I apologize. I promise the next few days won't be so long. But this has been an extremely long day and thus gets more detail.
At approx 11:00am we landed, found my suitcase with no problem (thank you, Lord!) and also found the three other guild members. It's funny... you can just tell who they are. They have this... wholesome look to them. We walked outside and found two others. A 12 passenger van picked us up, and we were on our way to Mohonk.
We arrived around 12:30. Our rooms weren't ready yet so a valet (oooh ahhh) took our bags and we roamed around the campus. We met Christina, who is a wonder woman... she's holding this guild together. We also met Mark Hamby's (president of Lamplighter Publisher) wife and daughter, and son-in-law, who is also the tech guy this week. Once he found out that we were the "musicians" he welcomed us with "You do know we don't have a plan, right?" I came here with the intention of being flexible and now was time to put my intentions into action. We exchanged numbers and he informed us that we would know when he knew something.
Then Jonathan, Michael, Caroline, and I went out on the trails. Caroline and I were wearing dress shoes, but the sights, sounds, and smells were too powerful to go find our luggage again. However, after an hour or so of climbing on rocks and looking for a nonexistent spring, we headed back to the... castle. We sat on the second level deck and just breathed in the serenity of our surroundings. Around 3:20pm Caroline and I were starting to get a little antsy about our room... so we went to check if it was ready. It wasn't. So we went exploring. Mohonk is huge... very easy to get lost. However, we managed to find the spa (very important) and also the dining room (also, very important).
Finally after some more wandering around, we got a call that our room was ready. We grabbed our key, but then had to check in with the other students and faculty. As I walked into the designated room with Caroline and some other girls, one of the teachers instantly engaged us in conversation, asking what track we were doing... all of us were Dramatic Arts. He then introduced us to Todd Busteed, who has been a hero of mine for years. I couldn't believe I was standing in the same circle with him. He has a studio in Wheaton, IL and produced audio drama series like Adventures in Odyssey, Left Behind, Left Behind The Kids, and countless others. He dove right in to telling us how the process works... apparently they do A LOT of their work in London (oh my goodness!) I was racking my brain trying to think of an intelligent question to ask him, but I couldn't think of anything and this other girl kept beating me to it... so I just remained engaged in the conversation by the occasional "oh, wow!" and "that's amazing!" and it was.
Caroline and I were trying to stay out of the way, but time was running out and we still didn't have a plan. We talked to this person, who lead us to that person, who lead us back to Jarred (Mr. Hamby's son-in-law) who in tern lead us to Mr. Hamby. I had already met him a few minutes earlier, but this time I was introduced as "the girl with the music." He knew Caroline plays violin, and somehow it was communicated that I play piano and sing. I made the mistake of saying that I lead at church, to which he said, "Do you lead?" I didn't know what he meant. Was he asking "would I lead?" Was he thinking that I came from a background where women lead men? Was he asking if I was simply capable? Was he asking if I was a leader? I gave the very intelligent answer of "sometimes?" Then I clarified and said that I play at my church with the band and brought the repertoire that we do on Sundays and also the specific songs he had requested and was flexible and would do whatever he wanted. That seemed to clear things up. So then came the decision of what we would do that night. Or tonight... wow, that was so long ago, now. We went round and around on what we could do, what we were all familiar with, what we had music for, and finally landed that Caroline would do a solo and we would both do "Give Us Clean Hands" congregationally. He then asked me if I had a solo... again, I didn't know what he meant. He then said that Christina had sent him one of my songs and that he wanted me to do something original at some point this week... but not tonight, we concluded. Mr. Hamby seemed very pleased with the plan. We were about to wrap things up and go our separate ways when he stopped us and said, "Ok, let's pray." This guy is for real.
We had a little housekeeping meeting, then Jarred went off to try and find this midi piano he had been telling me about... it was the only option. Apparently John Campbell is using it this week, but I can use it for the sessions, which is pretty awesome (John Campbell played this keyboard? whoa!) Midi pianos are cool, they just lack one thing: sound. So as long as I am hooked up to somebody's mac, it would work.
Caroline and I went and saw our room... it's lovely with a GORGEOUS view. I'll post a little tour video hopefully soon. Shortly after settling in, we went to dinner. Here at Mohonk, you have to dress up for dinner, which totally makes me happy. My body was aching at this point from all the walking in terrible shoes... but anyway, I think our group cleaned up pretty well.... the food was amazing and in great abundance. Upon completing the selection for my plate, I began to head back to my table. I was just passing the dessert table when I felt my foot slide on something wet. "That's strange" I thought to myself as I tried to catch my balance... I slowly realized that I wasn't regaining balance at all, and before I knew it, I was laying on the floor. As quickly as I was down, I was back up again. I was hoping that only a handful of people saw. Waiters came out of the woodwork to ask if I was all right... "Yes." What a lie. I did mention to one of the waitresses that there was "something slippery" on the floor over there... I may be prone to falling, but I think it was more God saying, "Here's a little humble pie for you." I swallowed it and went back to the table.
I went back to my room way before dinner was over. I was in pain and just needed to be still for a bit and gather my thoughts. I really did need that fall. However, my hands and feet continued to shake afterward. After a while, we went back to the conference room, found the keyboard all ready to go, ran through our song, fixed the power point, and it was time to go! We sang all together at the very beginning of tonight's session. It was a really sweet time. Mr. Hamby gave a very thought provoking message about Sight and Sound and how image is everything. Here's a clip from my notes.
"Lucifer was created as the most beautiful creation that stood before God and brought glory to him. And even after he rebelled against he was still beautiful, but then God created man in His own image. Now, Lucifer wants to distort the image of God. ......What type of image are you projecting on life's screen?"
Carolyn ended the night with a beautiful violin solo.
I've learned so much today, I don't think I even realize. Not just from Mr. Hamby's message (although I gleaned a lot from that). But I learned about life... and I was reminded about how there can be millions of details that we can stress over, but there's no point in doing it. If you're where God wants you, He's not going to let anything slip through the cracks. If something doesn't work out the way you want it, it's because you obviously didn't need that and God has something better in mind. God gives us challenges to grow our faith, not in ourselves, but in Him alone. I've learned to be more flexible, to say yes to hard things, and trust that God can strengthen someone as weak as I am in order to carry out His plan.
That being said... I'm exhausted.
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