I've been blown away by how many opportunities have just dropped into my lap. Right now, besides directing the homes and visiting street friends almost daily, I have two new responsibilities at my church, the Cochabamba International Church.
I'm part of the newly formed leadership team for the "University Students and Young Professionals" group. Since none of the new leaders speak English but many of the young people want to learn, I've been asked to lead a few of the praise songs on guitar (in English), and at the end give a summary of the Spanish Bible lesson (in English).
The other very weighty responsibility is to lead one of the two praise teams. We play every other weekend and I currently have: acoustic guitarists (2), electric guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, singers (3), and myself on piano/keyboard. Good group!
I thought I'd share our first song list as a team. If you find that weird...unless you've done this, you wouldn't believe how many hours go into analyzing every aspect of things and then deciding on song flow AND portraying your ideas to the team during rehearsals so that everyone is on the same page.
Right now I could quote you this list and the order of every verse/chorus/bridge and transition while standing on my head in a rainstorm. Practice, practice, practice!
~Te Alabare: always a favorite song in Bolivia!
~Trading My Sorrows/Cambiare Mi Tristeza: I'm partial to this song because of the great bass intro, but it's also a lot of fun to sing and play and meditate on the meaning.
~Salvation Belongs To Our God: good strong song.
~Mi Dios Puede Salvar/My God is Mighty To Save: where to begin!! A Bolivian friend actually first taught it to me when I was in Texas 1 1/2 years ago. I've mentioned it several times on the blog, particularly the line "He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave".
~How Great Is Our God/How Great Thou Art (chorus): Two great songs that make a very powerful medley when combined.
~Forever: Pastor Graham Porter is preaching through Psalm 136 ("His love endures forever"), and it will be an open mic service of people giving testimonies of God's faithfulness. Forever seemed the perfect song to end with, and we've had a great time practicing it already.
As my dear sister Heather so eloquently described it, "I love it! You're preaching, leading the music and working the streets at night. ;-)"
All I can say is, my organizational skills must be in tip-top shape if I'm going to survive and thrive this year with so much responsibility. Leading with diligence...
Well it will be non-stop tomorrow, rehearsing then playing at church, taking kids out to lunch afterwards, taking 7 of my street friends + their babies + a couple of my kids to a huge soccer game, then an "Italian Night" with our volunteers and a few staff members to break in our kitchen at the "new" Casa de Amor II.
Good night!
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2 comments:
I wish our song leaders at church put even a fraction of effort you do into picking songs. They don't bother with finding out what the sermon is about or the flow of the songs or anything. They just pick 3-5 songs and call it good...
And I wish the church I go to on Saturday nights had played more songs tonight. We only sang 2!!!
And all I have to say is I LOVE LOVE LOVE the song Mi Dios Puede Salvar sooooooooo much. And I love my Hillsong Spanish CD you burned me soooooooooooooo much. And agree completely that Te Alabare is super popular in Bolivia!
uh... maybe you need to explain what I was referring to when I said "work the streets"? But hopefully the post two back explains your new work.
What a line up of songs!! I'm not sure it's the list I would have picked. I would be so distracted by the huge load of memories connected to every one of those songs. The only song I could think of that you left out is God of Wonders. Which was played at MY church this morning with a GREAT guitar solo! :-)
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