Oh, and by the way, bring a scarf and sweater (or something else Christmas-y — we’ll explain when you get there…)

Over a period of seven days, we performed three of our original songs along with a Korean song, Forever in My Heart. Our performances were well received by the Korean people and were viewed by a nation-wide television audience. One number, Glory Giver, was also selected to receive an award at the event’s final ceremony. In addition to participation in the festival activities, our group was asked to record the song Forever In My Heart at the Central Broadcasting System, the Chosun Sori (Voice of Korea). 

Global Resource Services (GRS) coordinated the 32-member delegation. GRS is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides food, medical, and educational support to the North Korean people. This organization does a great work all around the globe, and has reached out to the North Korean people for the last twelve years. Our group was happy to support the humanitarian work of GRS through our presence at the Festival.

During the week, we had the pleasure of interacting with college students from several universities who acted as our guides and interpreters. We had many meaningful conversations and formed some close friendships. We also visited both the National Children’s Center for the Arts and the Pyongyang Music College, where we witnessed the incredible artistic skill and discipline of the Korean people. We were particularly moved by the opportunity for two of our members to perform with a North Korean cellist. We will never forget the faces of the children and musicians we heard. As proud American patriots, we are deeply aware of the tensions between our two countries and will continue to pray for the North Korean people.

After the Monday concert, we drove six hours deep into the Kiamichi mountains, regardless of the fact that the name means ‘Go no further!’ in Choctaw (presumably because of the terrifying monsters named the Bigfoot that parol those dark hills). We arrived at our Grandma Jane’s and Grandpa Riley’s late at night, and almost got lost in the beautiful blackness of the forests lanes, but thankfully we saw the sign for the turn-off, and, accordingly, turned-off the road and drove up to our second home (or third, if you count the Hampton Inn ).

We were there to hunker down and do some deep-cleaning on the grounds of my grandparents’ trail camp, but also for the enjoyment of a country get-a-way of sorts and a reunion with our relatives. The next morning, after a delightful, though wary (there are tarantulas and fiddlebacks lurking in bedsheets, you know) sleep, we awoke to a fresh, cold morning in the mountains. After a spoonful of peanut butter, we all got down to work. And boy, if I ever thought that manual labor had its benefits, I was speaking from a completely city-girl mindset. Between cleaning dorms, bathrooms, cabins, raking acres of leaves, power-washing buildings, washing windows, and on, we had our work cut out for us.

About lunch-time, though, Grandma Jane arrived with a whole suburban full of food, and after a delightful meal with Grandma’s touch inherent in the very bread slices, I stayed with Grandma and had the most delightful discussions about her childhood, and also some great tips about the value of ammonia, vinegar, and bleach. I learned about how she used to watch her mother draw water from the well each morning, and longed to do it herself, but her mother wouldn’t let her because she knew she would drop the bucket in the well. Finally, though, she bugged her mother into letting her, and, just as predicted, she dropped the bucket in the well, and from then on she got to draw the water every single day. I can’t wait till I get to Heaven and get to go through the video library of world history

That night our wonderful Grandpa Riley and very favoritest favorite cousin, David Riley, drove up to help us, and we built a grand (or a wanna-be grand) fire, baked brownies, and sat around the flames on upturned logs and munched on chocolate while Benjamin told us freaky real-life ghost ship stories.

After a lovely and very productive time down at the trail camp, we drove up to Davis, OK, where we met our parents and our Grandma Dorothy and Grandpa Bill. It was so delightful to get to see them again! They are some of the sweetest people I know. The retreat center that we played at housed 2200 women for the conference, and my mother did a marvelous job speaking to the women about children as the kingdom of God on Friday morning. That afternoon Scott, Annie, Gretchen, and I had a tremendous time hiking down the Devil’s Bathtub, as it is called, with very Lord-of-the-Rings-ish scenery…giant boulders, magical trees growing out of feathery green mountain-sides, giant roots twisting from rock to rock and forming a bridge for us to walk on. We also found a cave up high in the rock. Scott and I were both brave enough to climb up the cliff (which was considerably high) and look inside the intriguing scene. There was only blackness and Ozarka water bottles in there, though, so we climbed back down again.

That night we played for the women, and then the next day we drove to Ardmore and played at the Washington Theatre there, and had a superb time. On Sunday we piled up in our vehicular traveling receptacle once more, and drove on towards home, saying goodbye to our grandparents Wolaver at their home-town of Oklahoma City. That night we arrived at our home, where my garden had a sad amount of weeds and bespoke an hour of hoeing to my groaning heart, and my own pillow sufficed to comfort me with a night of dreamless sleep.

And that’s the week-in-review!

