A Bookend

Day 10: March 13 – Bret

Our intrepid Singers awoke on the final Sunday morning tired but somehow energized. The extra downtime from the day before and the seamless Coffeehouse performance probably had something to do with it. Despite this energy, it was at times difficult to discern just what our role was going to be in the Sunday morning services at the church, and at times it felt like we had to redefine the word “flexibility.” However, being flexible is often the name of our game, and we performed our nearly-unplugged set of four or five songs per service with ease and grace, for the most part.

After lots of tasty sandwiches, plus cookies and bananas donated to us by the church, we were ready to plow onward to the last and one of the longer trips of the Tour: from Manassas to Vinton, just outside of Roanoke. There was a little bit of a fear that the scheduling would be tight for us, but with Mel on our side, we made it to Thrasher UMC with plenty of time to set up and have dinner. I’d like to take some time at this point to note the theme of the various church names on our Tour. To this point, we’ve sang at such locations as Peace, Grace, and Providence, only to finish this portion of the Tour at THRASHER! It’s a fine name to cap off a fine Tour. Jen Coffey, a graduate of 2004, is the youth director here, so it was definitely awesome to get to see her and Stephen, as well as a few other alums that made it to the performance.

Toward the end of every Tour, there’s usually a general sense of fatigue among the Singers. Call it a sugar high from the desserts at Thrasher, call it a last-minute adrenaline rush, call it a little help from the Holy Spirit (that’s what I’m going with), but there was no fatigue to be found among our group during the whole final performance. The audience was really responding to what we were singing, and as an added bonus, we were able to watch a few energetic youngsters playing in the balcony, which made smiling a lot easier for us. Watching Tom, who was sitting out due to his continued illness, and his “tomfoolery” during the performance was also pretty entertaining. Three cheers for the Wesley Singers and Thrasher UMC!

The energy high continued on through the last 45 minutes to Blacksburg and the usual unloading of the van and bus. I caught it all on videotape, but of my five Tours, this was definitely the most energetic the group has been during the final load-off. That, my friends, is the sign of a great Tour. This one was a little bittersweet since it was my very last one, but I had a great time anyway. And besides, I’m going to look at it on the other side of things: that I got to do this for five years and grow close to a lot of great people! Thanks a bunch for making it a good one, guys, and make next year even better for me!