Choir

We're happy to say that we've found a church choir to join. It's actually a Methodist church about 2 suburbs away in Mt. Albert, but evidently Methodist is about as close to Congregational as it's going to get here. The pastor is a woman and her sermons can't compare to Rick Skidmore's, but the music program is outstanding. We usually make the most friends and have the closest relationships through choir on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, so if the sermon is not-as-good-as-Rick's for 20 minutes, I guess we can live with that.

The choir director is a man who can sing all 4 parts. Yup, he can sing the soprano part in falsetto and help them find their melody line. It's pretty amazing. There's quite a few serious musicians in this group of about 25 people, including a former church organist and a former choir director (his dad). His mum, his auntie and his sister also sing in the choir and I guess his brother is a choir director for a large Auckland community choir or something. They are quite the musical family. Unfortunately, neither the director nor the organist gives us 4 beginning pitches. Does everyone else have perfect pitch and know exactly where a D is? Not me! But the lady I sit by (his auntie) always knows our note, so I just sing what she sings. Overall, it seems like enough of them are professional musicians or soloist quality that the choir sings more difficult music, sightreads it well and learns it fast. While we enjoy being a part of this talented group, it means that we are almost out of our league. Imagine, Curt is NOT the strongest voice that everyone else follows! Anyway, they don't _need_ us as badly as our Milwaukie choir needed us. It was always nice to feel needed. : )

Since the choir anthems are more challenging, you might think at least the hymns would be familiar and therefore easier. But the hymns are different here and that always throws me off. I recognize hymn titles like "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing" and think "Ooh, I know this one" but then discover it's sung to a completely different tune. In addition, the words to each hymn are printed in a block of text at the bottom of the page, not under each line of music. This makes it a little harder for me to follow. And then ... sometimes they switch tunes: the words for hymn #443 might be sung with the music from #205! You can imagine me flipping back and forth, getting totally befuddled.

They also have different words for half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes here - they call them minims, crotchets, and quavers. I'd never heard these terms before, but I'm learning.

We've only been attending this church 5 weeks so far but the people at church and at choir have been friendly. We're still learning everyone's names but they all seem to know ours! (And don't forget, everyone pronounces Megan correctly here. I love it!) It'll be nice once we get to know more people. We're going to one lady's house for tea after church this Sunday, which is a good start.

When we first moved to Oregon, it took us 6 months to find the right church and 12 months before we joined the choir. So it feels good to have a place to go on Sunday mornings after only 3 months in New Zealand. We lived in Oregon for 5 years and became very attached to the folks at Kairos Milwaukie church; after we've been here for 5 years, I'm sure we will become just as attached to Mt. Albert Methodist.

PS - When we attended our first choir rehearsal here, we pulled out our black music folders and as I opened mine up, I discovered the church bulletin from our last service at Milwaukie where Curt and I read a liturgy, lit an Advent candle, sang in the choir, and I even played bells. Good times. I cried a little, remembering that day. But smiled.