Day 3
I spoke too soon about the wonderful hotel we stayed in at Wilmington. At 4 o’clock this morning we woke up and found it was nearly 80° in our room. We had to change to a new room at 4 AM. We were the only ones who were affected by the HVAC problem. The hotel really was beautiful.
The manager of the hotel asked our group to sing for him this morning during breakfast. We sang two pieces to him and those eating breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. The choir always does such a good job with these spontaneous concerts and they are received so well by those who are there.
Isabella Boiter led us as we gathered at the bus this morning at 9:45. We pulled out on schedule at 10 o’clock on our way to Greenville, NC.
You may have read about the 17 year old girl who was attacked by a shark at Atlantic Beach last week. Paige Winter, the girl who was injured by the shark, dates my cousin’s grandson. She is being treated at Vidant Medical Center. We already had a service scheduled for there today at 2:30. On our bus ride this morning, the students each wrote a card to Paige. We will try to deliver them to her or leave them with the medical staff at the hospital.
Forty years ago, Dr. Milburn Price told the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears to our Concert Choir tour. He spoke it in a language that he alone knew. It is called alfalfa language. He is having knee replacement surgery this morning, so in honor of him, I taught One Voice members the art of speaking this beautiful, but dying language. I then shared the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears in alfalfa language with them.
When we finally arrived at Vidant Medical Center, we discovered that the contact I had been working with over the past several months had left her job at the hospital. Unfortunately when she left, she failed to tell them anything about our program scheduled at 2:30. However, they allowed us to go ahead and present our program and took the time to send the promotional material I had sent earlier out to hospital staff. We had a small, but enthusiastic crowd who shared our worship time. We had decided that God would be our audience of one anyway. The program ended with one of the chaplains leading a beautiful prayer that really inspired and touched our choir.
We left the hospital and went directly to Saint Timothy‘s Episcopal Church to set up for our evening worship service. After returning to the hotel and changing, we went back to Saint Timothy‘s for supper. The kids loved the taco bar that the ladies at Saint Timothy’s prepared for us. This sanctuary was beautiful and allows the congregation to worship in the round. The service went magnificently and we all felt blessed to have shared such a holy time together. After returning to the hotel, Taylor Crowe led our devotion and we closed our day with prayer.
Chris, Cathay, Meg, Ann and a hotel employee named Ashlyn did laundry after our devotion. They washed and folded our tour T-shirts. Today was a wonderful day, a little more slow paced than what we have some days on to work.
P.S. we got word from the family of shark attack victim, Paige winter, that she did in fact receive the cards the choir sent her. She and her family were all touched that our group thought of her and took the time to send their blessings and prayers.