were hesitant to sing it, because we hadn’t sung it since the trip to the Philippines, but surprisingly it was one of our best performances of that song we’ve ever done!

After the concert we headed to Cracker Barrel with my family and we had a nice time catching up and watching Donnia eat. The guys all thought she was a cutie and Ryan had to kiss her chubby cheeks before we left. Since Crystal was staying with them for a couple of weeks, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the Augusta Hampton Inn. On the way back to Collegedale the next day we spent most of our time rehearsing new songs and talking about a new hymns album. If it’s in God’s plan, we hope to release “Hymns - By the Book Volume II” by late Summer or early Fall.

Headed for warmer climes, we left Collegedale for Jacksonville and St. Augustine Florida this weekend. I brought all the equipment and met the guys at the music building around 3:00. We had wanted to leave around noon, but Tim wasn't able to leave work until 3:00. Joey had gotten a Ford Escape and it was a very tight squeeze to fit everything, but Joey managed like he always does.

It was a long trip but, as always, we used the time to practice and discuss important issues like future tours and campmeetings this summer. As we rehearsed, we tried singing some of our faster songs very slowly. Some of them actually sounded pretty good. Then somehow we thought it would be fun to sing our slow songs at double or triple speed. It's surprisingly challenging to sing a song at an abnormal pace and it was hard not to laugh at the way we sounded. In fact, at one point we were going so fast that Joey mixed the words to “Swing Down” and “Turn You ‘Round” and he and Tim laughed for about five minutes!

We got to the Jacksonville hotel at about 11:30 and by midnight we were asleep. The room must have been a deluxe suite because it had a full-size couch with a hide-a-bed, two desks and a refrigerator. Ryan took advantage of the hide-a-bed and everybody seemed to sleep pretty well even though it was only about six hours.

The church wasn't very far from the hotel and after breakfast we headed over. We were met by some church members who let us in and we got everything set up. Pastor Michael Miller arrived and we were able to square away all the details of the concert. The pastor had heard us sing over 15 years ago and had recently come across our website. He said he was happy to find out that we were still singing. He’d contacted Joey and they’d set up the concert.

When Joey was setting up the laptop for the concert, he met the sound man for the church, Ken Grant, and they realized they'd met each other at the Pathfinder camporee at Oshkosh. Ken also runs the PathfinderRadio.com website for the church and he asked us if we'd like to do a radio interview before we left and we agreed.

The concert went well except for the fact that only one channel on the laptop audio was working which meant we only heard music and no dialogue. So Joey had to improvise during his talk since he couldn’t play the videos he had planned. The sound guys were up in the booth working on it, but were never able to fix the problem. We managed to muddle through and everyone was very understanding.

We stayed for the fellowship dinner and after we packed up the equipment we did the interview with Ken. He spent about half an hour asking us questions about the group and how we tour and practice. Of course he had to promote the fact that I'm the only single guy in the group!

On our way to the St. Augustine church, Ryan took us on a tour of the town since he and his family vacation there often. We drove by an old Spanish fort and many other tourist attractions including restaurants with names like "Fountain of Youth" and "Barnacle Bill's." We never really figured out why, but there were an unusual amount of tourists in town for it being the off season. We could see the beach and ocean from the car, and like a magnet, it drew us toward it. It was a nice, sunny day and we were surprised to see only a few people on the beach since there seemed to be so many tourists in town. You can’t do a whole lot at the beach in a dress shirt and tie, so we didn’t stay long. But it was nice to feel the sun after an unusually cold Tennessee winter.

When we arrived at the St. Augustine church, no one was there to let us in. But it wasn’t long before someone came and unlocked the doors. Shortly after we started bringing in our equipment, a young lady named Holly told us that she’d be running the church’s sound that evening and that Joey and I might know her mom, Dawn Garber Clark. We both looked at each other and said, “You’re kidding!” as we realized at the same time that she was the daughter of a schoolmate of ours from Laurelbrook Academy. Dawn was a Senior when Joey and I were Freshmen, but I always remember her smile and her positive outlook. Holly said that her mom would be there later for the concert, so we were looking forward to seeing her after about 20 years.

While we set up and got our sound check, some childhood friends of mine, the Perez family, came into the sanctuary. I had contacted them the week before to let them know we’d be coming to Florida, but I wasn’t sure if any of them would be able to make it. The youngest daughter, Danielle, is almost 18 now and she hadn’t even been born when I first met the Perezes. Ron and Carol and their kids Justin, Heather, Sarah and Danielle moved from Florida to Tennessee around the time I graduated from academy and entered college. They spent several years attending our church and school, and as Danielle and Sarah grew up, my family babysat them often and made lots of memories. When the family moved back to Florida several years ago, it was rare that we got to see them, so I was glad for this chance to see Ron, Carol, Sarah and Danielle. Justin and Heather and their spouses weren’t able to come to the concert, but of course I keep up with them on Facebook.

I was able to spend some time catching up with the Perezes before concert time, and Joey and I got to see Dawn for a few minutes too. She said that she would stay for as long as she could, but she had to go pick up her other daughter later. She said she’d never heard us sing before, so we told her we hoped we didn’t disappoint!

The pastor at St. Augustine is Robert Hayes, and he came to greet us around concert time. There were a fair number of people in attendance when the concert started, and I noticed that even though Dawn left to pick up her other daughter Heather, they both came back and listened to the rest of the concert! I told her afterwards that it made us feel special that she came back to hear the rest of our songs.

During our introductions, we always make a big deal about me being single, and when I said that, in all my travels I’d never met someone willing to marry me, Ron kept pointing at Sarah. I had to mention, even though I know it embarrassed her, that when Sarah was five years old she always said she was going to “marry Phillip.” I’m sure it was equally embarrassing for her boyfriend Michael.

The concert went well, and the laptop sound was working this time. Sarah and Danielle were singing along to every song that we sang from “The Hand of Mercy” album since they had worn out a cassette of that album when they were growing up. We noticed that during the entire concert there was a man over on the left side of the church reading a book, and he never seemed to look up or be aware that he was in a concert. We debated later as to whether or not he may have been deaf, but in any case we were glad he was there. We never know how the Lord will bless someone just by being at one of our concerts. We’ve learned that there’s always a reason for everything.

After the concert Carol bought some CDs to replace the worn out cassettes they’d had for years and, after we packed up everything, Ron invited us to go eat with them. Right before we left, Sarah requested that we sing "Dry Bones." We told her that Ryan didn't know that song, but he said that he'd be willing to try it. He did better than Tim and Joey who've sung that song for years and were still getting all their bones mixed up! Aside from that, the song went well and we all got a good laugh.

Out in the car we told the GPS to look for a Cracker Barrel, but it took us on some unexpected twists and turns. We were laughing about the GPS’ pronunciation of street names again when we finally found the restaurant and pulled in. We had a nice time with the Perezes and when it was time to hit the road, we said our goodbyes. We got back to the Jacksonville hotel pretty late, but were up early the next day to head back home. We used to sing in Florida all the time and it was nice to be back down there again.

Since we’d had such a good experience with the Toyota RAV4 on our last tour, Joey got another one for this trip to Georgia. I’ve been keeping the sound equipment at my house since Joey is cleaning out the storage room at the end of December, so when I arrived at the music building we transferred everything to the RAV4 and took off. No sooner had we said a prayer and the vehicle began to roll, than Ryan opened up singing the first line of “Movin’ Up to Glory Land.” And like a Pavlovian response, the rest of us joined in without realizing what was even happening! We had an uneventful trip down, but we made good use of the time by practicing “Movin’” and “We Shall Wear a Crown” since we were going to sing them both for the evening concert at Auburn.

None of us got much sleep Friday night because we’re still sharing one room. The beds were smaller than usual and we all had a hard time staying asleep. The next morning we all seemed to take a little longer than usual getting up and getting ready. We dragged our feet to breakfast, and after a little coffee, we all seemed to be awake enough to sing.

Our morning concert was at the Buford Family Church. The members are currently renting a space from the Gwinnett Vineyard Church and the auditorium was festively decorated for Christmas when we arrived. We found out that the Buford church is a planted church from members of Auburn, Duluth and several other churches in the area. Some of the audio/visual crew were there to meet us and help us get everything set up. As we were unpacking the equipment, I noticed that one of our microphones had a bent battery terminal and they were very helpful in getting it fixed.

After setting up, we found a room to warm up and chat for a while. As we sat in the warmth and quiet of the room, it was hard not to give in to the sleep deprivation of the night before and take a nap. But we all managed to stay awake by singing and talking. While Tim was out of the room for a while, Joey, Ryan and I all three squeezed onto the two-person couch in the room and planned to make the “hear no evil, speak no evil, do no evil” gestures when Tim came back into the room. But he took so long coming back that we began to suffocate on the couch and gave up.

At concert time there were about 30 people in attendance, which we thought was admirable for a church plant. Things went fairly well for a morning concert and the congregation liked our songs, especially the kids. Afterward, we were invited to a fellowship meal, which we really enjoyed. There were some very tasty dishes, including some vegetable rolls and barbecue “meatballs” that we all liked. The congregation was very friendly and as we were leaving, we were invited back to sing for the Duluth Adventist Christian School for one of their chapel services.

On the way to Auburn, Tim, Ryan and I succumbed to the lethal combination of full tummies, vehicle motion and lack of sleep. I tried to stay awake for Joey’s sake, but I just couldn’t make it. We decided to stop for a restroom break and some more coffee so we could make it through the evening.

When we arrived at the Auburn church it was much earlier than we expected, so we sat across the street and dozed for a while. There were quite a few cars there and people were going in and out. After about half an hour Joey and I walked over to see if we could get into the sanctuary. Joey went to the restroom and I walked around until I noticed that the lights were being turned off and I saw a man in the main hallway who appeared to be leaving. I told him I was with the quartet and asked if it would be alright if we brought in our equipment. He said he’d go ahead and stay while we brought in everything.

I walked back to the car and saw that Tim and Ryan were still asleep, so I tried to gently wake them up so we could move the car over to the church. Tim’s brain was a little fuzzy, but they both woke up when I closed the door. Ryan volunteered to drive over and we started unloading about the time Joey came to the door. The man who let us in introduced himself as Steve. He had his two children with him and they were very interested in what was going on. They asked a lot of questions and were fascinated by our sound check. We decided to practice “Movin’” and they started singing along and clapping to the rhythm of the song!

We rested for about an hour in the mother’s room, but when the kids came in Tim told them some stories. Their dad came and got them at about 5:30 to go eat, so we talked about the set of songs we’d do that night. By consensus we decided to sing “Movin’” for the first time in about 10 years. With one dissenting vote from Ryan, we decided to sing “We Shall Wear a Crown” for only the second time ever. The first time we sang it was right after “A New Day” was released. It was at the Morning Pointe retirement center back in July of 2008, and the song went very badly. So badly, in fact, that we never got the nerve to sing it again. We also weren’t thrilled at how the song turned out on the album. But so many of our family members love the song and we’d been looking for another upbeat number for the concert, so we decided to throw it in.

At concert time there was a good crowd there and as we sang our faster songs, the congregation seemed to enjoy those the most. “We Shall Wear a Crown” went so well that we later decided to make it a permanent part of the concert. Everyone absolutely loved “Movin’” and lots of people were singing very high with me on “oooh hooo hooo hoo oovin’” as they laughed out loud at our antics during that part! We ended the concert with “Draw Me, Lord” and the Holy Spirit was there as we invited Him to bless us all as we parted ways.

