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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Boston!

Yes the great city of Boston . . .


Yesterday morning our day started at 3am and we arrived via two flights from Little Rock AR to Boston MA to sing at the Greenbuild International Conference (http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/). You are probably wondering what the African Children's Choir has to do with building "green" but the correlation was to the keynote speaker of this morning's main session. With every seat full the room of 10,000 watched as the children sang to introduce Archbishop Desmond Tutu and sang again once he finished.


During sound check yesterday it struck me again how wonderful it is to be a part of this organization. I was chatting with a few of the guys who were setting up the stage. They had just torn down Tina Turner's show the night previous and were commenting that these kids have much more talent than half the shows they set-up. I just sat back and thought to myself, if you had any idea where they came from you would have thought these were hopeless children that would just become another statistic. But I thought back to how innovative Ray Barnett - our founder - was when he decided, during one of the most volatile times for Uganda, to bring Africa to the West. I daily witness how this goal is still continuing to be meet 24 years later.


This morning after the children came off the stage they were greeted by Uncle Tutu and smiled for some pictures. After more greetings by VIP's of the conference and many thanks the kids headed to their change room. As I was leaving one of the ladies with Desmond Tutu casually asked how long the tour was. After being shocked at the 15 month length she asked one of the most common questions "Don't their families miss them?" I responded saying that the families were so delighted that these children had the opportunity of a life-time. And these children are some of the most vulnerable children in Africa, you would not believe where they come from. At that point she lost control of her emotions and said thank you so much!


Even though the conversation was no longer than a minute, the impact the children had on her and many others was incredible! Auntie Laura and I were just discussing how we sit back at times look at how this opporunity is so much bigger than we could possibly imagine.


In just a few hours we will be back on a plane to Little Rock AR to continue on with "normal" tour life!
(The girls, Sarah and Scovia, enjoying a lovely bed at the Westin!)

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