Missions Summit

Peggy drove our car to Champaign on Dec. 29, the same day I drove the big red semi to Champaign en route from Henderson, KY to Chicago. We met there in time to go to a reunion party with 3 of my former beginning violin students of 12 years ago, who are now young adults and well established in music. (See former posting, “Last Thursday.”) The load on the truck was not due till Jan. 3, so the truck was parked in Champaign over New Years Weekend while we attended the much-anticipated World Missions Summit in Louisville.

We stayed at the luxurious Downtown Marriott. Our 3-yr-old grandson Treighton came with us. There were about 4,000 people attending the conference at the Kentucky Convention Center. About 400 missionaries were brought in from every corner of the world to speak or present or recruit or inspire us. This was mainly an event for college students, but there were many older folks like us attending as well. The leaders of the Assemblies of God missionary organization were there. It was a very unique and special event. My understanding is that this was a first to bring together so many resources all in one place to promote world missions. I can’t say what similar event may have ever taken place before, but this one was phenomenal. The booths and displays were excellent. There were separate rooms set up for various nations. Spokesmen who have been working in those nations for years and even generations, were there to speak of the need and to report on the progress. It was very cool to see a missionary on stage in the assembly hall introducing a main speaker who was his father; that happened at least 3 times. Many of the speakers up front had grown up in missionary families, lived in other cultures and were fluent in other languages.

There were two main music groups that seemed to alternate during the 3 day event. One was a
Christian rock band. They were okay - not too ‘hard rock,’ but for my taste bordering on inappropriate for the event. That is my taste; I assume the main population of college students in attendance would disagree with me, judging from the way many of them seemed to be enjoying it, knew the songs and danced to the music. So - I can deal with it. The other group was the worship team from our own church, Calvary Campus Church, Carbondale, IL. Wow! They were fantastic. We were so proud of them. I guess our worship team was chosen because it is so racially integrated. Our church is very international, which is reflected in our worship team. We heard so many comments about our group. People assumed they were professional and wanted CD‘s! They did a great job, led by Pastor Juan (Chinese.) Our worship team at home actually rotates personnel from Sunday to Sunday, but at the conference they were in full force - choir of about 10, drums, congos, piano, bass guitar, lead guitar, 3 or 4 lead singers. They had put together special costumes, not uniform, but those from other nations each wore their own native costume, and Americans wore nice, subtle Hawaiian shirts. It looked great altogether. Of course it’s all about Jesus, not about us.

We had such a great time that weekend, but now - what will we DO about what we learned? We want to be involved in mission efforts, and we certainly will be. Our church organizes mission trips frequently. So many folks from many nations of the world have been through our church. so Pastor Dale has more contacts around the world than he can possible keep up with. So we will go on some of those trips when we can, or support them in other ways. Right now we are driving a truck, which is far from what we ought to be doing according to our education and experience. But we are actually enjoying this season of our lives - the trucking sub-culture, the people, the travel… We know God directs our paths and has led us down this road for now. We have ambitious dreams for the future, involving missions and travel to other countries. There are mission fields everywhere, including right where we live and work. We don’t take full advantage of the opportunities around us every day to tell people about Jesus. It’s amazing how many people in America these days have no idea who Jesus is, what the Bible says about Him, what God has done for us and what He wants from us… It is hard for me to fathom that, based on the set of people I associate with, but I know it’s true. A great portion of the younger generation in America has grown up with no religious training, no knowledge of Bible stories. I think that's sad, because what people believe and act out concerning truth, wisdom, morality, sets the stage for their entire lives and their place in eternity.

Anyway, the last event of the conference, Sunday night, after the session ended at 10 p.m. was a showing of a movie that will hit theaters at the end of January - ‘The Point of the Spear.’ It’s about what happened after 5 missionaries, including Jim Elliot, were killed in the mid-1950’s by a violent, murderous tribe in the Amazon. The film was introduced by the grandson of Jim Elliot, who came from California to Louisville just to give a 5-minute introduction to our conference about this movie. He said half the proceeds will go towards helping missionary efforts. I stayed till midnight to watch the movie. Peggy didn’t see it because she had to take Treighton up to bed.