Steve and his kids helped us pack up everything after the CD sales, and his son was very happy to have gotten a copy of “A New Day.” We thanked them as we pulled away and tried to warm up again after loading in the cold December air. We were all pretty hungry by this time, so we started typing in restaurants into “Julie” our GPS unit. As we drove we began to laugh harder and harder at Julie’s mispronunciation of certain words. “Chipotle,” for example, was pronounced “CHIP-i-tel” with the accent on the first syllable. She would pronounce “GA (Georgia) 20” as “Gaaaah 20” which elicited peals of laughter from us. But the one we laughed at the most was when she started saying the word “doctor” for the abbreviation for “drive.” When she said to “turn left on County Line Doctor” it was more than we could stand. Needless to say, it was a fun trip home.

It's not often that you get the chance to revisit childhood memories and the places where you grew up but, for Joey, this weekend gave him that opportunity. For this tour he'd been able to book a concert at his childhood church in Dothan, Alabama. On Friday he arrived in Chattanooga early enough to make a surprise visit to his parents at Laurelbrook. It was his mom's birthday and they were both happily surprised to see him since he lives so far away.

Joey had enough time to get back to Collegedale and meet us at the music building at 3:30. He said it was the first time he recalled the three of us waiting for him instead of him waiting on us! Our rental vehicle for the weekend was a Toyota RAV4 and Ryan had expressed his sincere doubt that we'd be able to pack everything into such a small space. It turns out that Joey had the same reservations when he picked up the Toyota at the airport but the lady at AVIS had assured him that it would work for our needs. Joey started packing and we were all surprised when everything fit, including our luggage, with room to spare for me and Tim in the back.

On the way down to Dothan, we had a lengthy discussion about what types of songs we should record for our next album. We decided to try to include some more well-known and popular songs, and one of the first we decided on was “Movin’ Up to Glory Land” which was a song we’ve performed over the years, but were never satisfied with the ending. In fact, “Movin’” had been intended to go on our third album “The Hand of Mercy” but we couldn’t get the harmonies and the ending to sound quite right in the studio, and it was replaced by “I’ll Fly Away.” So right then and there in the roomy RAV4 we started practicing “Movin’” for a while. Ryan slowly began remembering his part from when he was in the group before. I had forgotten most of my part and Joey had to refresh my memory. In the process, we decided that it sounded better if Joey and I swapped some of our notes, and as we practiced we came up with a wonderful new ending that we were all happy with. It was exciting to revive such a great song because we all remembered how much people loved my “mooh ooo ooo ooo ooovin’” line during the chorus.

Some of the other songs we decided on were “In That Great Getting’ Up Morning,” “Joshua Fit the Battle,” "John the Revelator” and “Only a Boy Named David.” We’ll still have several original songs that we’ll put on the album, but there will be a lot of familiar songs for people to sing along with. Of course, our “Hymns – By the Book” album has been our best selling album ever, so we may record another volume of hymns before our next gospel album. We’ve already got those picked out too, and we included some very familiar and “singable” hymns, so whatever direction the Lord leads, I think people will be happy with our next recordings.

When Ryan was in the quartet back in 2002 we sang at the Dothan church, so it had been about six or seven years since we’d been there. On that tour we had time to drive around Dothan while Joey marveled at the things that had changed since he was a kid and all the things that were still there. This time we didn’t get to drive by Joey’s childhood house, but we did drive through the middle of town and see how much has been built in the past few years. There were still a lot of signs about pecans and peanuts all over town and Joey said that Dothan has always been popular for the Peanut Fair, boiled peanuts and pecans.

We had a good concert at the church the following morning and Joey was teased by some of the older church members who knew him as a child. One man said that the church was still being repaired from when Joey was a kid! After the concert we overheard several of the ladies competing with each other good-naturedly about who knew Joey the best. The first lady said she’d been friends with his mom. The other lady said she babysat him and his brother. Then the other lady said she’d changed Joey’s diapers, and it went on and on in greater detail! Joey asked me to take a lot of photos of him with the church members so he could show his parents some of their old friends from Dothan.

Our next church was a providential arrangement at the “last minute” that the Lord had helped Joey organize in Oglethorpe, Georgia. When we pulled into the parking lot, Joey exclaimed, “We’ve been here before!” I admitted that it looked familiar, and Ryan thought he remembered it too. It turned out that years ago we’d performed there as part of a benefit concert for an ill church member. Ryan said that the position and orientation of the church to the road seemed a bit out of the ordinary, and he found out later that the church had been moved from a location down the road to the present location. During the move, which I think he said happened back in the 60’s, the truck pulling the church had gotten stuck on the bridge which was visible from the parking lot. It had stayed stuck for several days and it caused all kinds of traffic problems. They were finally able to move the church from the bridge, but it explained the reason for the church’s unusual relation to the road.

In addition to the Adventist church there, Joey had heard about a group of Mennonites in the area who already knew about the quartet and our music. He was hoping that some of them might come to the concert at Oglethorpe because he’d sent out invitations to them as well as several other churches. Pastor Short and his wife came shortly after we arrived and we got a chance to talk to them for a while after we set up the sound system and the product table. He was concerned that there wouldn’t be many people there because of the short notice, but we assured him that the Lord always makes sure the right people come. That’s one thing we’ve seen over and over again through the years.

At concert time we noticed that there were some Mennonites out in the pews, and it was nice to know that they felt welcome at an Adventist church. There was a good crowd as we started the concert and Pastor Short began with opening prayer. When he stepped up to the mic I noticed that the cable was in a loop on the floor right by the pastor’s foot. As his prayer ended I tried to stop him from tripping, but I wasn’t fast enough and his foot got caught in the cable loop and he almost fell. He got his footing as I grabbed for the mic to keep it from falling. Of course there was a loud boom as all this was happening, but everyone was just glad the pastor didn’t fall.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the music and our presentation about the ministry of Adventist World Radio. Even though the congregation was small, the Holy Spirit was there and it was an evening of worship and excitement about the finishing of the Lord’s work. After the concert there were several people who wanted to buy CDs, including two of the Mennonite ladies who’d come. Joey got a chance to talk to them for a while. We’ve discovered that many Mennonite groups all over the country enjoy our music because we only sing acappella. It was very encouraging to see them welcomed warmly at Oglethorpe and to know that God is using our music to reach people in all types of churches and belief systems.

After a long day, we were tired and ready for the hotel. We stayed at a hotel close to the church and in the morning we drove home. I’d printed the words to “Movin’” the night before for Ryan and we practiced it for a while along with a couple more. We’re all looking forward to the next album!

I met Joey at the storage room at around 3:00 on Friday because I had the only key to the new lock. We were afraid that we'd have to cut the door open again (see ''A Class Reunion”). Fortunately my key worked and we were able to get the product and equipment out with no drama!

After dropping my truck off at the music building we went to get our case of water and Ricola drops. Sitting back at the music building Joey started wondering where Tim and Ryan were. All of a sudden he yelled, ''I was supposed to go pick up Ryan at his house!'' So when Tim arrived we headed to get Ryan who had the nice QSC speaker that we used last tour. Then Tim realized he'd forgotten his Filipino Barong shirt, so we went by his house after getting Ryan.

The Georgia-Cumberland Conference had invited us to sing at the Retired Workers Retreat this weekend at Cohutta Springs Camp in Cohutta, Georgia. For me and Joey, the camp holds a special place in our hearts because it was the site of our first ill-fated meeting during the Summer of 1983. We were both enrolled at Cohutta Springs for Summer Camp and, as it so happened, we were both assigned to the same cabin, but not the same room.

We won’t say that Joey was a pest at 10 years old, and we won’t say that I had a bit of a temper, but we will say that he and I weren’t the best of friends during our week at camp. During one of our more physical disagreements, our camp counselor pulled us apart and made us both do the “dead cockroach” while the other boys went swimming with another cabin. This form of punishment involved both of us lying on our backs with our arms and legs in the air until we either gave up and/or learned our lesson about not fighting. Of course we both tried to outlast the other, which only made the pain worse. I don’t remember who “won” but I do remember that we seemed to be able to tolerate each other after that incident. And now, 26 years later, we’re the best of friends. And I’m very thankful to God for Joey’s friendship and for his talents. I thought about Providence as the quartet drove through the camp. Not much has changed over the years and the cabin Joey and I shared is still there.

Joey was driving pretty quickly because of our late start and we got to the camp about a half hour later than we wanted. We made it in time to square away the sound system, eat supper and find our chalet so we could change clothes. The retreat organizers put us up in one of the nice chalets on the opposite side of the lake from the conference center. There was enough room in the chalet for Joey and Ryan to each have their own rooms while Tim and I shared a room. We were happy that none of us had to share the same bed like our last tour!

Back at the conference center we got to speak to Steve Haley who is my former pastor and who is currently serving as the Conference Vice President for Administration. He's been a supporter of the quartet for many years and had requested that we be the special musical guests for the weekend. We also got to chat with Conference President Ed Wright. He knows Joey from his trips to the GC headquarters in Maryland. Steve and Ed introduced us to the speaker for the weekend, Don Jacobsen. Steve introduced us at the start of the meeting and we sang “I Want to Be Like My Lord” and “Softly and Tenderly.”

The sermon was very inspiring, taken from the story of the paralytic who was let down through the roof by his friends so Jesus could heal him. Afterward, Steve asked us to sing another song to close the service and we chose to sing “Twenty-Three.” Joey accidentally pitched it down a whole step too low! Ryan was scraping the bottom of the barrel and we all had trouble with the harmonies because it's one of those songs that has to be sung in the right key or it's very difficult to sing correctly. Ryan hit his lowest notes right on key and we got a hearty “Amen” when we finished.

Mrs. Jacobsen told us afterward that she really enjoyed ''Twenty-Three'' because of the minor chords and the way the song resolves at the end. She said that there aren't enough of those types of songs and that she liked the close harmony. So even though we sang the song too low, the ''Holy Spirit Filter'' must've been in place and it made the song sound better than we thought!

The next day we were scheduled to sing a song for special music during the service. It went well, and after the service Joey got a call from his parents saying that they were going to come to the afternoon concert and bring Joey’s brother Woody’s kids with them since they rarely get to see Uncle Joey. They ate lunch with us and we were able to take some goofy pictures with them before the concert. After lunch, they sat right in the center of the front row since they’re such big fans of the quartet’s music and they know all the songs by heart. They listened to our sound check and enjoyed being with their “Uncle Joe.”

The concert went very well and we pulled out some of the more familiar songs that we knew the retirees would enjoy. We also presented the ministry of Adventist World Radio and it was a pleasure to talk to many retirees after the concert about their years of service with AWR. Some of them were very happy to see that AWR is still a thriving ministry and that we had joined with them as ministry partners.

We had our CDs for sale after the concert and after the crowd started making their way back into the auditorium, we decided to pack up and go home. They were showing “The Best of Candid Camera” and serving popcorn, and as we were taking down our equipment, we got distracted by some of the more hilarious gags that were being shown. It was hard to stay out of the way of the projector, but we managed to get everything taken down and packed. As we left, I thought about what an honor it was to sing for such a dedicated group of people who have given their lives in service to God. I feel privileged to have participated in an event that pays tribute to them.

We decided recently to try and cut some of our touring expenses by reducing our sound system, driving a smaller vehicle and by staying in one hotel room instead of two. This weekend was the beginning of the grand experiment. And to start off our grand experiment, Joey had managed to get upgraded to a Mercury Grand Marquis for our rental car. We couldn’t believe how much room was in the trunk! It was a very comfortable and roomy ride to Newport, TN. We left Collegedale at 5:30 and stopped in Athens for a bite to eat.

The week before our tour, Ryan had been playing softball and had fractured a bone in his foot. He had to wear a support boot the whole weekend and we were concerned that he'd be in a lot of pain during the concerts. He made it through the weekend like a trooper and did a great job.

