This week has been such a blast singing with a group, and as a new member of Tehillah, I never thought that I could have so much fun with a bunch of wrinkly music nerds. We finally reached Thursday, which marks the first full week that we have been together, so things have been getting quite wild.
“Yesterday” morning we woke up and had a slow start to our travels since we had a workshop with Rosemary Eberly-Lebold from Faith Mennonite, where we sang the night before. In my 19 years of living, I guess I never really learned how to breathe correctly, so I was able to improve my sound by applying her wise teaching. We did a lot of vocal warmups, which included singing about chocolate Oreos (which changed into us singing about chocolate Corey-Os later in the day since we had this warmup stuck in our heads). We were very thankful for Rosemary’s kindness and knowledge in teaching our ensemble, as it was very helpful for our voices.
Back on the bus, we had a couple of hours of driving to Pilgrim Church in Comber, Canada. Unfortunately, I got so bored during this drive that I took it upon myself to revise my caricatures of all the members on the bus that I had drawn the day before. I laughed so hard that I cried on several of the drawings, and I think the others were enjoying these drawings too (though I might be secretly making enemies with Seth). Apart from the amazing drawings I made, I also played a good game of hearts with Corey, Jonny, and Rach, where I tried to shoot the moon almost every round but was unsuccessful every round.
Later in the afternoon, we arrived at Pilgrim Church, unloaded the bus, and did all our pre-program activities as usual. We were fed corn tortilla enchiladas, which tasted amazing and really oiled up my voice for a good performance. Luckily, the ensemble was able to remember several things Rosemary had taught us earlier in the day, which resulted in one of our most rich concerts yet (except for on Joseph Was A Walking, on which Tasha breathed in on an “ooo” vowel and accidentally whistled). Jess was “trying not to perish” throughout the song, and she completely lost her composure after the performance was over.
Moving later into the evening, Eric put me in charge of making sure the people at my house were in bed by 10:30 due to a busy day of videography the next day (surely as a joke because he should have known I was not the person to impose such harsh leadership). All the single ladies on the trip stayed in one basement together and proceeded to not get enough sleep. We might regret that later, but our poor decision-making was probably worth it because I have not laughed that much in a long time. May the Lord bless and multiply our sleep in the days to come.
– Written by Jamee Wenger