The plum-tree in the backyard was just beginning to burst forth in snow-white, sweet-smelling blooms when our family loaded up into our second home––the car––and zoomed down the interstate toward the Lone Star state.  It was a lovely time to drive, with the Chinook blowing sugary perfumes across the expanse of newly budding fields, and all the world as it passed our window showcasing the vibrancy of their new greenery.

As we neared our destination, however, the clear blue skies morphed to grey clouds, and, just as we were enjoying the warm welcome of our friendly hosts at the church, the clouds exploded in a downpour of rain.  Thanks to the large group of helpers, however, the gear was safe inside, so we were able to observe the storm from the indoor side of the walls.  Our friends at the church were very happy that we had brought the rain, though, as Texas has been experiencing a record drought, and the inhabitants were beginning to fear that they would have no green spring.  That night we had a packed house and enjoyed the comfy warmth of the stage lights as we performed, while the rain pattered ferociously against the windowpanes.

Next day we loaded up once more and drove out of the overcast skies into the desert of West Texas, where the devil walks his dog, as some say, and then on to Arizona.  All of us were stunned at the arid beauty of the landscape, where trees are replaced by tall, weird cacti, and the only color is in the flowering, low-lying shrubs.  It became warmer and warmer, and soon we were thanking God we weren’t journeying down here in July.  The sun beamed down on us all day, and finally, arriving at our destination in Tuson, we unloaded the gear and basked in the clean, dry air of Arida Zona, the original Spanish name of the territory.  We loved getting to know the many lovely people who befriended us during our time there and that night we had a great concert.  

Next day we loaded up once more and moved on to the capital, named after one of my favorite mythological birds, the phoenix.  It was certainly fiery weather there, with the heat of the sun and sand reflecting off the walls of the city.  Everything was beautiful though, and we enjoyed getting to fellowship with our very generous host and hostess and all the hard-working helpers.  After we loaded in, we drove through a sunny subdivision to the lovely home of our host and hostess, where we had some delectable food and fun conversation.  We were excited to learn that Arizona is the home not only of the mesquite tree, the taste of which all America is familiar with, but also a dog-size rat that looks like a boar and is quite fierce enough to haunt one’s dreams.  Anyone remember Princess Bride and the giant rat of the Fire Swamp?  One and the same animal.  Obviously the author of that book was familiar with the Dry Zone.  

That night we enjoyed concertizing, and then again next morning in the Sunday morning worship services.  Afterwards we loaded up our gear and were treated to a delectable lunch at an old-timey Western restaurant that took me back to John Wayne and the rustic romanticism of the old West.  We conversed about politics over plates of home-fried potatoes and truly mouth-watering jalapeño poppers, and then were entertained by true-life stories of our host’s adventures in El Salvador and the other continents (he has been to six of the seven!).  

Afterwards, satisfied with our stuffed stomachs, we began our drive home.  Two hours down the road we stopped at Tonto Rim, the camp that our host runs, and enjoyed getting to see the lovely grounds of the mountain passes while we drank some delicious hot chocolate, and then we said goodbye and began our long journey home through the desert.  

And that’s the March-in Review!

Yet being at home means a whole host of other jobs rise up to meet you, and we found ourselves quite busy every week.  Between building an in-house studio, writing and recording our new album, preparing for this year’s Fine Arts Summer Academy, school and music lessons for the younger children, writing books, organizing curriculums, maintaining a clean house, and keeping the refrigerator stocked for the eight hungry bellies that inhabit the place, life moves pretty quickly at the Wolaver place.  

It’s not all business, however, and we tend to discover plenty of splendiferous things to amuse ourselves by.  My sisters and I like to play Miss Domestic Humbug every once in a while and practice our future wife-of-noble-character-ishness, preparing mad specimens of cuisine-art genius.  On celebrating the joint occasions of St. Valentine’s Day and our soundman’s birthday, Gretchen officially made her debut in the kitchen by baking a very yummy chocolate cake and preparing a whole gourmet feast all by herself, and she was quite pleased, I believe, by all the exclamations produced by her delicious food  

It has generally been my job to keep the kitchen running, though, and, thanks to the fact that I use so much tofu and lightly steamed veggies in my cooking, we all have cultivated raging sweet-tooths, and are known for baking cookies at least once a week.  I always feel so guilty making them that I end up substituting as many of the real ingredients as I can––flaxseed oil for eggs, 100% whole wheat flour for white flour, honey for white sugar, etc.–––and so mine always end up tasting more of nutmeg and cinnamon than sweet, and possess a rather crumbly, chewy dough.  They are still pretty good, considering they’re a healthy dessert (an oxymoron, unless you’re talking about that beautiful creation, fruit), but they are more like muffin-tops than anything else.  Annie, however, who is an exquisitely accomplished cook––and she even improvises!––,makes the real thing, and her last batch of chocolate chip cookies were utterly delectable: thin and crispy, with a buttery-golden-brown color, and melting hearts of rich chocolate sprinkled sporadically through the sugary heavenliness.  The men of the household were on their knees in thanksgiving at the first bite   The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, as the proverb says.