Since our drive wasn't too far we arrived at the Hampton early enough for us to practice a bit. It was still early when we finished, so Tim and I decided we'd take advantage of the nice fitness room at the hotel. I had a bit of trouble getting the treadmill working but I finally managed a half hour workout while Tim used the elliptical machine. Then, while he worked out with weights I went for another half hour on the elliptical. I didn't think I'd make it, but it was great to have Tim there encouraging me.

When we got back to the room, Ryan and Joey were asleep, and since we didn't have a key, we woke up Ryan knocking on the door. He blearily opened the door, squinted at us and got back in bed. We each took a shower, trying not to wake up the guys, and then got into bed, which reminded us of the days when we stayed in people’s homes and had to share hide-a-beds and mattresses on the floor.

None of us slept very well that night. We all kept waking up for apparently no reason and I don’t think any of us got more than two or three hours of sleep at a time. It was hard to get up in the morning, but we managed to get down to breakfast and to the Newport church in time to set up. The pastor was there to open the doors and help us get everything we needed.

I kept trying to remember where I’d seen the pastor before and it took a few minutes to realize that he was Chris James and he’d been in the Die Meistersinger Male Chorus with me back in college. His dad Sam James was a teacher at Collegedale Academy in those days and I did part of my student teaching there in Sam’s German class. I walked up to the pastor and asked him if his name was Chris James (just to be sure) and as I talked with him he remembered me from college.

Chris is the pastor of both the Newport and Smoky Mountain churches, so Joey had arranged for us to sing at both churches this weekend. The Newport church is using the church of the Crossroad Tabernacle Baptist Church while they work on their new building. It’s a small church, but there was a good turnout. When the concert was over, Pastor Chris had us follow him to the Smoky Mountain church. It was quite a bit larger and the concert went very well. Since we had an evening concert at Athens, we left the church when we were packed and stopped on the way for lunch.

Around concert time I saw my old academy roommate Ben Brown and his family come into the sanctuary. I’d seen him back in August at the ASI convention in Phoenix, but I was very surprised to see him again. We chatted for a while and he said he’d heard we were in concert at Athens and he’d wanted to come hear an entire concert since we’d sung only one song at the convention. As we talked, I noticed another Laurelbrook member, Dena Marlow, come in. Ben and I went to say hi and reminisce about the good old days. I found Joey and we all talked for a while before the concert started. There were a few people from my home church of Bowman Hills at the concert too and it was nice to see some familiar faces while we sang. CD sales were good after the concert and I got the opportunity to take some pictures with my old friends. We made our way home after we were packed up and stopped for supper before we hit Collegedale.

We’d set aside the following Sunday for a recording session for Adventist World Radio. They’d asked Joey if we’d like to record some radio promotional spots for them to air on various stations and we thought it would be fun. I stayed with Joey in the Ooltewah Hampton Inn Saturday night and the guys met us there the next morning. We spent a few hours recording 10-15 spots each and laughed at our goofs and bloopers. It was a pleasure to be able to record the spots for AWR and we’re honored to be a part of their ministry and the end-time work they’re doing for the Lord.

Tim and his wife Becky met me at the University music building and we carpooled to the Chattanooga airport for our trip to Phoenix. We got there around noon and Ryan came a bit later with his family. We found out that we had to pay for our checked luggage, so we had to rearrange a few things to accommodate the boxes of CDs we had to bring with us. We're hoping that we'll accrue enough Skymiles with this trip to jump up to the next status level where we'll get two free checked bags. We'll see...

Our plane left a half hour late because there were so many planes coming into Atlanta. When we arrived in Atlanta Joey met us there and we got on our plane to Phoenix. He got upgraded, and since I was the only one who'd never flown Business Class, they all decided to let me take his seat without even drawing straws!

Business Class was very enjoyable with the wider seats and good food. It was a smooth flight and as we circled over Phoenix, I saw a huge dust cloud out in the desert, right outside the city's edge. It was basically a huge cloud of dust that, at first glance was just hanging there in one spot. But as we got closer I could tell that it was moving and undulating like a living thing. It was amazing that it wasn't moving toward the city, but seemed to be restricted to the desert right outside.

After we landed and got our luggage we got our rental car and headed toward the Phoenix Convention Center. As we drove, we noticed the electric trains that run through parts of the city. It was interesting that they had to stop at traffic lights just like the cars. We also noticed that most of the buildings weren't very tall but that the city was very widely spread out. Ryan surmised that it was easier to cool shorter buildings and that there was plenty of room out in the desert to expand outward as opposed to New York or Manhattan where building have nowhere to go but up.

We found the Convention Center and as we followed the crowds and signs to the ASI hall, we were amazed at how large the center was. The ASI auditorium was pretty large and it took us a while to find Jim Ayer, our friend from Adventist World Radio. We eventually found Jim and Ben Schoun at the AWR booth and were able to touch base with them. After checking out the layout of the building, we left to find our hotel so we could change for the Friday night meeting. Unfortunately we had to pay for parking at the convention center every time we left and came back.

When we came back for the meeting and were walking through the front doors of the main meeting hall, Joey saw a classmate of ours from Laurelbrook, Ben Brown, sitting by the doors. I had seen him only a few times since our graduation and it was very nice to be able to catch up on the news about him and his family. They operate a lifestyle center and spread the message of healthy living through diet and natural methods of healing sicknesses.

After listening to an inspiring message, we made our way over to the auditorium with all the booths. At the AWR booth Jim cajoled us into singing a couple of songs while standing at the front of the booth. We drew a small crowd as Jim told the people who we were and they listened to our songs.

Sabbath morning was hot and dry as one would expect, but many people told us that the expected high of 105 wasn’t as bad as the 112-114 degree temperatures of the week before. We didn’t notice the Arizona heat much until we walked from the parking lot to the inside of the convention center. Ryan said he could “feel the air sucking the moisture from his eyeballs.” But Joey, Tim and I agreed that being in our AWR jackets and ties in the desert air didn’t compare to wearing suits and ties in the Indonesian tropical weather!

We were scheduled to sing for the children’s Sabbath School divisions so we made the rounds from the Kindergarten class to the Earliteens. They all seemed to enjoy the music and especially liked the free AWR stickers and pencils we passed out along with our new Emmanuel Quartet magnets that Ryan and Joey had made. While we were in the Junior class, I saw Ben Brown’s son and he was very vocal in his appreciation of our music! He was pleased that I remembered who he was.

Since we were singing for the kids during the church service, we didn’t get to hear the sermon, but we found Jim in the auditorium and asked him what we should do for lunch. He procured four extra meal tickets for us and we joined him in line for the gourmet meal provided by the convention center. While waiting in line, Jim started singing some old King’s Heralds songs and we ended up singing some quartet songs for the people in line! The dining hall downstairs was even larger than the auditorium and the meal was very good. We were able to meet Jim’s wife and have a good conversation over lunch.

When lunch was over we headed back to the main auditorium for a sound check. We waited our turn and after the sound check we tried to find a quiet corner to rehearse the song we’d been asked to perform, “My Savior First of All.” The theme of the weekend was “By Knowing Him” so the song ASI picked turned out to be very appropriate. As the song says, when Jesus returns we’ll know Him by the prints of the nails in His hands.

The meeting started at 4:00 and the auditorium was almost full. We enjoyed listening to stories of God’s guidance and financial miracles in the lives of the ASI members and their organizations. As our time to sing drew closer, we prayed that the Lord would calm our nerves and help us to sing our best for His glory. Our prayers were answered as we sang our song and it turned out very well. In fact, it turned out to be one of the best performances of that song we’ve ever done!

After the meeting we knew we wouldn’t have any more meal tickets, so we searched around Phoenix to find something to eat. The GPS took us all over the city and we got to know it quite well by the time we found a Thai restaurant which turned out to have excellent food. We headed back to the convention center to set up our CDs. We must’ve been tired because when we parked outside the convention center (to save money) we all got out of the car and walked quite a few feet before we realized that none of us had gotten the CDs out of the car! So we walked back and got them only to realize that we didn’t have our envelope of money to make change for CD purchases. So while Ryan and I lugged the heavy boxes of CDs a couple of blocks to the convention center, Joey and Tim drove all the way back to the hotel to get the money.

The convention center staff weren’t allowing any of the exhibitors into the booths until 8:30, so while we waited, Ryan called his family and I chatted with some more academy friends I’d found. I even found a friend I’d made while at Southern Adventist University and I hadn’t seen him in many years. Tim and Joey weren’t back yet when they let us into the booths, but I went ahead and set up the CDs. I wandered around the huge room and saw even more people I knew from my school days. The Adventist world truly is a small one.

After the doors were opened to the public, Joey and Tim arrived and we were able to sell a few CDs. It was nice to take turns manning the booth and wandering around meeting people. A trio of young kids attached themselves to us and hung around our booth asking questions and making us laugh. At about 10:00 the announcement was made that the booths were closing. We packed up and said goodbye to Jim. We teased him by temporarily switching our AWR lapel pins for Hope Channel pins and when he noticed, he tried not to act surprised, but he took it all in good fun! Some of the staff of the Hope Channel had teased him earlier about “stealing” us from AWR and he told them he didn’t want to let us go! We all got a kick out of the good-natured teasing.

We had a good flight home the next day, and Tim took his turn in Business Class. As I passed by him on my way to Economy, I told him that “I don’t speak to First Class passengers!” Unfortunately I said that right after a man had asked me what was in the boxes we were carrying. I didn’t know he was talking to me and later Tim told me what had happened and I felt very bad and the guys teased me about it.

Even though this trip was an expense, we were all happy to go to such an important event for our church. It was a blessing to see how God is using these people to finish his work. It was also a privilege to get to meet Doug Batchelor who is the speaker/director for Amazing Facts Ministries. He’s a very friendly and personable fellow, and I’ve always been impressed by his clear presentation of Biblical principles. We knew God had provided the means for us to go to ASI and we’re happy to have gotten the chance.

Still suffering from jet lag from our trip back home from the Philippines, we met together on Friday afternoon to head to Knoxville. We’d all agreed to this weekend long before the Philippines, so there was no grumbling or complaining as we started the weekend. To save money, Ryan volunteered to take his car so we wouldn’t have to rent one. Tim, however, had to drive his own car since he would be picking up his son Zach and nephew Lucas in Knoxville. The boys had been staying with Tim’s parents and Lucas was going to be spending a few weeks with Tim, so he drove his car up so he’d have room to bring them back.

I rode with Tim on the way up so he wouldn’t be lonely and then I stayed with Joey at the hotel in Knoxville. As in the Philippines, we didn’t have our sound system so we didn’t have to set up when we arrived late that night or early in the morning. We all slept very well since we were still catching up on sleep from our transoceanic plane ride!

Ted Struntz, the youth pastor at the Knoxville church, is an old friend of mine and Joey’s and a fan of the quartet’s music. He always looks forward to us coming and it’s always nice to see him again. This time we got to meet his newborn daughter, Katherine and I noticed how fast his oldest daughter Elizabeth is growing. She posed for a photo just like a mature adult and she seems to really love her new baby sister. We got to introduce Ted to Ryan and hang out in one of the downstairs rooms (Ted’s office?) for a while and chat before the concert. We filled him in on the trip to the Philippines and told him about “A New Day” which he hadn’t been able to hear yet.

Right before the concert I got to see David Zackrison, a Knoxville church member and one of my mentors from Laurelbrook Academy. He was our agriculture teacher and the manager of the school’s dairy farm. I learned a lot of great lessons from him and I was always impressed with the compassionate way he dealt with us teenagers. It was great to see him again and to hear what his daughters are up to these days.