We were somewhat distracted from the conference by having 3-yr-old Treighton with us, but it was well worth it. He did really well, with only a couple problems about missing his mom, but we got past that pretty quickly. He was generally a happy boy all weekend. I had been ‘assigned’ by a friend back home to check out a special guitar store in Louisville, so I did that on Monday morning before leaving town. On the way to the music store I saw a street musician just a few blocks from our hotel. I drove around the block, put a dime in a parking meter, and played with this guy for a few minutes on an original song of his. He was very appreciative towards me. He took my business card and invited me to play on his recording session in Chicago. We’ll see… I had left Peggy and Treighton behind at the hotel and drove about 12 miles south to First Quality Music, which is primarily a mail order business, but the showrooms are beautiful. One room in particular had the high-dollar guitars behind glass. One guitar in there costs $195,000. - new, not antique. I never knew guitars could get that expensive. That price would not surprise me on a violin. I picked up a few things for Cathie, looked around the store, played the 6 fiddles on the wall, and went back to pick up my family. We drove north from the hotel across the river into Indiana, ate McDonalds and then stopped to visit a trucking couple we had met a year and a half ago - Garry and Joan. We visited for a couple hours I guess. They are strong Christians and were very interested in the missions summit. That Monday night I was back on the truck, and Peggy was on her way home with the car and a different grandchild - Jadyn.

Last Thursday

Last Thursday was the last Thursday of 2005. My wife and I had been invited to a very special event. It was my first reunion with 3 of my former beginning violin students, hosted and organized by the parents of one of the students. There was also a 4th family that was invited but were out of town that day. We had kept in touch to varying degrees with the families of these students over the past 1o years. The students were Christopher, John, Katie, and (absent last Thursday) two sisters Anita and Sarita. They had all started violin around age 6-8. Now Katie is a junior at West Virginia Wesleyan, voice & violin education major; John is a senior in computer science at U of IL; Christopher graduated last May from Eastman with a triple major in composition, violin and mathematics; Anita is out of medical school and beginning her residency; and Sarita graduated from U of IL in political science. My goodness, I almost felt like a proud papa - ALMOST. My input into these lives was quite limited, but of some value. As kids, once they had gotten past the fundamentals of violin and into intermediate/advanced technique, they were all in the 'advanced group' - the ones who had earned the right to be most challenged and to perform as much as possible in public. So we played at county fairs, summer park programs, weddings, recitals, picnics, summer camps and camp-outs - any event that seemed like a good, stimulating musical experience. They even sometimes got paid a token amount if it was a paying gig. All in all that was a remarkable group of kids among the hundreds I've taught in 28 years of teaching Suzuki violin.

Fast forward 10 years since my wife & I left Champaign, IL: John is a computer major and casual violinist as well as guitarist (I haven't heard his guitar.) He played respectably well at the party last Thursday when we all played together. Katie is a vocal and violin major. Her voice is tremendous, and she has the singer's personality - extremely outgoing. Violin seems to be a close 2nd to her singing. She plays at least as well as I do at this point, given her youth and lack of experience. What she lacks in experience, she makes up for in moxy. She attempted her Mendelssohn C0ncerto, which had been shelved for a few months. That takes guts. It was not a perfect performance, but she did express herself well, including some interjections of commentary. Funny! Her boyfriend Adam was with her and brought his trumpet and a Fake Book. BTW both Katie and Chris have perfect pitch. Christopher is the star by far of this group. He is a natural musician who early on caught the vision to dedicate his life to music. Doesn't hurt to have perfect pitch and a touch of genious. His accomplishments in music already are prodigious - composer/concert master/performer. Last Thursday Chris and his high school buddy Jim (pianist) played Ravel 'Szigane.' Everyone was transfixed and in awe. Chris had learned his part in 3 days, and the two young men played a perfect, artistic performance of this virtuoso piece. It was wonderful! Jim is, like Chris, a gifted musician and obviously touched by genious - now studying at Stanford (?) as PhD candidate in German literature. Besides the highlights mentioned, all 3 young violinists and I, accompanied by Jim or Adam, spent hours reading a wide varienty of music together: Baroque duets, a Bach concerto for 2 violins, Christmas duets, songs from a Fake Book, Kreisler 'Praeludium & Allegro,' 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.' What fun! It was such a joy be together again to play music like in the old days. Some of the pieces they'd loved to play 11-12 years ago, such as Fantomen and Pachelbel Canon did not make it to this party. I didn't bring the sheet music. But now we know how to be better organized next time.

Though I was the teacher of these young violinists, I feel humbled to know where they have gone since I last saw them. They each have unique gifts from God and are on quite different paths in life. And studying violin at a young age seems to have influenced each of them in a positive way. I wouldn't have traded that evening last Thursday for anything. It encouraged me very much. I was in a daze the next day trying to process what my role may have been in these kids' lives, and then try to reconcile it with the path my own life has taken. I'm thankful to God to have some skill for shaping kids' lives with music, and I am anxious to get back to doing more of it in southern IL. I believe God is directing me in that way.

This first posting comes from Louisville, KY on New Years Day, where Peggy and I are attending a huge missions summit at the Kentucky Convention Center, and staying at the Downtown Marriott Hotel. We have our 3-yr-old grandson with us. This should be the subject of my next posting.