Sounds of Freedom

Happy July!!!!

How is it already July?? How do summers fly so fast, when I'm (a) not a teacher and (b) not a mom, and therefore summers should be like every other day for me? Baffling.

We are hopeful for a bit of a change of pace around our home here during the moth of July. I say that with heavy respect to the understanding that God tends to giggle at our plans on a regular basis, so perhaps this month will be every bit as exhausting as the last few, but here's hoping it will include a measure of rest and normalcy!

Meanwhile, I wanted to show you some pictures from our weekend!

Over the past several years, our church has done a huge musical production for the 4th of July, and they also do one at Christmas. These are big events! The choir sings and several soloists have parts; they bring in brass and woodwinds and even a drumline from a local high school. Sometimes they have other people contributing in other ways as well, and sometimes it focuses in tightly on the music.

Last summer, Ryan sang with the choir and I was a narrator, along with some other people. This year, he was unable to be part of the choir because he was busy helping his dad with his house and couldn't get to all the practices. (The choir practices for about two months - multiple times a week - for these productions.) But the choir director, who does a fantastic job putting these together, asked us if we could help by serving as narrators together this year. We were thrilled to be asked to participate at all - and then to get to work together was icing on the cake.

So here are some of the pictures we took this weekend!

This was right before we went onstage the first night. (Lighting backstage has never been accused of being well-done, has it?)

This is our friend, Joyce, who is part of our small group and one of our big encouragers:

I had grand plans of getting pictures with so many more people from within the choir, but it didn't happen in reality like it did in my head.

That flag backdrop was stunning!

(That's actually Joyce singing a solo there!) One of the women from our church, Karen, did a patriotic painting during some of the music, and then they gave away the paintings at the end of each night.

Each night, the choir sang the branches of the military song, and then we invited all veterans and active duty members to come on the stage for recognition. Powerful and moving to see so many men and women come forward each night!

Mom has come to these productions for years - over a decade, I think! I used to come with her, before I was married, and I remember sitting in the audience and even remember some specific people from the choir! Never dreamed I'd be IN any of the programs one day! Mom still comes to all of them - and she brought my aunt and cousin this time!

Pastor Liz has one of those personalities that is just perfect for what she does. She's organized and careful about making sure everything goes well, but she's also great about stepping back and trusting that the Lord will do His thing. She doesn't get in His way. She met with the choir each night before the program and encouraged them with Scripture. I love hearing her teach! She's not a preaching pastor at our church, but she is definitely in tune with the Lord and I have learned so much from her!

Night number two! Backstage again - and dear Ryan was trying to make my head look smaller than his in the picture.

One of our friends happened to come to see the program that night, and she was kind enough to take a few pictures of us during our narration time!

The last night! We got a picture with Craig, who, in a fun random Shafferland fact, was our DARE officer when we were fifth graders. (Did you all have DARE in your school systems? If not, it was a drug prevention course taught by police officers, and he was ours!)

Our view from backstage. Oh my...these people sang so well all weekend. I could listen to them for hours on end.

Some of our small group friends were in the audience last night and captured this:

We couldn't go out and watch this from the back, because it was too close to one of our narrations, but they did have TV screens backstage that showed the view from the sanctuary, so I was able to see the drumline and color guard:

And on the last night, Ryan's grandma (and Bob...but he escaped the picture) and dad and step-mom also came to see it!

So that was our weekend! We were grateful to be part of it!