The concert went well and the sound was good. The church has natural acoustics that can operate to our advantage if the sound system is tweaked just right. Some of our songs were a little rough, but the congregation seemed to enjoy the concert. They especially enjoyed our slides and talks about our experience in the Philippines. After only a few minutes for honor sales, we had to hurry and pack up everything to make it to Deerlodge for our afternoon performance at the camp meeting.

The Camp Meeting was being held at the Meister Hills SDA Church where Joey and his parents were members for many years. When we arrived we had a few minutes to say hi to Joey’s mom, dad and sister. Our good friend Larry Blackwell was there as the emcee of the afternoon musical program. He was introducing the musicians and groups as they came on stage and he also sang a couple of numbers before we went on.

We were wearing our blue Filipino Barongs and we made mention of our Philippines trip during our short set of songs. The sound wasn’t set up the best for a quartet, but we managed to do fairly well for being hot and exhausted. The church had recently built a nice new outdoor auditorium for camp meetings and special events. Although it provided shade and a nice cross-breeze, it was still June in Tennessee, so the Barongs were a nice change from jackets and dress shirts.

After our mini-concert we headed over to Joey’s sister’s house. It had been a while since I’d seen Dee’s kids and they’re all growing up so fast. We sat in the living room and had a good time catching up on everything and embarrassing Dee’s kids with stories of when they were little. It was nice to relax and cool off after being so rushed all day. It was nice to see Joey’s mom and dad, too. They were instrumental in helping the quartet run smoothly years ago and we appreciate all the work they’ve done to promote our music to everyone they know.

We headed home that evening happy in the knowledge that we would have the whole month of July off to recuperate from our overseas trip.

Pastor Gerry woke us up the next day at 7:30 AM to go on a walking tour of the campus. The grounds are beautiful and are cared for meticulously and each time it rains the groundskeepers rake up all the leaves and debris that have fallen. There are lots of walking paths lined with different plants and flowers.

After our walk we went back to our rooms to eat breakfast. There were so many choices that it was hard to decide what to eat. We rested some more and then rehearsed some of our songs for the meeting. Elder Gulfan picked us up at 6:00 to take us to the meeting hall. It's being rented from a non-Adventist church group and Pastor Gerry said that they didn't know we were ''sheep stealing!''

The sound system at the hall isn't the best, but we worked with it and the audience seemed to enjoy the music.

All the people are friendly and are happy to see us. Everyone greets us and shakes our hands when we come in. Joey gave some CDs to a couple of girls named Rosie and Rose who were going to be in charge of selling them for us. Pastor Gerry gave away a couple of CDs to the person who'd traveled the farthest and to the person with the closest birthday.

After the health lecture we got up to sing three songs, then we sang “Room at the Cross” while Gerry had opening prayer. After the message we sang “If You Want Joy” as the appeal song.

I met Joey at the Chattanooga airport at 11:30 PM and he told me that he'd left the keys to the storage room in Maryland and Rick's Lock & Key wouldn't open it since Joey couldn't prove that it was his unit. And the owners of the units were no help because when Rick's Lock & Key called them, they heard the owners say unit 950 instead of 915! So we had to buy bolt cutters and a new lock at Wal-Mart and try to cut off the lock. We both worked on the lock for about five minutes and weren't making much progress, so I suggested that we cut the sliding hasp that was holding the lock. It only took a few seconds to cut through it and we were able to get out the product we needed and put on the new lock. It was about 12:30 before Joey and I made it to Emiko's house were we spent the night.

After only four hours of sleep, we got up to pack the product into our bags and it was doubtful for a while if we were going to get 600 CDs to fit, but when we got to Tim's and Ryan's bags there was plenty of room since they each had an extra empty bag each. While reorganizing my suitcase, Tim noticed a pair of my underwear that he thought had a camouflage pattern and poked fun by asking if we thought I could be seen from the air if I was wearing them.

At the Chattanooga airport Ryan and I drew ''straws'' (which were really strips of paper) to see who would get to sit in Joey's upgraded seat in First Class since he'd offered it to us and Tim didn't really care to use it. Ryan drew the long ''straw'' so he got the privilege. After we landed in Minneapolis, he gave me the free brownie they'd given him!

The flight to Tokyo was 100% full so there was no way any of us were getting upgraded. There were so many people to load on the 747 (about 480) that we were about 20 minutes late taking off.

We arrived in Tokyo on time and had to wait for a while at the gate while the local health officials went up and down the aisles checking people for signs of sickness.

Our layover wasn’t very long in Tokyo, but we did have enough time to get a few Japanese souvenirs at the airport gift shops. When we boarded the plane, we sat for a long time. Finally, the captain announced that there was a problem with one of the landing gear doors and that it would be another hour until it was repaired. I looked over at Joey across the aisle and his eyes were closed. I asked him if he’d heard the announcement and he nodded his head “Yes.” About an hour later he woke up and asked me why we hadn’t left yet! I told him about the landing gear and he smile and said, “You’re kidding, right?” I told him it was the truth and that he’d said he’d heard the announcement but he didn’t remember!

We finally took off and were three hours late getting to Manila. Then we had to wait another half hour for our luggage. Joey hadn’t been able to get online to check his e-mail for the instructions on where to meet our driver Willie. So we just went to the airport entrance and looked around. One of the security officers asked us if we needed help and we told him who we were looking for. He pointed across the street and pointed at a man and said that he might be who we were looking for. We looked over and Willie was there waving to us. We ran across the street with our luggage and Willie started loading everything into the SSD van. We told him we were glad to see him and he said that he’d been watching the boards for our flight and had seen that it was delayed, so he’d just waited there for us. We were very thankful!

There was about an hour drive from Manila to Silang and we arrived at the Southern Asia-Pacific Division Headquarters (SSD) at around 2:30 AM and got settled into our rooms. The suites are very nice and include a full kitchen, washer and dryer, couches and chairs, TV and fully stocked refrigerator. Tim and I shared suite number 141 and Joey and Ryan picked 144. Pastor Gerry was staying next to them in 145. We unpacked a little and talked a while, and then went to bed exhausted.

I'd been looking forward to this trip for some time since I knew I’d be seeing some old friends of mine. We hadn’t been to Florida in a while and Joey had set up a three-concert weekend for us. We had to leave Friday morning in order to make our first concert which was an evening concert at Lake City.

We had an uneventful trip down which gave us some time to practice a little. When we got there we were greeted by a couple of folks who’d heard the quartet way back when Joey and Tim were in academy. They’d also heard us at a couple of campmeetings along the way as well. They were interested to see if we’d improved at all over the past 15 years! After we got set up and did our sound check, they decided that the quartet sounded better than ever. We were glad to hear it!

The church is beautifully decorated with hardwood floors and contrasting pews and walls. The acoustics were a little too “live” since there was little carpet to absorb sound, and we had to compete with the natural room echo while we sang. But the concert went well and there was a good turnout for a Friday night meeting.

After we had our honor sales we packed up and headed to Gainesville where we would spend the night with my good friends and academy classmates Pastor Dan and Julie Graham. I graduated with them in 1991 from Laurelbrook Academy and Joey knew them from when he attended Laurelbrook also. Dan and I had also attended Southern Adventist University together back when it was called Southern College, and we’d both worked in the Landscape Services Department for several years as well.

Dan was waiting at the church when we arrived and helped us set up the sound system. We got to their house pretty late (I think it was around 11:00 PM) and after we were shown our rooms, Danny, Julie and I stayed up until about 1:00 AM catching up and talking about the good old days! They’d moved their two boys, Luke and Nathan, out of their room so we could sleep in there. I got a look at them while they were asleep and couldn’t believe how much they’ve grown since I saw them three years before!

The next morning Dan and Julie showed us where all the breakfast items were and left early for the church. The boys were very talkative before they left and were fascinated that we’d slept in their bunk-beds. After breakfast, we made our way to the church and got ready for the concert. The church members were friendly and receptive and the concert went very well. There was a fellowship meal planned for us so we made our way over to the gym. We sat with Dan, Julie, Luke and Nathan while we ate and listened to stories of what the boys had been doing over the past few months.

We went back to their house after packing up the equipment and they boys really didn’t want us to leave! They started showing me their toys and explaining what had happened to their dog Pumpkin; how she’d been lost for a long time and how they’d prayed and found her again. Luke also had a pet ''callerpitar'' which he was very proud of. They kept asking us if they could stay and we had to tell them that we had a concert in Ocala in a few hours and we had to leave. I drank a glass of lemonade with Dan and Julie before we left and I hugged everyone goodbye. I hope we can go back next year and visit again!

At Ocala I’d planned to meet my friend Adina Root. She and I had worked for several years at The Samaritan Center in Ooltewah. She’s been living in Florida for the past few years with her husband and daughter Syena. I’d never gotten to see Syena in person, so I was looking forward to seeing them both. Adina came just a few minutes after we got to the church and began setting up the equipment. Syena had grown so much since the last photo I’d seen and she was a little shy at first. While Adina and I talked, she slowly warmed up to me, and by the time they had to leave, she was calling me “man” and letting me pinch her cheeks.

The concert went well at Ocala, and as we drove home I was thankful that I’d been able to see some old friends and make some new friends with their kids!

The guys picked me up at OAKS since I was teaching there on Friday and we left around 2:00 PM. We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way to Greensboro, NC and picked up some cassettes for my camera and a tie for Ryan.

We arrived at the Greensboro church and set up the sound system before heading to the hotel for the night. The worship service went well at Greensboro and we headed to Raleigh for our afternoon concert.

The Raleigh Gethsemane SDA church has an interesting ''bowl'' shape which made it a bit of a challenge to set up the sound system. The house speakers had to be raised extremely high in order for the sound to reach the back pews. We also had a challenge setting up the projector because of the limited space on the platform. There was barely enough room for the mixer, stands and AWR banner, but we made it work. Joey was able to use the church's projector screen and a lectern for our projector. It was a tight fit, but we managed to squeeze everything in.

The concert went very well and the congregation seemed to love our faster song the most, although ''My Savior First of All'' received a hearty ''Amen!'' when we hit our last note. I think the people enjoyed Joey's AWR appeal almost as much as the music! While he was talking about how we sometimes take our religious freedom for granted, many of the people were encouraging him to ''Preach it, brother!'' It was inspiring to see so many people moved by the ministry of AWR. At the end of the concert I gave a testimony of how God is healing my ruptured eardrum. The congregation praised the Lord with me as I talked about His goodness.

After the concert we talked for a while with Pastor Lloyd Johnson about race relations among Adventist church members. It was an enlightening conversation and in the end we were all in agreement that only God’s grace and love can heal the wounds that Satan causes. It’s good to know that there are churches where you can feel accepted no matter what your skin color.

This was another tour that almost didn’t happen. Tim and I were both sick the week before and we weren’t sure if we’d be able to sing. Some kind of virus hit us both and made it very hard to breathe, and we were both coughing and sneezing. Since we weren’t running a fever and weren’t bedridden, we decided to go ahead with the tour. Joey came down on Friday and stayed at the new Ooltewah Hampton Inn for the first time. At Avis they didn’t have any minivans, so they gave Joey a nice large Ford Expedition. He was worried at first that there wouldn’t be enough room for everything, but there turned out to be more than enough. The only problem was that the Expedition was so much higher off the ground than the vans that we had to lift the heavy equipment up twice as high!