Last weekend we were happy to escape the freezing weather in Nashville and drive to Florida, where the sun shone and the breeze humidified our hair, and the grass is green all year round.  We loved getting to spend time with our old friends  in North Port, and then we drove home just in time to kiss winter goodbye and say hello to Spring.  The trees are sporting lovely green flower buds, the temperature is a pleasant, windy sixty to seventy degrees, and my gardening itch is growing steadily.  The yearly rebirth never does grow old.

And that’s our February-in-review!

-Camille

Yet being at home means a whole host of other jobs rise up to meet you, and we found ourselves quite busy every week.  Between building an in-house studio, writing and recording our new album, preparing for this year’s Fine Arts Summer Academy, school and music lessons for the younger children, writing books, organizing curriculums, maintaining a clean house, and keeping the refrigerator stocked for the eight hungry bellies that inhabit the place, life moves pretty quickly at the Wolaver place.  

It’s not all business, however, and we tend to discover plenty of splendiferous things to amuse ourselves by.  My sisters and I like to play Miss Domestic Humbug every once in a while and practice our future wife-of-noble-character-ishness, preparing mad specimens of cuisine-art genius.  On celebrating the joint occasions of St. Valentine’s Day and our soundman’s birthday, Gretchen officially made her debut in the kitchen by baking a very yummy chocolate cake and preparing a whole gourmet feast all by herself, and she was quite pleased, I believe, by all the exclamations produced by her delicious food  

It has generally been my job to keep the kitchen running, though, and, thanks to the fact that I use so much tofu and lightly steamed veggies in my cooking, we all have cultivated raging sweet-tooths, and are known for baking cookies at least once a week.  I always feel so guilty making them that I end up substituting as many of the real ingredients as I can––flaxseed oil for eggs, 100% whole wheat flour for white flour, honey for white sugar, etc.–––and so mine always end up tasting more of nutmeg and cinnamon than sweet, and possess a rather crumbly, chewy dough.  They are still pretty good, considering they’re a healthy dessert (an oxymoron, unless you’re talking about that beautiful creation, fruit), but they are more like muffin-tops than anything else.  Annie, however, who is an exquisitely accomplished cook––and she even improvises!––,makes the real thing, and her last batch of chocolate chip cookies were utterly delectable: thin and crispy, with a buttery-golden-brown color, and melting hearts of rich chocolate sprinkled sporadically through the sugary heavenliness.  The men of the household were on their knees in thanksgiving at the first bite   The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, as the proverb says.

Last weekend we were happy to escape the freezing weather in Nashville and drive to Florida, where the sun shone and the breeze humidified our hair, and the grass is green all year round.  We loved getting to spend time with our old friends  in North Port, and then we drove home just in time to kiss winter goodbye and say hello to Spring.  The trees are sporting lovely green flower buds, the temperature is a pleasant, windy sixty to seventy degrees, and my gardening itch is growing steadily.  The yearly rebirth never does grow old.

And that’s our February-in-review!

-Camille

Saint Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius Gothicus, emperor of Rome.  He was known for aiding the persecuted Christians of that time, and especially for marrying Christian men and women according to the standards of their faith, rather than the empty pagan practices common in Roman weddings  Helping Christians at the time was considered criminal, and the saint was arrested and imprisoned on being caught in the act of initiating a Christian wedding.  Claudius was amused by this prisoner and his crime, until St. Valentine refused to renounce Christ and then attempted to convert him, on which outrage the emperor condemned the priest to death.  After being beaten with sticks and then stoned, he was sent off to the Flaminian Gate to be beheaded.  Before the final stroke, St. Valentine healed the sight and hearing of the jailer’s daughter. He was then beheaded outside of the gate.

The current legends of St. Valentine were created in the fourteenth century by Geoffrey Chaucer and his contemporaries, and traditions like signing heart-shaped letters ‘from your Valentine’ were started in the late Middle Ages.  It was then that February 14 first became a celebration of romantic love.  

Let us throw aside the antics of Rome, as Chesterton termed it, and meditate on the God who is Love, and created the Love that dwelled inside of St. Valentine and was so strong and selfless that it sought to bless and heal the very ones who persecuted him.  Let us pray that such strength of heart may also be cultivated in our own souls.  

