Missions Trip Part Six

I like to think that flutes are the most beautiful instrument, but when I look at this... goodness, they're beautiful!  This is my friend, Helen and her compatriates.

Marlon and Alejandro.  No, Alejandro's not a musician, but he took videos of our orchestra all week.  That's my flute.  Marlon is an awesome trumpet, and plays trumpet in the symphonic orchestra in his city, along with singing, playing piano, guitar and quena, which is a traditional flute from Bolivia.

Here are some grumpy boys... too tired to smile for the camera.    Or maybe they're just trying to look cool.  However, it WAS after one of our LONG practices!

This is Leo, my son, again - he's really good on violin, and also plays bass and drums.  He and his father, Elio planned our entire itinerary.

Camp looks like he's thinking, 'Why did I even invite this flute along?'










Pedro and his wife.  What a cute pair.  Pedro's a flute teacher and brought a good number of his students to play with us in one city.  During one of our master classes, I had him help me lead the flutes as he's much better at, uh, Spanish than I am...

Here's part of the congregation during one of the services.  They were packed to the back and even out the doors.

A view of our orchestra during one of the services.  At one point in the service, a TRAIN went past outside!  It was really loud, and I reflected with interest about the close proximity to the church.
Later, some of us Americanos were discussing it, and the natives laughed at us.  It wasn't a train, it was a typical parade.  Turns out that people will get any type of drum they can put their hands on, and walk through the streets beating them.
They also told us that sometimes they'll stop in front of churches to harass the people because it's very hard to continue with all that noise.  This particular night, however, they had to compete with a 100-plus member orchestra.  No competition.  They continued on down the road.

Bassoon.

Big string bases.  Gorgeous, huh?

This is the front of one of the churches we were stationed at.  It says, 'Come unto me all who are weary, and I will give you rest.    Jesus

Here's the entrance to another church; we played here Domingo por la manana, Sunday morning.  They have a very big congregation and it probably seats about 400 - not much in the way of walls.  The huge windows are open spaces and people will stand outside or lean in them.

The lady in black next to me with the flower on her head was one of our extraordinary cooks, a lovely, lovely lady, and she also has a really pretty voice and sang along with us in the choir.

And about the flower, one evening they passed out a flower to each person there, women AND men!  I don't remember what they called them, but we call them freesia - extremely fragrant.  Apparently they do this now and again.  I thought it was wonderful and the entire church was scented with freesia.

Some of our masculine team members were really excited about the flowers...

Every place we went to was packed to the max.  Many people became Christians and many, many people heard the gospel.  I'll give you specific totals when I get them all put together in a later post.


Praise God for working through us - what a privilege to be a part of this!  Amen!