Sabbath morning I met Joe at the hotel and left my car there. Then we met the other guys over at the music building. Tim brought his son Zachary with us and Ryan’s family followed us in their car. We didn’t have a long drive to Rossville and when we got there we set up the sound system. Since Tim and I weren’t feeling well, it was nice to have two strong teenage boys to help us carry in the equipment. The concert was a little rough since Tim and I were congested, but the angels must’ve been singing with us because the congregation seemed to enjoy it. After the sign-up sales were over we packed up everything to head to Maryville.

After we stopped for lunch, I started to feel congested again so we stopped so I could take some medicine. I also popped in a “Fisherman’s Friend” cough drop. I mentioned to Joey about how strong they were and Zach became curious about them. I told him that it was what the fishermen up in New England use during the harsh winters out on the sea to keep them from coughing. He wanted to try one. After a few minutes he started making comments like, “Whew!” and “That’s strong!” Finally he said, “How do they fish with these things in their mouths?!?”

Ryan and his son Tyler had gone home after our Rossville concert so they could pack up their fishing gear. They were going to go to the Smoky Mountains for a fishing trip after our concert at Maryville. So Tim, Joey, Zach and I went on ahead to the church to set up. We’ve sung at the Maryville church several times, but I always enjoy going there. It’s a small, wooden chapel with beautiful landscaping and it has great acoustics because of the wooden floors and ceiling. After setting up the system, Joey, Tim and I warmed up with “Draw Me, Lord” which is a song we’d been working on. It went so well that Tim wanted to sing it at the end of the concert. When Ryan and Tyler arrived we went over it with Ryan and we all decided to give it a try.

The church was full by the time the concert started and the pastor introduced us to the congregation. My decongestant was working so I didn’t have too much trouble singing, but I did feel a little weak and shaky several times, so I just sat down when I had the chance. Tim and I didn’t collapse and the concert actually went pretty well. When it came time to sing “Draw Me, Lord” I was a little nervous, but it came out well. It was a good way to end the concert. Afterward, we tried to cram into the small foyer with our product table while the pastor’s wife interviewed Joey and Ryan for their church newsletter. We took down the equipment and hauled everything back out into the rain. It wasn’t raining too hard, but it had been raining all weekend, making it hard to stay dry while taking the equipment in and out.

We were all getting pretty hungry so we tried to find a CiCi’s Pizza. The GPS that we call “Janice” had been acting strange all day. When we followed her directions to what she called “ChiChi’s Pizza” there wasn’t one there. Joey punched in “Firehouse Subs” and when we followed her directions, she led us to McDonald’s! After teasing Joey about Janice, he decided to turn her off. He found the Firehouse Subs and we all enjoyed trying out their sandwiches. Ryan and Tyler were ready to get underway for their fishing trip, so we said goodbye as they argued over whether or not they were going to get up at the “crack of dawn” the next day.

The rest of us drove back to Chattanooga and got home pretty late. We dropped off Tim and Zach, and then Joey and I took the equipment to the storage room. And, of course since we were tired and it was late, something inconvenient had to happen. Joey put the door lock on the bumper and as he closed the door of the Expedition, he forgot to move the lock and it broke the key off inside. So we had to go all the way to Wal-Mart and buy a new lock and go back over and put it on. By the time we got to the hotel it was almost midnight and we sacked out. Joey had a 6:00 AM flight the next day, but I stayed until check-out time and was able to try the hot tub/whirlpool. It was a nice way to end the weekend!

I was teaching at the OAKS school on Friday so after I left for the day, I went to meet Joey at Four Corners in Collegedale. He’d already packed up the sound equipment in the van, so I went with him to Rite-Aid to get our standard tour accessories: bottled water, microphone batteries and Ricola throat drops. We stood in the parking lot afterwards and talked for a while before going to the music building to meet Tim and Ryan. It was so great to be back together again after not seeing each other for over a month. We had a two-hour drive to Marietta and as we drove we rehearsed and got caught up on what each other had been doing since our December concert in Maryland.

We got to the Marietta church and were able to set up our sound system. Pastor Asaftei was there waiting for us and we got everything squared away before going to the hotel for the night. We couldn’t get the projector to work, but the deacon said that he’d get one from the school for us to use the next day. The next morning at the church we did another brief sound check and then Joey went to rewrite the church concert order since we’d decided to change things around a bit. We gave a concert for each service and between services we met the pastor’s wife Sarah and talked to her for a while. She told us we would be having lunch at their house that afternoon.

The second service concert went much better than the first (as it usually does) and the congregation seemed to really enjoy the music. Ryan hit some amazingly low notes during the concert and we congratulated him afterward! When the concert was over we spent some time at the product table helping people sign up for their CDs and DVDs. It took a while since there were about 300 people at the second service. One man had come at the suggestion of his friends, and even though he was a Catholic, he told us that he thoroughly enjoyed the concert and he ended up getting three CDs. It makes me proud of our church to see people from other faiths feeling welcome enough to visit. He told me a joke from one single person to another: “My mother always told me that I could marry anyone I please, but the problem is that I never pleased anybody!” We had a great time meeting and talking to the church members. By the time we were all packed up, we were all pretty hungry and were ready for lunch.

Pastor Marius and Sarah didn’t live far from the church and when we arrived at their house the four of us jockeyed for a seat in their big comfortable chair! The aromas of wonderful dishes were in the air as we talked, and when we sat down at the table there were several unique dishes that we’d never seen before. Sarah named them for us and explained that they were Romanian dishes she’d learned to make over the years. Pastor Marius is from Romania originally and they both told us of their travels and of how they met. The meal was terrific and was filled with new flavors that we all enjoyed.

We talked for so long that we completely lost track of time. Joey realized that we were going to be late for our concert at Calhoun, so we quickly went outside to take a photo with the Asafteis and then we took off. The traffic was horrible as we tried to get on the Interstate. We don’t know why there were so many cars on the road in that particular area, but it took a long time just to get on the road we needed. We were running about a half hour late and Joey didn’t have the phone number of the lady who was opening the church for us, so we were hoping that she’d still be there when we arrived.

When we got there it was almost 4:40 and the church was open. The lady was there and she said that she was just starting to get concerned and had just thought about calling us! On top of being late, we found that there was absolutely no way to connect our laptop to the church’s projectors. Joey and the sound man from the church worked for at least half an hour to figure out a solution, but the connections that were available just would not work. So we had to make the decision to give our AWR presentations without the projector and slides. It also meant that we had to sing a lot more songs. We ended up singing 16 songs along with our AWR presentations and the offering appeal. We were very tired at the end, but it was a great concert and the people seemed to warm up as we sang. Joey’s brother Woody was there and he brought his four kids with him. It was good to see them all and I was amazed to see Jacob, Woody’s oldest son who is now almost 13, and then to think about when he was born and how old it made me feel!

This was a great tour, even though Satan tried to keep us from getting where we needed to be and he gave us technical difficulties with the equipment. I’ve learned over the years that if you’re doing God’s work, He’ll make sure you have everything you need. To paraphrase an AWR worker from Vietnam, “If this is the Lord’s work, in His way, we will never lack His providence for everything. He will supply every need. He called us, He equipped us. He will provide everything for this work.”

This was our long-awaited Christmas concert weekend up in Maryland and Tim, Ryan and I were up early on Sunday morning to catch our plane. Our flight from Chattanooga left around 6:00 AM. It was a very quick flight to Atlanta where we had a short layover. We got to the BWI airport in Maryland around 10:00. Joey was there to pick us up in his new Explorer and we were immediately off to buy four new red ties to wear with our black outfits.

We hit one store that didn’t have four matching ties, and then tried another store which had the normal holiday crowd and only one or two people running registers. We found the matching ties pretty quickly, but waited in line for about half an hour. While we were waiting, Tim went to find an iron for our travel-wrinkled clothes since we wouldn’t have time to run to the hotel. When we finally got out of the store we were starving and had just enough time to eat lunch at Chipotle (which we Tennessee boys love because we don’t have one down here) and then head to the GC for a sound check at 1:00.

At the General Conference headquarters Joey had a lot to do since he’s the Director of Audio/Visual. So while he worked on getting the stage lighting and sound ready, the three of us explored the building. We found a partitioned alcove on the second floor where Joey told us we could put our clothes and change later. When we went back down to the auditorium we got to meet violinist Jaime Jorge. He knew Ryan from academy since they both attended “rival” schools around the same time. When Joey was ready, Jaime got up on stage for his sound check. Joey outfitted him with his mic and while Jaime rehearsed, they set the volume levels. He did a practice run of “Carol of the Bells” which I really enjoyed. I was looking forward to hearing the whole song that night.

Not long after, we got up for our sound check. It was great to hear our new Christmas songs being sung into a sound system and it was also nice to get some practice in! While we were finishing up, a man came up to the stage and said he was supposed to play his drums for a Christmas concert that night. No one knew about any drums being played with any of the artists, and the man could give no details as to whom he was playing for or even if he was in the right location! We finally convinced him to go make a phone call and then he discovered he was playing for Lauri and Regina, a duet of ladies performing that night.

Throughout the afternoon, changes kept being made to the order of music and microphone changes were sprung on Joey, but he and his team managed to pull off everything quickly and efficiently. We rehearsed “O Holy Night” with all the artists several times before the director was comfortable with the way it went. We met Clayton Nunez who had been asked to fill in for the director, and he was also doing a great job of adjusting to the changes as they came.

Tim, Ryan and I had wanted to go to the hotel and iron our clothes and take showers, but there just wasn’t enough time to get there and back, so Ryan took a shower in the basement gym in the building. Tim and I skipped our showers in order to iron our clothes in the small alcove on the second floor. We freshened up and changed in the restroom and made ourselves presentable. When Joey had everything squared away, he came up to the alcove to tie his new red tie that we’d ironed for him.

When the concert started there were about 450-500 people there and we were all happy to see that many in attendance. Things got started off with the CJW Brazilian Youth Choir which is comprised of about 50 young people from Brazilian churches in the Washington area. I enjoyed their harmony and eclectic styles. They were followed by a duet of young ladies, “Lauri and Regina” who sang a beautiful version of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.” Then, it was time for the quartet’s moment of truth. We got up and sang “This World,” “Light of the Stable,” and finally “Immanuel.” The songs went very well. We only had a couple of minor slip-ups: I sang harmony on a part that was supposed to be unison, and then on “Light of the Stable” Tim, Joey and I completely forgot to start with the intro of the song and went right into the first verse! But I don’t think anyone in the audience noticed and by the time we finished our last note on “Immanuel” everyone was applauding and cheering.

After our performance I went out into the audience to listen to Jaime and Javier. I got to hear Jaime’s complete version of “Carol of the Bells” and it was fantastic. After a few songs he gave a testimony of how God opened the doors of an airplane that was ready to take off. It was an amazing story of God’s power and how much we need to just trust Him.

Clayton had dressed up as “Bobo the Clown” and between sets he was trying to play something for the audience, but the stage mistress (who was also painted like a mime) wouldn’t let him play anything. He started with a tuba, she took it away and he pulled out a trombone. She kept taking away his instruments until he was down to a little finger-sized flute playing “Deck the Halls” very off-key! At the very end of the concert, he was allowed to play the piano, which he does very well.

When Javier finished his set, the choir and all the other musicians came back onstage and we all performed “O Holy Night” together. It went very well, even after all the changes that had been made. Then the directorial staff had a prayer and we all sang “Silent Night” with the congregation. It was a great evening and a wonderful concert. I’m glad to have been a part of it.

We went to our product table and sold a few CDs as the people filed out. We got to see Gerry Karst afterward and Ryan got to meet him for the first time. Gerry asked us if we’d like to go to the Philippines with him this year and we said we’d definitely try to make it happen. We were hungry after the long day so we went to IHOP and got pancakes for supper. Then Joey took us to the hotel and we went to bed since we had an early concert the next morning at the GC for the worship service.

