August 20th, 2024
I pulled into Living Waters around 2:30 and called James to come meet me. I got set up and then James and I sat in his apartment for about an hour discussing things. It seems the season is slowing down, he anticipates Anthony and I only needing to cut the grass two more times this year. Other then that it will be a mix of maintaining the grounds, fixing things that break, setting up and providing for the needs of the groups that come through and pretty much anything else that comes up. Anthony’s mother Liz and his sister Libby have taken over housekeeping duties, and Debbie, Christopher’s wife, is running the kitchen. That is pretty much the extent of the staff. James and his family would be leaving in a couple days so that would just a handful of us to manage this place. To give you an idea: this property is large enough to host and house well over 300 people. There are two full size kitchens, a massive fellowship hall called Celebration Hall, several community housing buildings, several separate hotel style cabins, a school of ministry… this place is huge. The property is nearly a mile long end to end. I don’t know how they manage this place with so few people. I will say this though, this place is beautiful:
There are two groups scheduled to come through in the next week. One is a wedding with about 110 people attending the ceremony and reception, and after that a youth leadership group of about 150 college kids. The wedding group will be doing their own catering, but it will be all hands on deck for the leadership group as the small staff will need to feed the group three meals a day.
We spent the next few days preparing for the wedding. Pastor Wayne and I met in Celebration Hall one morning to set up a portable sound system for the wedding ceremony. They wanted to have the wedding ceremony next to the pond and then move into Celebration Hall for the reception. This is Celebration Hall:
The portable sound system was no problem to set up, but there was a bit of an issue with the house sound system in Celebration Hall: no one knows how to use it. I have a little bit of experience using mixing boards and sound production, but this set up was waaay more complicated than anything I have experienced before. The hall has a full on concert style sound set up with 16 inputs on the stage all run by a state of the art Allen and Heath mixing board. The mixing board is the big problem here, its way more sophisticated than they need and none of us can figure out how it works. I don’t know how they have been handling sound for these various groups the last few months, but it seems someone is going to have to figure out how this thing works.
I spent a couple hours with the mixing board but just could not figure it out. It seems to handle inputs through a network setup instead of the standard “Plug it in and it works” like every other mixing board on the planet. I was able to get it to recognize a little bluetooth receiver that will allow someone to connect their phone and play music… so they will at least be able to play their track list during the reception. Unfortunately, I can’t get any of the microphones to work through this board with any of the stage inputs so I will have to move the portable set up to the stage after the ceremony.
Anthony and I got the work cutting the grass so it would be nice and pretty when the wedding party shows up. This is a pretty massive undertaking. There is enough landscaping here to keep three or four people on it full time every week and they would never run out of work to do. Here’s an aerial shot of the property and a few pics to add context:
As you can see, Danny is right at home here. There is an endless supply of sticks and grass to run on, he couldn’t be happier.
It took us a couple days but we got everything cut and trimmed and ready for the group. We set up about 120 chairs by the pond, reorganized Celebration Hall, and I even got one of the wireless head set mics to work with the portable sound system so their pastor wouldn’t have to hold a microphone during the ceremony. It all came together pretty nicely. It feels good to be a part of something like this. I feel like the efforts we put in helped to make this nice couple’s wedding a special and joyous event. After the ceremony I quickly packed up the portable sound system and re-set it up on the stage of Celebration Hall so they could give some speeches if they wanted. It worked out ok for them, but this rag tag set up is not going to work for some of these larger groups that come by with a full worship band… someone is going to have to figure out how to use the sound equipment, and I have a feeling that someone is me.
The next few days were a little quieter while we awaited the next group. Danny got a lot of frizbee time in and I got some good workouts done. One day I found myself in town at the grocery store trying to buy some green beans but they didn’t have any. This is a bit of a problem for me as I typically eat green beans in some form or another about three nights a week. As I was checking out trying to convince them to stock some for me, another man in line suggested I check out the farmer’s market that was going on down the street that day. I rode over and met a gal named Jane there who told me she had just sold her last bag but was going to pick some more the next day and would be happy to meet me in town to sell them to me. It was a really neat little chain of events and I am so thankful that God would provide for me in this way.
