a funereal detour

My wife's sister died and the funeral was in Maryland on Wednesday. That's choir night. What to do?

Nancy and Gail to the rescue. Thanks a lot everyone for keeping the program going even when I had to be away.

That's a nice advantage of a larger church such as Zion.

choir ministers at Dock Meadows

It's not a clear picture on the right. But it's all I found. The building is Dock Meadows along Rte 309, close to Souderton.

Our Zion member Jim Derstine, who ministers as chaplain at Dock Meadows, invited the Zion choir to sing there for the evening service, May 4, at 6:30.

sister-in-law dies

Thursday evening Dorcas and I rushed to the Harrisburg Hospital. Dorcas's sister and her husband had been driving from New York City where they live to Maryland. Rachel, Dorcas's sister fell ill.

She was in the hospital a little short of 24 hours when she died. As a child Rachel had had rheumatic fever and her whole life her health had been compromised.

I believe the funeral will be held in western Maryland on Tuesday. I will be able to keep my obligations at Zion.

To do lists

Here's some of the things I'm working on:

-line up special music for the summer months
-follow up the organ concert event, offering amount, attendance, thank yous to the partners etc
-contact organ subs for a few summer Sundays
-contact Nate Stucky, the summer seminarian, about how he wants to interact with music and worship
-prep for the choir singing at Dock Meadows this Sunday evening
-put the Felix Hell CD in library so it is available
-read a new book on using instruments in worship
-come up with a non-verbal component for Pentecost
-follow up on the decisions of the worship planning committee of last evening
-update the worship teams schedule

Whew. I wonder why I was busy today. And I didn't even get to any organ practice yet.

Felix remembers

I got a nice note from Felix. He writes that after a concert in Iowa and one in New York City he is "now back in my American home in Balitmore. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to perform at Zion Mennonite yet again, and I hope that my performance met your expectations. For me it was a great pleasure to return to the Fisk organ."

He goes on in his letter to thank me for turning pages for him. After the concert he gave me one of his CDs for doing that. It turns out it was really hard, because I sat so far away (my choice).

He ends the letter: "Thanks again for all your efforts. Give my best regards to everybody who was involved in organizing my concert. Sincerely, Felix."

I was so caught up in the event that I failed to take a single photo of him, so here's one he sends out.