We got there at 7:30 to get a sound check and when worship started at 8:00, Gerry Karst got up to introduce us and pray. He talked about our trip with him to Indonesia and also my current state of bachelorhood. He invited all the single young ladies to talk with me afterward! We sang for about half an hour and got to do “Do You Hear What I Hear?” which we hadn’t been able to do the night before. It went well and everyone seemed to like it. Joey talked a little about our affiliation with AWR and how glad we are to be ministry partners with them. Then we sang “This World” for those who weren’t there the night before and then we finished off with “The Ballad of Elisha’s Bones.” When Gerry had closing prayer, we headed back to the product table. There were about 130 people there and we did very well with CD sales. Joey and I got to see Mrs. Sabot, who is the mother of a friend of ours, Luc Sabot. Luc is the President of the Senegal/Mauritania Conference and a fellow graduate from Laurelbrook Academy. Of course, since it was announced that I’m single, Gerry’s wife brought a single young lady to our table and introduced her to me! Then, his brother’s wife took me on a tour of the building for the sole purpose of showing me the other single ladies who work there!

Our afternoon consisted of a metro ride to D.C. to visit the National Museum of American History and then lunch at BD’s, one of my new favorite restaurants. Joey took his daughter Sarah with us and she had fun with the guys eating at BD’s and going to the museum. We saw some amazing pieces of Americana there, even though the exhibits we had intended to see were under renovation. I think my favorite exhibits were The Star-Spangled Banner and the hand-written copy of the Gettysburg Address. I honestly didn't know that the original flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became our National Anthem still existed. It's been remarkably preserved over the years and is now in a state-of-the-art enclosure behind tinted glass.

We had a long train ride back to Joey’s car and Sarah fell asleep on the way back. We made it to the airport and said goodbye to Joey, happy with the way the weekend had gone. Joey gave Tim a big box of barely-used batteries to take back with us, and when Tim went through security, they made him open up the heavy box and show them what was inside. We still managed to make it to our gate and leave BWI, but our plane left very late and we were worried that we wouldn’t make our next flight in Atlanta.

Sure enough, we arrived in Atlanta late and then sat in the plane for another 15 minutes. When we finally got off, we had to rush to the transport train, go to the other end of the airport and then run some more to our gate. We got to the gate out of breath at exactly 9:30, the time our plane was to have left. Then we were informed that the plane had left 15 minutes early! There was no other flight to Chattanooga that day, so they gave us hotel and food vouchers and new tickets for the earliest flight the next day. But since Tim and Ryan had to be to work the next day, we really needed to get home. After talking with Delta for a while, they told us that there was a shuttle van leaving for Chattanooga in a few minutes. They took back our vouchers and gave us tickets for the shuttle service, and then we ran full speed again with all our luggage to try to catch the shuttle. I don’t know how Tim managed to run so fast with 20 pounds of batteries, but I think his tae-kwon-do classes are paying off! Of course when we got there, the van was full and there wasn’t another scheduled to leave. But we talked to one of the drivers who talked to Delta and finally a van was found that was leaving in another hour. So we sat outside at the shuttle station talking to a man who was traveling from Denver back to Chattanooga. We hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, so when Ryan came back from the restroom, he brought candy bars and water. That sustained us for the two-hour ride back home.

We were so tired that we dozed all the way there. We got back around 1:00 and then Tim’s wife Becky picked us up from the shuttle service. To top off our horrendous trip home, Becky had to make the comment “I hope we don’t get stopped by the cops for our tail light.” And, naturally, within two minutes of her saying that, we were stopped. The officer was nice, but it was the last thing we wanted since we were so exhausted and just wanted to go to bed! After I got dropped off at my car, I drove on home and didn’t get to bed until about 3:00 AM, but I was just happy that the weekend had been a success and that we all got home safely.

This weekend started off on a sour note…literally. I was supposed to meet Joey in Collegedale for lunch around noon but he called me from the Atlanta airport and told me that he was very sick. He sounded very sick. He told me he’d been up all night and had only gotten about an hour of sleep. He said he was going to try to rest a little before we left Collegedale. I met him and the guys later in the afternoon and he was still so sick that he didn’t feel like driving. I can only remember that happening twice before in the history of the group. So Tim drove down to Montgomery, Alabama while Joey rested in the passenger seat. Of course, it started raining halfway through the trip and we told Tim that every time he drives it seems to rain cats and dogs!

Joey told us that he’d eaten something at a fast food restaurant the day before and had gotten sick during the night. From what he told us, we all believe he’d gotten a case of food poisoning. The sickness stayed with him all weekend and it was only by a lot of prayer and rest that he was able to make it through three concerts.

We arrived at the Montgomery church pretty late on Friday night and went ahead and set up the sound system and product. Pastor Mahorney was there to greet us and let us in. We made Joey take it easy and rest since he’d loaded the van by himself earlier that day. We found the hotel after setting up and Joey was able to get a good night’s rest, although he still couldn’t eat much the next day. We said a prayer and headed for the church Sabbath morning.

The concert at Montgomery went pretty well despite Joey’s illness. They had a potluck afterwards and Joey carefully took part. We were able to see a few people we knew, like the Hobbs family. Joey knew Norm from childhood and I believe I’d met April from back when I was attending Laurelbrook Academy and she was going to Little Creek. We didn’t have much time to enjoy the meal because we had an evening concert at Lagrange. Ryan drove the two-hour trip so Joey could rest.

When we arrived at the church we saw a wild turkey browsing in the church’s front yard. We didn’t see any others, but usually they travel in flocks, so there were probably others hiding in the woods. Pastor Murdoch was there to greet us and open the church. We had enough time to set up and get a sound check. Joey was still feeling sick, so we had a special prayer right before the concert. The Lord blessed us with a respectable turnout for a Saturday night concert and Joey held up throughout the concert. From the comments afterward and the CD sales, the congregation must’ve enjoyed our presentation. It was our first time ever singing there, and the pastor and church members were gracious and friendly. They wanted to get us back soon for a church service concert.

After we packed up we headed back toward Chattanooga. We got in pretty late, but Joey had booked a hotel for me and him while the other guys went home. The next morning we met at the Ooltewah United Methodist Church at 8:30 for prayer with the church leaders. Earlier that week, Tim and I had met at the church with Sam Marks who is the music leader and who knew our music very well. They wanted us to not only sing a few songs for their traditional worship service, but they also wanted us to participate in their contemporary service by singing along with their worship music. Tim and I met Sam on Thursday to go over the songs and familiarize ourselves with the music and while we were traveling on the way back from Lagrange we listened to the songs and tried to find our parts. On Sunday morning we all got to meet Sam and go over the service order. After prayer we set up our product table and waited for the traditional service to begin. We thought we had plenty of time since we weren’t supposed to sing until after the offering, so Joey told us he was going to the restroom. Not long after he stepped away, Sam got up and introduced the quartet and we were on! Not being able to go get Joey, we just walked up and tried to stall while he came back from the restroom. Ryan said, “I assume all of you know how to count and you know that there are not three people in a quartet.” Everyone laughed as we told them that our lead singer was in the restroom and that we would just talk until he arrived. We didn’t have to talk long because Joey came walking up the aisle after a few minutes. He apologized to everyone and told them he’d been sick for a couple of days but that the Lord had been helping him through the weekend. We sang three songs and they seemed to enjoy it even when Joey forgot some words and Tim sang the same verse of “Peaceful Side of Jordan” twice!

After the sermon we sold a few CDs and then went over to the contemporary service. The church has a full band and it was strange to sing with drums, bass, keyboards and guitars. But we were very blessed by participating in the service and I personally felt uplifted and inspired during the song service. Sam did invite us to sing one song by ourselves and we chose “The Ballad of Elisha’s Bones.” It went over well and they even had a CD giveaway to a lady who had to guess which one of us was the oldest. She guessed Ryan “since he spoke first,” and since she was correct, we gave her a copy of “A New Day.”

Worshiping with these fellow Christians was a great experience for us. We were blessed to be there and to make new friends. I hope we can go back soon and perform a full concert for the congregation.

After the service, we went our separate ways, but not before meeting Tim’s friend Dennis and his son Josh who’d been camping with the Boy Scouts. They were out in the parking lot with Tim’s other friend Will Council and they were telling us about camping in the 20° weather and waking up with a dusting of snow on their tents!

Joey had an early flight the next morning so we let him go back to the hotel to get some more rest. We thanked God that Joe had made it through the weekend intact and that we had such a great tour even though the devil was trying to hinder our efforts. God is good and now we’re looking forward to our Christmas performances at the General Conference in December.

It was a short weekend for us this tour since we only had two concerts down in Georgia. The first was in Gainesville on Sabbath morning and it went well. We had the normal “morning” voices and were a little shaky since we hadn’t been together in over a month. But the concert went well and we made it to the Athens church for our afternoon appointment.

The pastor of the Athens church, Jose Nieves, is the former associate pastor of the Ooltewah SDA Church where Ryan attends and where Joey attended when he lived in the area. The pastor and his wife were happy to see us when we arrived. Joey, Ryan, Pastor Jose and Debbie caught up on old times while we unloaded the van and set up the equipment.

Joey had intended to surprise Pastor Jose during the concert by singing a song that he had co-written with Pastor Jose several years ago. Tim almost ruined the surprise by asking Pastor Jose, “Didn’t you write a song with Joey a few years ago?” Fortunately, he didn’t suspect what Joey was up to, even after Joey asked to borrow his guitar. During the concert Joey told the congregation that their pastor was a songwriter and related the story of how “Let the Spirit Lead” was written.

The rest of the concert went well and we sold a few copies of the new album afterward. Pastor Jose helped us pack up and told us about the best places to eat in town. After supper we headed home and got in pretty late. Even though it was a short weekend, the Lord blessed and took care of us.

We had more drama trying to leave Chattanooga this weekend. Last time it was unbalanced tires. This time it was Vice President Cheney. We’d planned on leaving as early as possible since we had a long drive ahead to get to Columbus. The Chattanooga airport hadn’t received one of Joey’s bags and they weren’t expected to receive it until after 3:00. I was in Hixson when Joey arrived from Atlanta, so I volunteered to pick up his bag on the way in to Ooltewah.

Unbeknownst to me, Vice President Cheney had just arrived at the Chattanooga airport and the police were just beginning to block the roads when I left Hixson. Joey called to let me know that the VP had arrived and that there may be traffic, and no sooner did I hang up than the traffic slowed to a crawl. I eventually made it to the airport after about half an hour and the Delta attendant was waiting for me. I got Joey’s bag (which had a projector we needed for Saturday night) and hurried to Ooltewah. We left around 5:00 and made great time to the church in Columbus. Pastor Johns was waiting for us and we set up the sound system and product table. After a sound check, we made our way to the hotel and checked in. Tim’s son Zachary came with us this time and I think he was excited to be staying in a hotel, although, being a pre-teen, he’d never admit it!

The concert the next day was good (for a morning concert) and the church was full. We didn’t have time to stay for a fellowship dinner since we had to make it back to Ooltewah for an evening concert. We hurried back and made it in time to swing by my car and let me go pick up some extra speakers from the storage room. As we were unloading everything at the church, Joey told us that we’d rented the exact same van before because he found a Rite-Aid receipt under the seat for Ricolas, two cases of water, and 9-volt batteries. Who else would buy all of those items in one weekend?