The next group coming through was going to be about 150 college age kids, so we got to work preparing for them. For these large groups, Celebration Hall functions as a dining hall and a worship/concert hall, so there needs to be chairs down the center in front of the stage for worship as well as tables and chairs to the sides for dining. This meant organizing about 350 chairs and 25 tables in the Hall. This is a pretty common dance in this place. They are constantly reorganizing the hall to meet the needs of the next group.
I got a call from Wayne the morning before the group was going to show up and he asked me to come join him in Celebration Hall. He had brought over the wireless microphone system from his church for the youth group to use for their teachings. We spent a few hours together and eventually got the sound system to play ball with his wireless microphone setup. It was a big relief that they would at least be able to speak and give announcements through the main sound system, but that wasn’t going to be enough for this group. Wayne told me they were bringing a whole band for their worship ceremonies and he was going to need me to work with their sound guy to figure this thing out.
I spent the rest of the day in trial and error with the stage inputs and was eventually able to get a few of them working. Basically I would plug a microphone in to each of the 16 inputs one at a time and then run back and forth between the stage and the mixing board to see if it was working. Eventually I had five of them working. Enough for two microphones and three instruments which should be just enough for their needs. It was a pretty pieced together set up but it was at least a start.
The next day I met up with their sound guy Tereso and told him the situation. He had a little bit more knowledge about this board then I did, but not much. We spent a few hours collaborating and a little bit at a time we were able to puzzle together how the system worked. I actually learned quite a bit about the system and together we got everything set up just how they wanted it. It was a good collaboration and I am thankful to have been able to learn so much in the process.
With the mystery of the sound board solved I headed into the kitchen to help out. I met Peggy who was there helping out Debbie and she was quite nice. I learned a good deal about her, seems she may have actually been my lunch lady at some point during high school. We had some nice chats and built a playful rapport, she is a fun gal. While in the kitchen I mostly helped out with dishes, which there were a metric ton of. Debbie made spaghetti today and everything was just a complete mess. Dinner started at 6:00 and we were there doing dishes until 8:30. It was fine though, even fun. Anthony and I teamed up as we had before to knock them all out.
The next few days were basically just a whirlwind of kitchen duties back to back for breakfast lunch and dinner. Kitchen duties started at 7:00am and ended around 8:00pm every evening, but with a good amount of downtime in between meals. I made sure to get Danny out to the yard as much as possible to play, I felt kind of bad leaving him to fend for himself in RV so much, but he honestly seemed fine with it. For such a high energy dog, he’s got a good amount of chill in him too.
Eventually the weekend came to a close and the feeding frenzy was over. While respectful, a gathering of 150 college kids is by no means clean… or quiet. There was food and popcorn and wrappers and forgotten items everywhere, but together our tiny crew was able to manage. When I first got here I took one look around and thought “How can so few people make this work?”, well now I know. It’s a lot of work… and they honestly need way more help around here than just me. But they have been so appreciative of my presence. After the dust settled Debbie gave me a give hug and thanked me for coming.
I am very thankful to be here. When I set out on this mission I didn’t really know how I would go about it. I had this loose idea of traveling around from church to church and offering to help out wherever I could. Luckily, God took the wheel and steered me to exactly what I was looking for: a great group of people who love the Lord that need a helping hand.
What I really didn’t expect was to learn so much in the process. I’ve learned to to operate a riding lawnmower, serve a meal to 150 guests, and operate a state of the art Allen and Heath sound board… and I’ve made a ton of new friends in the process. It’s been pretty amazing in all honesty. God just finds ways to give me so much. I am truly humbled, and so grateful.
They have another guy named Gedda coming to help out over the winter in a couple weeks, and there is a big class coming though in early October that Wayne invited me to attend so it looks like I’ll be sticking around at least until then. I’m excited to see what happens next.
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28