Heidelberg was awesome!

We traveled to Heidelberg today to sing at the Church of the Holy Spirit.  It is a beautiful cathedral that has a long and interesting history.  Before we sang, the church's organist treated our group to a performance of "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" (a.k.a. The Phantom of the Opera organ music) by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the sound of the huge pipe organ was magnificent! (I think I remember the organist saying it had 5,000 pipes, but I can't verify that info.)  Following that piece, our group provided a concert for the visitors who came through the sanctuary.  We sang some of our sacred/spiritual pieces and the accoustics of the sanctuary were beautiful.

After our time at the Church of the Holy Spirit, we had an afternoon of free time in the city of Heidelberg.  Pictures of our day follow this entry.  Most of us took the opportunity to tour the Heidelberg Castle.  I don't think our pictures accurately display the steep and long climb we had to make to get to the castle, but the walk up was totally worth it as the view from the top was fantastic.  Thankfully, there was a cable car which took us down to the bottom of the mountain in time for our group supper.

One of the best parts of the day was when our director, Joseph Martin, called us together in a busy square of Heidelberg by starting the song "Down in the River to Pray" which we all joined in to sing.  Imagine the surprise on the faces of people from many lands and faiths as this group of Christian singers came together in a flash mob singing about "that good ole way."  A God thing for sure.

Check out these pictures...

A view from the bus window as we passed a town along the way.

A view up to the Heidelberg Castle from the bank of the river below.

If this picture looks a little blurry, it is because the photographer was winded after the long climb up the mountain to see the castle and could not hold the camera steady.

This shot was taken about two thirds of the way up to the castle.

The Church of the Holy Spirit as seen from the top of the Heidelberg Castle

Looking out over Heidelberg from the top of the castle.

Nita and Carol with the Church of the Holy Spirit in the background

A beautiful day...

What a day this has been!  We started the day bright and early and headed to the Rhine River for a beautiful cruise.  A few pictures of the castles and river views are at the bottom of the blog.  Following the cruise, we headed back to Kaiserslautern to rehearse for our concert at Faith Baptist Church.  We learned that FBC was founded by a few servicemen who were stationed in Germany following World War II.  The membership has grown through the years and includes service men and women, their families and other Americans who are living in the area.  The membership is ever-changing as families are re-stationed elsewhere in the world and new families come into the area.

The members at FBC were truly kind to prepare our supper, and we appreciated their welcome.  Our first performance of the trip followed dinner.  We had a great turnout and we were told about 150 persons viewed the online webcast.  Incidentally, we have been told that the webcast will be available at the video archive on the FBC website.  The Harmony International participants took up a love offering, and we were able to provide FBC with over $2,000 to go toward their various mission programs.  We were treated to a reception including some yummy desserts.  The hospitality of the folks at FBC made sharing our music a pleasure.  As Brad Matheson, President of Harmony International, said, "We come on these trips thinking we will bless people, but we find that we receive many more blessings in return."

After the concert and reception, we returned to the hotel for the evening.  Tomorrow will bring new adventures as we travel to Heidelberg and sing at the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Please check out the following pictures from our trip up the Rhine River today.  More pictures of the concert and all will follow later.  Blessings to all of you.

We have arrived!

After a long journey from Atlanta to Frankfurt (via Dallas, TX) we arrived in Germany bright and early Tuesday morning.  We had some adventures along the way, but we arrived safely.  Some of us started our journey Monday morning at 6:00 a.m.  Here are a few pictures snapped at Hartsfield Jackson Airport while we awaited our flight to Dallas...

Darrell and Annie Jefferson

Annie Jefferson and Will and Anita Worthan

Nita Bullock

After hanging out at the Frankfurt airport and collecting all the members of the group this morning, we boarded a bus for Worms where we toured the beautiful St. Peter's Cathedral, Worms.  Unfortunately, all of the explanatory plaques were in German and none of us speak German well enough to describe accurately all the beautiful sculptures we saw, but the link should give you some great information.  Here are a couple of pictures...

We grabbed a bite to eat and reboarded the bus to take us to the hotel in Kaiserslautern.  After a brief time of rest and rejuvenation, we assembled with our Harmony International tour group and had a wonderful dinner.  We rehearsed for the first time with all the singers (and with our director, Joseph Martin) this evening.  What a wonderful blessing to experience the blending of so many voices in praise to God!  Although we had never practiced together with the folks from the other states, we were amazed at how beautiful this 120+ chorus sounded.  We can hardly wait to share it with those who are coming to our performances along the way.

It is now late Tuesday evening in Germany, and we are ready for bed.  (As a matter of fact, some of us are snoring peacefully already.)  We have a very busy day tomorrow.  We will start the day with a cruise on the Rhine River where we are told we will see some truly beautiful sites.  The cruise will be followed by an intensive rehearsal and then we will have our first concert.  Remember, this is also the concert that will be webcast live at 7:00 p.m. Europe time (1:00 p.m. Georgia time) live from Faith Baptist Church.  Please tune in if you can!  We are expecting a number of military men and women to be a part of the congregatation.

Now that the technology glitches have been figured out, we hope to post more pictures tomorrow.  Thank you all for your support and your prayers.

We are almost ready to leave...

In a little less than a week, several of us from the KUMC Chancel Choir will be heading to Germany and France for a choir mission trip.  The trip, known as "An American Salute", is being hosted by Joseph Martin through Harmony International.  We have been planning and preparing for this trip since early in 2010 (or was it late in 2009?) and we are all excited that the trip has finally arrived.

This trip was funded in part by the generous support of our choir dinner show in September 2010, and we thought it would be nice to give our supporters a chance to follow our progress as we travel and represent Kennesaw UMC.  Our goal is to spread the love and joy of Christ through music.  We plan to use this blog as a way to keep in touch with our folks at home and let you know of special highlights from our trip.

We would also appreciate your prayers as we embark on this trip.  The travelers from KUMC are listed on the right, but we are just a small part of the group as a whole.  In addition to our contingent from Georgia, there will be participants from Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Please pray that we have safe travels, we sing to the glory of God, and that we represent Christ in a positive light to all we meet along the way.