While we were setting up, I noticed an older man looking at the poster on the door to the Fellowship Hall. I encouraged him and his wife to come to the concert and he said they were planning on it. I saw them later after the concert and found out that they’d recently moved from South Africa and were just getting to know the area. They thanked me for inviting them and said they enjoyed the music. Then I saw them again as they were leaving and noticed that they’d bought two CDs!

We’d looked forward to the Ooltewah concert for several months, promoting and planning and trying to make sure people from all over the area would come. The turnout was great (almost 270) and the concert was fun. We had connected the church’s house speakers to our system to give us more volume, but apparently they were too much for our amp and we had to disconnect them when we noticed that all four weren’t working. Fortunately it happened before we started singing and Joey was able to just disconnect them and everything worked fine after that. The concert was fun and it was nice to see familiar faces and talk to old friends afterward.

The next day we got the opportunity to make new friends at the Alpine Baptist Church in Hixson. Martha Jeffery had heard us sing at the MorningPointe retirement center back in July and she booked us at Alpine that very day. Martha greeted us at the church and was very gracious to us as we set up our equipment. She introduced us to Pastor Jimmy and his wife Amy and we felt very welcome. It was a homecoming Sunday so there were a lot of people filling the pews as the service started. The pastor’s wife, Amy, read an original poem that she’d written about the fellowship of the church and how much they meant to her. By the end, everyone was in tears and we commented that we’d have a hard time following her! We sang for about 50 minutes and threw in “This Ol’ House” since it’s a good Southern Gospel song, and everyone enjoyed the old favorites along with our new music. When we finished, Pastor Jimmy came up and spoke for a few minutes. He started by saying that he was impressed with us because “most groups would’ve stopped singing when their sound equipment didn’t work right!” I guess acappella music is even less common than we thought! When he was finished, the church presented Pastor Jimmy and Amy with a framed Kinkade painting to celebrate five years of service to Alpine Baptist.

We started making our way to the dining room to eat lunch. It was nice to fellowship with the church members and to eat home cooking. We had our sales table set up by the door and we were beginning to think that no one was interested. Then, as lunch was winding down, we realized that everyone just wanted to eat first because that’s when people started coming to the table! Alpine Baptist is a wonderful, friendly congregation and we hope we can sing for them again very soon.

We’d planned on singing for the inmates at Silverdale Prison later that day, but when we arrived the chaplain told us that they were in lockdown and no visitors were being allowed. It was unfortunate, but we knew there was a reason the Lord didn’t want us to be there that day. So we called it a weekend and counted our blessings. I was glad to have Zachary along because he took some great photos and helped run my video camera so I could get some video of our Ooltewah concert. He also helped carry and set up our equipment all weekend. He’s our new “roadie” in training!

We left Chattanooga on Friday for a 6 hour trip to North Carolina. We left about an hour later than we’d wanted to because the tires on the rental van were extremely unbalanced. Joey had to take it to the Exxon and have them balance and rotate the tires. But we finally made it out of Chattanooga and on the way we practiced our new songs and got in some catch-up time since we hadn’t seen each other for almost a month and a half. We made the trip in good time and got to the hotel around 10:30 PM.

After only about 5 hours of sleep, we headed over to the Charlotte Sharon SDA Church. My good friend David Graham is the associate pastor there and it was great to see him again and visit with his wife Balinda and their kids, Davey, Sarah and Alyssa, all of whom have grown many inches since I saw them last. The quartet had been invited to sing for both church services, so after setting up our sound system, we gave a concert for the 9:00 service. After the concert I was able to chat for a while with Balinda and catch up on what’s been happening with their family. When I was attending Southern Adventist University with David’s brother Danny, we all used to congregate at Dave and Balinda’s house each day for lunch and have nice long talks about life, the universe and everything. It was nice to be able to see them again after so many years and have a chance to catch up.

During the preliminaries of the second service, the congregation surprised Pastor Dave and Balinda by having them come up front and then presenting them with a gift celebrating their one-year anniversary of coming to Charlotte Sharon. Senior Pastor Minner Labrador thanked them personally for their ministry and David thanked the church family for making them feel so welcome over the past year. Later, for the children’s story, Ryan had volunteered to tell his squirrel/bear story and it went over with its usual success. It’s always fun to see the adults' reactions as well as the kids’ when Ryan gets to the climax of that story.

The concert went much better for the second service since we’d adjusted the sound system a bit and had gotten our voices warmed up. Afterward, we had our product available and people seemed to like being able to get their CDs on Sabbath and have us call them later about payment. Our new album “A New Day” is selling well and the songs are sounding better in concert as we’ve gotten more comfortable singing them. Everyone seems to enjoy “The Ballad of Elisha’s Bones” and “Peaceful Side of Jordan” but we still have requests for our older songs. In fact, Dave and Balinda’s son, Davey told us that he was a little disappointed after the concert because we didn’t sing “Dig A Little Deeper!”

The Grahams had wanted us to come to their house for lunch, but we weren’t able to take them up on their offer since we had a concert at Hickory that evening. So Balinda was gracious enough to make a home-cooked meal and bring it to the church for a fellowship meal that just included us and the Grahams! The food was delicious and we were able to spend some more time catching up on old times. I reminded them of the last time we came to sing at their church when they were pastoring in Florida. We had Danny Anderson with us at the time and when we went to their house they'd had a fish tank with a Plecostomus algae eater. Danny couldn’t pronounce “plecostomus” and kept saying “plecoctopus” which made the kids think he was the funniest guy they’d ever seen. That led to a discussion with Davey about the wild minnows he’s been catching for their fish tank, one of which they’d brought with them all the way from Florida. We’d told Davey that we might sing “Dig A Little Deeper” for him after lunch, but Tim had started to feel under the weather and we decided it’d be best to save his voice. After the meal, we said our good-byes and headed to Hickory which was only a couple of hours away.

The concert at Hickory had been arranged at the last minute by Joey and Pastor Marc Swearingen. The quartet had been to the church several years ago, before Pastor Marc had been there, so it was a blessing that he’d let us come on short notice, never having heard our music before. He was very helpful in getting us set up and offered to help us with anything we needed. At concert time there were a good number of people there for a Saturday night program, and everyone seemed to enjoy our music and the message about Adventist World Radio. Product sales were very good after the concert and Pastor Marc was already thinking ahead to having us for a church service in January. Hickory is a very friendly and warm congregation and we’re excited to have the possibility of going back there soon.

Tim had become very congested during the afternoon and he was a real trooper to get through the concert feeling as bad as he did. We medicated him and he tried to get some sleep Saturday night. On the way back home on Sunday, Tim felt a little better, so we played the “Name That TV Theme Song” game with the “TV Tunes” CDs. It was fun to reminisce about all the old TV shows we used to watch growing up. Joey had an afternoon flight and we made it back to Collegedale in plenty of time. The Lord really blessed the weekend financially for AWR and by allowing us to reconnect with old friends and to meet a lot of new friends.

And, incidentally, the van drove very smoothly the whole weekend…

Learning a new song is fun. Learning 11 new songs is even more fun. But performing them all together for the first time (in front of an audience) is a bit intimidating and nerve-wracking! That’s what happened this weekend for the quartet since it was the first tour with our new album “A New Day.” The album officially released on July 15 and we’d been already receiving online orders for it, but we had four concerts this weekend and finally had the CDs in hand to take with us.

Our first concert was at the Morning Pointe assisted living center in Collegedale. We had been there about a year ago and were well-received by the residents. This time there was an even warmer welcome as we sang our new songs. There were several people from the community in the audience along with family of some of the residents. After the concert I was able to chat with a couple of ladies whom I’d known over the years: Mrs. Traxler and Mrs. Rubeye Nabors. They were happy to see me and to know the quartet is still touring. Joey had flown down with his son Sam, and he sat with his grandpa and “Auntie Em” during the concert. Sam toured with us all weekend and sat through four concerts on the front row. He behaved very well for an energetic six year-old boy! We were all proud of him.

After Morning Pointe we went by the storage room to pick up some AWR items and then we were on our way to McMinnville. It was a tight fit in the Grand Caravan since Sammy and his car seat were there, but one of Joey’s many talents is packing, so we had room for everything we needed. We stayed at a hotel overnight and the next morning we went to the McMinnville SDA church where Joey’s brother Rob was waiting for us.

The concert went well and we even sold a few CDs before the concert even started. Afterward we went to Rob’s house where he and his wife Sonya had haystacks for lunch. Some of us almost fell asleep right before lunch, but I was kept awake by watching Sammy play with Sonya’s newest cat, Happy. She was a cute and very playful kitten which kept Sammy (and us) entertained for about half an hour. Ryan and Rob discussed their shared affection for the sport of cycling. After a delicious lunch Rob opened up his copy of “A New Day” and we all listened to some of the songs for a while. Then, since we had another concert in Dayton, we packed everyone back into the van for the ride to the Ogden Road Church.

There had been a mix-up about the concert time, so we arrived a little earlier than we should have, but it gave us plenty of time to set up and get a good sound-check. The concert went very well and there were lots of people there whom Joey and I knew, including his mom, who works at Laurelbrook School which is only about a mile from the church. After the concert we spent some time signing CDs and chatting with everyone. By the time we arrived at our hotel in Cookeville, Sammy was exhausted and it didn’t take any of us long to sack out!

The next day we had quite a while before our evening concert at the Caney Fork Baptist Church, so we slept in and ate a leisurely breakfast. We had been hoping that the Gerhart Memorial SDA Church in Cookeville would let us in to practice new Christmas music, and we were fortunate that they were decorating for their upcoming VBS. We had the sanctuary to ourselves and were able to decide on our Christmas songs and spend a few hours learning them. Ryan even met a woman with whom he’d attended Broadview Academy years ago and they chatted for a while. Everyone at the church was so kind and accommodating to us. We were very thankful for their hospitality.

A couple of hours before concert time, we arrived at the Baptist church to set up. David, the music minister who had invited us before, was there to greet us and open the church. Later, Pastor Steve Thornton came in and welcomed us. David’s young daughter gave us a tour of the whole building and we were surprised at how large the basement and fellowship rooms were. Later, during the concert, we joked that we shouldn’t eat at Golden Corral right before a concert, and that we should always know to save room for the fellowship meal that follows the Sunday night meetings at Caney Fork. The concert went very well, and sure enough, there was a fellowship meal with all kinds of good food afterward. It was hard to sign CDs, talk to people and eat at the same time, but we took turns at the product table. Everyone seemed to be very happy with the new songs and the new album, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more welcoming and friendly group of Christians than at Caney Fork Baptist.

It was a long drive back to Collegedale, but we were happy with the new concert and with the sales of the new album. We had plenty of time to talk about the weekend and to reflect on the future. God is doing great things with the quartet, and I’m glad I’m a part of such a ministry. It’s a new day!

This was a weekend that we’d been looking forward to for a long time since it was our first trip to Utah as a group. We’d been asked to be the musicians for the Nevada/Utah camp meeting in June so Tim, Ryan and I left from Chattanooga and flew to Atlanta Friday morning. We met Joey at the Atlanta airport since he’d flown directly from Maryland.

We ate lunch at the airport and boarded our flight to Salt Lake City. I sat by a small boy who looked to be about eight or nine and a lady whom I assumed was his mother. Halfway into the flight I noticed that the lady never spoke to him and he never spoke to her. I helped him with his headphones when the movie started, and I discovered that he was flying alone. He was flying from Birmingham to Salt Lake City, then on to Seattle. I felt for him because he was getting tired of being cramped on planes, but the flight attendants were taking good care of him. He and I had some good conversations during the five-hour flight.

