And so, after a great couple of days in Sydney, today saw the band move on to Adelaide. At this halfway point in the tour, many within the band are coming down with various ailments...sore throats and colds seem to be spreading like Aussie wildfires.
The regular ministry of the ISB tends to follow a familiar pattern of travel, Saturday evening festival, Sunday morning worship followed by an afternoon festival to finish the weekend.
In many ways the tour up to now has felt like a series of Saturday evening festivals and so it was good to arrive at Sunday and be able to meet together with the corps folk of Sydney Congress Hall to share in worship.
Prelude on the hymn tune 'Lavenham' composed by Geoffrey Nobes has been a popular piece on tour with the thought provoking lyrics being displayed on the screens whilst we have presented this piece of music.
There have been numerous requests for a copy of these lyrics. Here are the three verses from this hymn that we use with Geoffrey's arrangement.
We hope and pray that these will be helpful to you.
A feature of this tour has been the opportunity for all the Band to meet the audience at the end of each concert. As we pass out our ISB pins, people share their thoughts of the evening with us. This is often a humbling and yet encouraging experience, as we listen to instant feedback on the effect of our ministry. Tonight was no exception, with everyone, young and old, expressing how they had either been uplifted, blessed or encouraged by the event.
It was another 6am start today although this morning was different in as much as it was raining heavily. Mike Calland and I had the dubious honour of being first to breakfast, until we were interrupted by the next arrivals, Steve Hanover and Nigel Hills.
We awoke this morning to find that our trip had finally succumbed to that all too familiar British phenomenon of bringing our wet weather with us abroad. Spirits were hardly dampened, as many of the bandsmen enjoyed some early morning local sightseeing with their billets to Lighthouse Beach and the koala hospital near the corps.
After an excellent alfresco gourmet breakfast (bacon & eggs) - individually made and delivered to our rooms and following Stephen Williams' first swim of the day in the motel pool, we hit the road again.
It is with great sadness that we can now confirm that Derick Kane is not able to join the band for the remainder of the tour due to health reasons.
Derick is greatly missed by everyone, not just for his outstanding musicianship but for everything that he brings to the band.
We wish him well in his recovery and look forward to seeing him on our return.
Day 3 of the tour commenced with another hearty breakfast. Despite many of the band stating their healthy eating intent I notice copious amounts of full English cooked breakfasts being consumed. I guess the excuse is that it sustains us all for another full day as we travel down to Ballina.
