The Sign Of Things To Come

It's getting close to 2:30 AM as I write my final blog from the How Great Is Our God Tour. I'm fighting a dwindling battery on my PowerBook as we roll south from the lovely Tri-Cities. "Why not just plug the laptop in, Louie?," you wonder. Well, I'm already in my bunk (for those of you who have dogs, think kennel) and my phone is charging in the one power outlet I have. Plus, my power cord is in my shoulder bag, which is also in my bunk with me at the moment, yet getting to it and retrieving the power cord is more than I want to do right now. Speaking of the bunk (some may ask, why not get up and write the blog in the front or back lounge? to which I say, great question, and reply: in ending the tour tonight we said goodbye to most of the crew as their bus headed one way, yet CT is leading in Atl this weekend and needs his smaller road crew who have joined us on our bus, though there are no empty bunks resulting in people sleeping in the lounges on the overnight to Atlanta---plus a seemingly endless viewing of "The Office" is now in full swing in the front lounge, so here I am in the my fabulous abode), let me try to describe it for you. I'd say, being generous, is 26" wide, a little longer than me, and not too high. My knees are now up and the laptop is resting on my chest. The ceiling is three inches higher than the distance of my arm from elbow to finger tips (in other words, as I lay here and put my arm elbow down on the "mattress" and stretch out my hand there is about three inches of room between the ends of my fingers and the ceiling. More than once I have turned over in the night with too much gusto and slammed my head on the bottom of Travis' bunk, and a few times have heard Matt G. doing the same below. Ahh, the glamorous life on the road!)

Thankfully, the guys are kind enough to give me a middle ride...and luckily, I really like small spaces.

So here I am, thanking God for such an amazing opportunity and excited about being five hours from home. Tonight was pretty surprising. I say that not to offend the wonderful people of East Tennessee, rather to thank them. Having never been here I didn't know what to expect, but they went for it tonight and made this a huge exclamation point on a phenomenal tour.

There are so many memories after a tour like this, but what I will take away from tonight was an amazing interpreter, a college student named Wendy, who met me during sound check with the question, "Louie, do you talk fast?"

Uh, yeah!

Perched on a chair near the front of the stage, she proceeded to bring this night to life for a hearing impaired person in the front row. Being a fast talking speaker I have always pitied those who have to sign for me, yet respected them so much for being able to amplify my message for all to receive. But Wendy was in a league of her own. I noticed in the middle of "Holy Is The Lord," as Chris was inviting us into what we were singing about, she was interpreting like no one I have seen before. It was like every single syllable was being grabbed and expressed.

I obviously couldn't catch much during my talk (imagine signing quadrillions, crazy star names and the speed of light!), but I was on her side of the stage during the last set and wish I could describe the combination of passion, non-attention grabbing, grooving, expressing, singing with her hands, leading and worshiping that she exhibited. And what was really powerful...she was expending all that energy, yet never sang or said anything of her own. Rather, she totally locked onto the voices she heard and beautifully reflected that message to someone who would have missed it all if she hadn't been standing there.

So tonight we're winding down the Tour and I'm challenged by the image of a 21 year old on a folding chair . And I'm thinking about how crazy it is that someone like me and you could awaken a deaf world as we simply tell them what we clearly hear. Can you imagine God entrusting us with something as pivotal as that? That's massively profound...even in a really tiny bunk.

Sign on.
LG