Tour '02 Update #2
09/06/02Written by Byran Smucker, except for a special segment written by Heidi Headings!
Monday night we stayed at a small but well-furnished Motel that had real wood furniture and a kitchenette. We left early the next morning (a few minutes before 7:00 a.m.) in an attempt to make better time than the previous day. No stopping at go-karts and mini-golf. We were serious. We (everyone except the editor) wanted to make good time to get Heidi home before it was too late. She was getting p-r-e-t-t-y excited when we neared Kalona, literally bouncing up and down on the front seat of the trusty Caprice. When we arrived she rocketed out of the car and into the arms of her brother Solomon. She was a celebrity in that household for the evening. Her younger sisters were beside themselves with delight. Shannon and Shelly Graber came over a little later and we had a good time late into the evening (morning).
Editor's note: And now an inside look into AHQ, written
by Heidi Headings.
Traveling with the quartet from Oregon back home to Iowa was a good experience.
It was also a learning experience. I learned that boys can speak nearly a
different language. Occasionally one of the guys would spout a whole string of
letters and numbers and the rest of them would usually know exactly what he was
talking about. In fact, if I am understanding correctly, they could picture the
vehicle in their mind! Truly astounding!
Another thing I learned was that food can play a big role in people's cheerfulness. One day we were looking for a decent place to eat, and none of the signs showed anything very appealing, and everyone was kind of quiet and gloomy, and suddenly we passed a sign with a Country Kitchen, and a Golden Corral, and a couple other nice places, and someone shouts "We hit the mother lode!" and one of them starts singing, and pretty soon the rest of them have joined in.
Finally, I learned that each of them has their own unique way of passing the traveling hours. David kept us all aware of unusual or extra-spectacular cars that were passing us. A loud gasp from David did not mean that we were in imminent danger but merely that we were passing some extraordinary vehicle. Byran kept himself busy nearly the whole time inventing the wheel and colonizing the moon on his computer game, Civilization II. Apparently AHQ trips are the only time he has to play it. Tom also spent a lot of time on his computer, working on different musical things. But he always seemed to look up from the computer just in time to see another tourist trap fly by, and for the next half hour he would bemoan the fact that we couldn't stop. Konrad did the majority of the driving, but that didn't keep him from all other activities, such as playing his trusty recorder. One day we were privileged to hear 26 different songs, the first one starting with A, the next with B, and so on, with each one being played until someone guessed correctly what it was.
As we were traveling the last few miles to my place, they started singing The Lights of Home. It was a perfect ending to a great trip. Thank you, AHQ!
Back to Byran:
I REALLY enjoyed having Heidi along. Ella es mi prima (el espanol es por mi mama). It's nice to have a girl along.
We were able to relax a bit (a lot) Wednesday morning, not leaving until 10:45.
We had a pleasant journey and arrived at the home of Paul Stutzman (David's
uncle) at 4:10. David housed there, while the rest of us went to Lloyd
Gingerich's. We didn't know Lloyd, but Tom and I had gone to BMA Bible Institute
with his son and daughter, Johnny and Heidi. We situated ourselves, and with
about 40 minutes to spare, Konrad and I innocently decided to play a quick game
of pool.
Konrad on stage doing some kind of clogging dance.
You'd think 40 minutes would be more than enough time to complete a game. Wrong. We were really, really bad. But it came down to this: I had all of my balls save the 8-ball pocketed. There was a perfect, perfect shot that somehow lined itself up for me. Then I made what had to be one of the most incredible shots ever made in pool. Against all odds I punched the cue at the black ball, somehow missed it or nicked it, and sent the cue straight into the pocket. Defeat! Snatched from the jaws of victory.
Todd preaching at the crusade.
The reason we came to this area in Illinois was because there was a Gospel Crusade being held with Todd Neuschwander as the visiting evangelist. We were scheduled to sing for two evenings. This crusade was held in "the Auto Center" run by Amish. Amish running an auto shop? It didn't make much sense until we arrived and saw it was actually the Otto Center.
The first evening Todd defined revival and laid out what was required of us in order for God to accomplish true revival in the community. After the service, Johnny had some young people over to his house, two of which happened to be waitresses at Yoder's Country Kitchen. Evidently the editor had many longstanding issues and questions relating to this particular profession, because he peppered them with questions about the legitimacy of tipping and their feelings toward poor tippers etc. That was on top of the food our wonderful hostesses provided for us.
We were invited to sing at the chapel service of a local BCE school. The only problem was that it was scheduled for 8:30. Sometimes voices aren't working so well at that time of the morning. But we made it. And it was fun. At the end the schoolteacher, using an inside source of information, had everyone sing Happy Birthday for the editor. He's 28.
Sarah Gingerich (left) was the inside source! Her sister Heidi is on the right.
After we sang, Matt (one of the teachers) took us on a tour. The first grade class even sang one of their alphabet songs for us! Milton the Mule, for those of you familiar with ACE. I should get the guys to learn it in four parts so we could sing it too.
The middle part of Thursday we were able to relax. We were sure to visit Yoder's Country Kitchen, because they had a lunch buffet. Cindy was our waitress (she had been part of the discussion the previous night), and Tom asked her even more questions regarding his fascination with gratuity. She had also been the head cook at SMBI when David attended there earlier this year. (Note from David: One of the best I've ever experienced, at that.)
We sang again that evening and Todd preached about pride. This really hit home with me. Pride's rather tough to completely annihilate because as soon as you think you've done it you've fallen back into it. Well, God spoke to me. I'm really thankful we were able to be at the meetings and get a couple great messages.
Todd came over to Lloyd's after the service and we had another great evening of food and fellowship. Todd, Anita, and family are great people. After everyone left we had a great time of sharing with Lloyd and his family. I was very blessed by their family.
The Todd Neuschwander family, along with team members Derek and Megan.
David left early in the morning (8:00) with some SMBI comrades for an SMBI reunion. The rest of us were afforded a more leisurely morning. Except for Konrad who had an 8:00 appointment with an oil change.
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Kon, trying to get his laptop to work. . . |
trying to charm it with his flute. . . |
giving up and calling tech support. |
We left in the morning (barely) and were headed for the reunion, but we got sidetracked by a concert I heard about on the radio. We decided to turn around and go back to Dayton to take it in. It was a good concert, Gold City was the headliner and they were really good. Gold City has been one of AHQ's favorite quartets, so we were glad to get to see them.
The Gold City Quartet--Jay Parrack on tenor, Jonathan Wilburn on lead, Daniel Riley on baritone, and probably my favorite bass ever, Tim Riley.
There were some other groups like the Lesters, the Dove Bros., and the Carolina Boys. There were a lot of acts, so it was a long concert. We even left early. That brings us up to the present time. We're traveling now, at 11:30, on our way to Loudonville, OH, hoping to arrive in time to crash the party.