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May 1 | |||
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Today, we got to sleep in. Or, at least, wake up at 5:30 and stay in bed till 8. First we had a practice in
their gym, which was incredibly resonant, to gear up for the church we'd be singing in later. We went to St. Peter's Church, which is in the heart of Bournemouth, right next to the shopping area. Before the concert, we had lunch at Bliss, a nice resturant, bar, club. At lunch they have an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was pretty good. 
Then we went back to St. Peter's for the concert. 
It was a pretty spectacular place, obviously. For the actual concert, the audience wasn't all that large, maybe twenty people, but they all were duly impressed. Actually, it was cool to be able to sing in a place like that, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much. For some reason, it was incredibly hard to hear everyone else, and you can project all you want and it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. Plus I don't do well when I sing just after I eat. So, even though it sounded okay to everyone in the audience, it sounded really lame where I was standing. Afterwards, we got some free time to go shopping in Bournemouth, again, as it was right down the street, literally. I ended up with Anna, and we walked around for a while looking at stuff. 
 (Bournemouth Gardens) From there, we drove to Guys Marsh prison for, what was probably, the most out of the ordinary part of the trip. It was hardly a maximum security prison, but it was a prison nonetheless. Walking in was something of an experience, because the path to the chapel took us past the dorms. With eighteen beautiful women in the choir, it caused something of a ruckus. The chaplain, Mary, was an incredibly energetic woman, who was very happy to have us. She is one of those people who is sweet, generous, caring and excitable, but that you don't cross, ever. At the actual concert, we sang for about fifty inmates. Some where Christians who regularly attend the chapel, there were a few Muslims, and then a group of non-believers that came especially for the concert. We had some electrical trouble, meaning our keyboard didn't work for the first twenty minutes. So, we sang our acapella songs, then moved onto our accompanied songs after the power was fixed. On the whole, the inmates were a good audience. They clapped and cheered, and seemed to enjoy it (probably for more than our singing, but that's expected). Afterwards, we had a little time to mingle with them. This was a little trickier, as the inmates went straight to greeting the women, but aside from a few minor incidents, they were well behaved, and genuinely interested in us. Looking back on it, I realize just how much God was there. While we were there, I wasn't too concerned with the whole situation. I guess I just wasn't thinking about it very hard. Fifty inmates (and some of them were huge), versus nine guys, and one guard (who was actually sitting outside the door). As Matt pointed out later, it was all on God. If they had tried something, we couldn't have stopped them (although I believe Mary could have, either by force of will, or physically). But thanks to God, it was pretty smooth, and I think many of them were touched. Afterwards, we went to Andrew's (our COI Rep) church for pizza. It was pretty good, or if it wasn't I didn't notice, as I ate a whole one (they brought about 30). From there we went back to Moorlands for sleep. |