After arriving in Salt Lake City, we had to find the campground located in Springville. It was a nice sight-seeing trip for us Tennessee boys who like our Smoky Mountains, to be able to see some “real” mountains capped with snow even in June. While we drove, we listened to the first unofficial copy of our new album “A New Day.” Joey had brought a final edited version for us to hear and we thoroughly enjoyed being able to listen to the entire album. It was a nice trip, but we started to get a little concerned as the time for our first performance drew closer and we still hadn’t found the campground. After our GPS failed us several times because it was set on “best route” instead of “fastest time,” we decided to just trust Joey’s sense of direction to get us there.

We pulled into the campground with 20 minutes left before time to sing. We met Debbie Delaney who had helped arrange our trip, and she helped us find a room to change and prepare. We were able to get changed and warm up in time to meet with Lonnie Melashenko and the platform team and walk out into the auditorium. After the program, we talked briefly with Lonnie and his wife, but we started to feel the jet lag from moving into Mountain Time from Eastern Time. So we squared everything away for the next day and made our way to the hotel where we were staying.

Although we were tired, we woke up feeling pretty good the next morning since we “gained” an extra two hours of sleep from the time change. It was a beautiful day, and although we were in suits and ties, there was a lot less humidity than in Tennessee, which made the weather more comfortable. We met briefly with the new Conference President, who, in the confusion of learning new names, heard Tim’s name pronounced as “Jim Breedlove” instead of Tim Reutebuch, and for a while Tim seemed to be stuck with that!

The campground was an idyllic place for a camp meeting. It was a valley surrounded by part of the Central Rockies mountain range on three sides, some of which were snowcapped. After lunch, several intrepid groups of teens and young people ventured up the closest peak and back down in what seemed a very short time. We were able to see a pair of nesting swallows building their home on the side of the auditorium, one mouthful of mud at a time. There were also what we thought were cottonwood trees producing lots of floating white particles of what looked like fine cotton strands. It was a beautiful setting, and the messages from Lonnie Melashenko were inspiring.

During the church service, Lonnie spoke about the wonderful things that God is doing through the ministry of The Voice of Prophecy. He shared how God’s love is being shared with Native Americans or “First People” as they are called in Canada. There are also programs being rolled out to engage young people and small children in learning more about God’s love. Mrs. Melashenko then shared letters from people who had been disillusioned by Islam and were seeking VOP Bible studies even though it could mean death from their own relatives if they were discovered. Then we sang a couple of songs, including “Lift Up the Trumpet” with Lonnie narrating his lines from the VOP broadcast. Then he gave a powerful message about the way God gave humanity a preview of the plan of salvation by asking Abraham to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah. While we sang “Softly and Tenderly” Lonnie gave an appeal and many came forward to rededicate their lives to Christ.

After the service, we ate haystacks at the back of the auditorium with the Melashenkos and the Conference President and his wife. Then we went to prepare for our afternoon concert. Those who were in charge of the sound system let us make a few changes and Joey adjusted it for our voices. The concert went very well, and we saw several people singing along with many of the songs. We performed several new songs for the first time this weekend, including “Children’s Medley” and “If We Miss Heaven.” We made sure that the people knew our new album would be ready soon and that these songs were a sample from it.

Later, as the sun was setting beautifully behind the mountains, we had the opportunity to go to the youth tent and sing some songs since many of them hadn’t been able to hear the concert. Surprisingly, they loved the music and started clapping in rhythm. Then we went back over to the auditorium to sell our product. We tried to get a video of us singing “Lift Up the Trumpet” with Lonnie, but we had technical difficulties with the camera and it didn’t work out. But we were able to get some photos with him and talk a little more about the weekend.

As we headed home the next day, we were grateful to have been a part of an inspiring camp meeting in the awe-inspiring backdrop of God’s natural world.

We left Chattanooga around 6:00 and stopped for supper in Calhoun. We arrived at the Lakeview Church in Powder Springs, GA around 8:30. We had intended to be there at 8:00, but Joey was using a rental GPS unit and it was set for “fastest travel time” instead of “fastest route.” Because of that we had to make a few U-turns to find the church. Also, Joey had sung at Lakeview as a soloist a few years ago and the church had been at a different location then. The associate pastor of the church is Kenwyn Sealy who had, at one time, been a student pastor at the Ooltewah SDA church. Joey and Ryan were both members at Ooltewah when Kenwyn was there, so they both knew him very well. He had the church open when we arrived and we set up our equipment and got a sound check. We couldn’t quite get the monitors to sound the way we wanted them, but we figured we could adjust them the next day.

The only hotel available was a Hilton which Joey had booked ahead of time, and when we arrived we were impressed with the size of the place. The lobby was huge and ornate, and the staff seemed very eager to please. We felt a little underdressed until we noticed other guests wearing shorts and T-shirts. On the way up to our rooms, I dropped a lot of the stuff I was carrying, including my breakfast ticket which sailed through the air and slipped effortlessly through the crack between the elevator and the floor and went down the shaft. We had to call the front desk and tell them about it, and they gave Joey another one for me.

The next morning we had a very good breakfast and got to the church around 9:30. The church was full by 11:00 when the service started and before we got up to sing I was able to chat with Sherry Spencer with whom I’d attended Laurelbrook Academy. Her husband, Todd had been my roommate there and I was able to catch up with him after the concert and see his three children who have all grown considerably since I saw them last. The congregation seemed to enjoy our music, even though we only had time to sing 7 songs. Everyone laughed at the photos of my dogs, and when said I was single, a young lady from the front row shouted, “Marry me!”

At 1:00 we packed up and headed to the Atlanta Metro Church for a 3:00 concert. Despite traffic and the GPS giving us the wrong directions again, we made it to the church by 2:15 and were able to be ready by 3:00. After singing only 8 songs we packed up and made our way to the Grandview SDA Church for a 7:15 concert.

We arrived at Grandview in plenty of time to set up and speak with the pastor, Leon Smith. When we got there, he was having a meeting with several of the church members whom we found out later had stayed all morning and afternoon, then stayed for the concert. We had a good conversation with Pastor Smith right before the concert. He drew the parallel between the Holy Spirit and the dove that Noah sent out after the Flood. Just like Noah’s dove, the Holy Spirit can’t find a place to rest in our lives because our hearts are filled with the dead things and debris of the world. It was an inspiring conversation.

We were able to sing our entire concert since it was our last one of the day, and the congregation seemed to enjoy every song. By the time the day was over, we’d sold all of the DVDs we’d brought and almost all of the CDs. On our way back home we were starving because we’d skipped lunch, so we stopped at Fuddrucker’s and had a very good meal. Since it was close to 10:00 we weren’t sure they’d let us in, but they did, and as they were cleaning up, one of the staff asked what we were doing in town. Joey told him we were a quartet and he asked us to sing something. We were all so full and our voices were tired, but we always like opportunities like this, so we belted out “Swing Down” for him. As we finished, there was a round of applause from the corner of the restaurant, and we were surprised to see a family clapping for us. They were just finishing their meal too, and they came over to ask about the quartet. We gave them a business card and they told us they enjoyed the serenade!

On Sunday we had the privilege of accompanying Ryan to Silverdale Prison to sing for a group of inmates there. Ryan has been going to the prison for several years, leading song service and preaching. We felt blessed to have the chance to join him, and the inmates enjoyed the music so much that they gave us a standing ovation! Ryan spoke about Elisha’s request for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, and led into the story that was the inspiration for “The Ballad of Elisha’s Bones.” Then we sung the song to end the meeting and we knew the Holy Spirit was there. Praise God for allowing us to witness and to be witnessed to by these men. I know that we were as blessed as they were.

We left Chattanooga around 2:00 on our first tour with Ryan as our new bass. We were headed to Montgomery, Alabama for an evening concert at 7:00. Since we were moving into Central time we were able to get to the church in plenty of time to set up our sound system and introduce ourselves to Pastor Barry Mahorney who was there to open the church for us. We started the concert around 7:15 and had about 20 people in attendance. Ryan did very well for his first concert in about 5 years! He said that the old songs came back to him and it was “like putting on an old hat!”

We packed up everything and left around 9:15 and headed for Mobile. After we stopped to eat a bite, we ran into some very bad weather. Joe had just turned over the wheel to Tim because he’d gotten tired and then the rain started pouring down. There was lots of lightning and thunder, and when the sky lit up you could see the ominous clouds circling overhead. At several places Tim had to slow down to about 30 MPH, and the wipers were barely keeping the rain off the windshield. The Lord kept us safe and we made it to the hotel at about 1:00 AM.

Sabbath morning we got to the Cody Road SDA church around 8:30 to set up and do a sound check. The church members were very friendly and we got to meet the pastor and elders before the service. Right before the children’s story, Pastor Tracy grabbed Joey’s pitch pipe which was up on the platform, and blew a couple of notes into the microphone! Everyone laughed when he said, “I’ve always wanted to do that!” As we were listening to the story, the pastor’s wife came up to the front row, handed me a sanitizing wipe and whispered, “I’m the pastor’s wife, and here’s a wipe for that instrument he blew!”

When we got up front, Joey told the congregation what the pastor’s wife had done and then he used the wipe on the pitch pipe while everyone laughed! The concert went very well and the response from the congregation was excellent. After a first-rate fellowship meal, we took down our equipment and went back to the hotel to rest up for the evening concert.

The church at St. Elmo was putting on a benefit concert as a fund-raiser for a mission trip, and we had been invited to be a part of the music for the evening. Also performing were local musicians including N2Deep, MercySent and a soloist called Monique. Pastor Vaughn had the opening prayer and introduced our quartet members as “Larry, Curly and Moe!” Ryan piped up from the front row and said, “I’m Curly!”

Jerry Pugh, a member of a local Baptist church, started off the evening by leading a rousing song service. Then the group MercySent opened the concert by singing some good barbershop numbers. The group consists of Jonathan Stewart, his wife Jennifer, her brother Gary Hilton and Scott Roberts.

After MercySent, Monique performed a few songs. Before the concert, some of the church members had been telling us about her and everyone said she was a terrific musician. When she sang her first song we were so amazed by the passion and feeling that she showed while she sang. She truly has a fantastic voice and it was a pleasure to hear her sing and share her testimony.

After Monique, another quartet called N2Deep sang more terrific barbershop arrangements of some familiar tunes. N2Deep is Jonathan Stewart, Gary Hilton, Scott Roberts and Jimmy Ely. I particularly enjoyed their rendition of “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”

When N2Deep finished, The Emmanuel Quartet got up to sing. During our part of the concert, Pastor Vaughn came up to explain that the benefit concert was for a group of volunteers who were going to Panama to conduct evangelistic meetings and VBS programs. Tim made an appeal to the congregation and over $700 was raised. We were privileged to have participated in this benefit concert with such talented musicians.

After the concert, Shedel Hilton invited us to a local Thai restaurant and since none of us had really tried Thai food before, it was a real treat. The guys from N2Deep sang a few songs while we waited for our food, the most memorable of which was their extended version of “Side By Side.” We had a great time trying the delicious Thai food and singing “Can He Could He Would He” for a little girl named Cayden who had requested the song at the concert. It’s always great to share food and fellowship with our friends from Mobile.

During dinner, Jerry Pugh asked if we’d be able to sing for his church the next morning on our way home. So after we checked out of the hotel Sunday morning, we made our way to the Creola First Baptist church. We sang about six songs during the service and the people seemed to enjoy our music. After the service, Jerry said that they’d like to have us back for a full concert the next time we were in the area.

We got back home late Sunday evening a little tired, but happy to have had such a good weekend. Ryan seemed happy to be back with the quartet and we’re glad to be able to sing with him again. He did a great job re-learning old songs and memorizing the new hymns in such a short time. God is so good, and we’re looking forward to recording our new album with Ryan.