After a much needed sleep at The Ponce St. Augustine Hotel, the Charles Wesley singers relaxed, ate breakfast, and packed for a late morning departure at 930 for the St Augustine historic area. Mrs. Elliott encouraged and enforced the application of sunscreen on every child, adult, and organism in the greater St Augustine area before getting on the bus. After a short trip, the DUMC crew arrived safely, thanks to the amazing bus driver Paul (Thanks Paul!!!), at the Castillo de San Marco. Shout out to (Director of Youth Ministries extraordinaire) Nick Works for leading everyone is a wonderful and enlightening devotional time in front of the port side wall, and a quick singing of And Can It Be, led by are very own friendly, neighborhood Polly Edmonds Baldridge. What a beautiful place for passerby’s to listen to and experience the word of God! Once dispersed, the youth and adults grouped up with walking buddies and made their way into the historic town. Some of our friends bought fun, silly, and wacky souvenirs and gifts; Helena Colborn got a fantastic smelling candle, Emma Baldridge purchased a beautiful necklace with her birthday on it, and Dee Robertson gifted to herself a very stylish St. Augustine maroon hat! At 1pm the DUMC Charles Wesley Singers collected and departed successfully for The Hope Lutheran Church in The Villages, Florida.
This has been St. Augustine’s beachside local Chanel 7 news blogger, Troy Moskowitz.
Monday, June 18, 2018
2018 Tour - Day 2 - Evening Report
Our basic itinerary for the rest of the day was to travel all the way to St. Augustine, FL. Another 8-hour bus ride started with a greeting by Emma Dube and Isaac Turner- Little.
Fork stories, a DUMC tour tradition during bus rides, were explained by Bryce Taylor - these are tales of overnight fun, adventures and sometimes mishaps with host families. Coincidentally (wink wink) Bryce had one of the only Fork stories to tell and was awarded the first Fork of the tour with great pomp and circumstance.
Next followed a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday for Katie Elliott, and our sunshine committee had everyone on the bus sign a card for her. We also sang Happy Birthday to Brad Turner-Little over Lydia’s speaker phone. Our policy is no singing on the bus so we don’t wear out our voices, but we’ll make an exception for birthdays.
Nick Works is working (no pun intended) on his doctoral degree and asked our group to fill out surveys on Christian travel and pilgrimage for his culminating project. Many youth and adults took time to respond and think about our hopes and expectations for choir tour.
Other greeters were needed to break up the trip. They included Cole Vlasic with Todd Johnson, Lindsey Whitmeyer with Cole Taylor, and Charlotte Bowe with William Baldridge.
We stopped for dinner just outside of Savannah, GA, after a lovely detour around I-95 traffic through the Savannah Wildlife Refuge. No alligator sitings yet, but we’ll keep you posted. Chipotle and Five Guys were the top choices. Sad to miss opportunity for a milkshake, so lots of people indulged! Makes the drive a little more bearable. One of the satellite vans made necessary coffee stop, too.
A time of prayer happened on the bus after Phil Hulcher shared that his brother had a stroke this morning and has been hospitalized. Nick Works offered prayer, and we encourage all who read this to uphold him in prayer as well.
We crossed into Florida as the sky was getting dark and arrived at The Ponce Hotel in St. Augustine, FL, at about 9:15 pm. The hotel staff agreed to keep the pool open a little longer, so many took a dip to refresh after long travel day. Newsflash: it is hard to prevent middle and high school boys from playing loud games in the pool.
After swimming, we sang Happy Birthday to Katie Elliott again, with cake this time. The sunshine committee has also provided a birthday hat, which Katie christened with wet pool hair. Happy Birthday may end up being our most popular song this year.
Everyone turned in around 11 pm after breathing in a little moist Florida air. Sunshine tomorrow. Bring on the sunscreen.
Happy Father’s Day to all those who have fathered us. Peace out.
~ Polly
Click Here for Pictures from Day 2
Fork stories, a DUMC tour tradition during bus rides, were explained by Bryce Taylor - these are tales of overnight fun, adventures and sometimes mishaps with host families. Coincidentally (wink wink) Bryce had one of the only Fork stories to tell and was awarded the first Fork of the tour with great pomp and circumstance.
Next followed a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday for Katie Elliott, and our sunshine committee had everyone on the bus sign a card for her. We also sang Happy Birthday to Brad Turner-Little over Lydia’s speaker phone. Our policy is no singing on the bus so we don’t wear out our voices, but we’ll make an exception for birthdays.
Nick Works is working (no pun intended) on his doctoral degree and asked our group to fill out surveys on Christian travel and pilgrimage for his culminating project. Many youth and adults took time to respond and think about our hopes and expectations for choir tour.
Other greeters were needed to break up the trip. They included Cole Vlasic with Todd Johnson, Lindsey Whitmeyer with Cole Taylor, and Charlotte Bowe with William Baldridge.
We stopped for dinner just outside of Savannah, GA, after a lovely detour around I-95 traffic through the Savannah Wildlife Refuge. No alligator sitings yet, but we’ll keep you posted. Chipotle and Five Guys were the top choices. Sad to miss opportunity for a milkshake, so lots of people indulged! Makes the drive a little more bearable. One of the satellite vans made necessary coffee stop, too.
A time of prayer happened on the bus after Phil Hulcher shared that his brother had a stroke this morning and has been hospitalized. Nick Works offered prayer, and we encourage all who read this to uphold him in prayer as well.
We crossed into Florida as the sky was getting dark and arrived at The Ponce Hotel in St. Augustine, FL, at about 9:15 pm. The hotel staff agreed to keep the pool open a little longer, so many took a dip to refresh after long travel day. Newsflash: it is hard to prevent middle and high school boys from playing loud games in the pool.
After swimming, we sang Happy Birthday to Katie Elliott again, with cake this time. The sunshine committee has also provided a birthday hat, which Katie christened with wet pool hair. Happy Birthday may end up being our most popular song this year.
Everyone turned in around 11 pm after breathing in a little moist Florida air. Sunshine tomorrow. Bring on the sunscreen.
Happy Father’s Day to all those who have fathered us. Peace out.
~ Polly
Click Here for Pictures from Day 2
Sunday, June 17, 2018
2018 Tour - Day 2 - Morning Report
This morning, I (Julia Beall) was one of a group of people that stayed at First UMC overnight, and as such I had to get up at about 7:00 to take a shower before the church's "Muffin Ministry", when they serve breakfast (with lots of muffins, but also cereal, other pastries, and stuff to make sandwiches) and let members of the community use their showers. This breakfast/community gathering starts at 8:00 and lasts for at least an hour, and at about 8:40 we sang Amazing Grace and Come, Unity, accompanied by a member of the church on piano. Afterwards, those of us who stayed at the church and those that stayed at host homes went to the 9:00 Connect service, an informal, smaller service with music much like the songs we play in the Youth Chapel on Sunday mornings. At that service, we sang Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy as well as God Has Chosen Me. After the service, we were joined by the people that stayed at the hotel, and went to the sanctuary to practice for the 11:00 traditional service. During this service, we sang Come Ye Sinners, Child of God, God Has Chosen Me, Marchin' On Up, and Praise His Holy Name (which we hadn't planned on singing, but they asked us to sing another song at the end of the service, so of course we did). Following that, we headed to the church's gym room to gather and eat lunch before our 7-hour bus ride to St. Augustine.
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