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day to you!

-Camille 

I awoke early to the silence of a warm Sabbath morning out at sea.  The boat was on the move again, retracing the ocean path that we had sketched out over the formless deep, and every hour the tropic conditions seemed to grow colder.  I dressed quickly in my Sunday best, and then awoke Daddy, as he had wanted to see the sunrise.

We walked up to the next-to-highest deck, where we stood against the railing along with several other viewers, and looked out at the sea.  It was rather early, but the sky itself was breathtaking, with its periwinkle timbre and innate peacefulness.  Somehow seeing that much sky makes one feel small and insignificant, even while it fills you with inward quiet.  Be still, and know that I am God.  There is no better place to be still then in the magic of the wind and the salt-water and the sky all melding together into the majestic union of God’s creation.  As we watched, the sun began to shine its crimson glory into the pearly clouds of the East, building up slowly to the climax when the tip of its fiery arc appeared over the earth and seemed to race past the shimmering horizon and into the great blue heavens.  Beautiful.

When the sun was completely risen Daddy and I returned to the comparatively dark and musty inner rooms, and joined the others in preparing for the church services.  Arriving at eight o’clock in the belly of the boat, we sound-checked and had a very enjoyable time chatting with David Nasser, the speaker of the morning.  He told us a little bit about his life as a refugee from Iran, and the amazing occurrences of his escape from that country.  I was personally quite dumb-founded by the very swash-buckling nature of it all.  Such miracles and adventure and peril are quite unheard of in our extremely blessed, free nation, and when tidings of the oppression and terrific events in the rest of the world always comes as a shock.

The services were so very blessed by God’s spirit, and we all felt a quickening as we sang the profound lyrics of the old hymns and psalms and heard David Nasser’s penetrating message on contentment and the gospel.  He shared the story behind the writer of the hymn, ‘It Is Well With My Soul’.  Horatio Spafford experienced two major traumas in quick succession, one, the Chicago fire of the Autumn of 1871, in which he was ruined financially, and then, shortly thereafter, his four daughters were killed in a shipwreck out to sea.  His wife, Anna, was the lone survivor, and sent him a telegram with the two words, “Saved alone.”  Spafford retraced the sea passage to the place where his daughters had drowned, and there, facing the seeming ruin of everything that he had built and held dear in his life, he wrote the deep-seated sapience of those amazing verses.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

That evening, we all gathered together on the deck of the ship to watch the last sunset of our journey across the ocean.  The sun had accrued power in his day’s work, and burnt fervently in the golden dusk of the sky.  We all shielded our sensitive eyes as it slowly dropped toward the glassy mirror below it.  I wondered if, before that fatal bite at the dawn of time, our bodies would have been powerful enough to take the light of a sun ten times the brilliance I saw.  I looked down into the sea to ease the strain in my ocular engines, and wondered if there were mermen and selkies beneath me looking up at the same sunset, and arming their underwater kingdoms to guard against the sea-monsters that pervade that midnight murkiness.  I often wonder what makes us so sure of ourselves as to trump the beliefs of the millions of intelligent, sane human beings who lived before us, and decide to discredit their records.  You must think that if bald eagles, giant pandas, and the tigers of Asia are all going extinct in our generation, how many creatures have gone extinct in the course of the seventeen thousand years in the journey of this world?  Such things are easy to muse about surrounded by the resplendence of God’s creativity.

And that’s the end of my maritime adventure!  I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

~Camille

God delights in routine.  The sunrise happens every morning not because God ran out of ideas, but because the sun so glories in its rising that he does it again and again, as a child never tires of seeing something especially interesting done once more.  Therefore, this morning, I did almost the exact same thing that I had done the previous morning.  After a nourishing devotional time on our room’s deck, staring off into the great black of the sea, I ran against the wind on the second-to-top deck outside, and then I carried an exercise mat outside and did refreshing Pilates exercises in the salty breeze.  Very aesthetically pleasing, I must say.  We all dressed in our most island-ish clothes, we girls trying to compete for the most Grace Kelly outfit, and, when finished, we leaned out of our cabin to watch as the little English province came into view.  

Grand Turk Island.  It was very small, and almost wholly destroyed by Hurricane Ike, but my heart palpitated with expectation as I realized that I was stepping for the first time on foreign soil.  How many times I’ve read the phrase in books I know not, but there is something so romantic about seeing the world!  Secretly I made plans to drag somebody on a mad exploring expedition through the sand-hills and wild palm trees.  I’ve always prided myself on being practical.

Once the boat docked, we made our way through the three thousand people trying to get off at the same time, and walked out onto the great concrete walkway bridging the waters to the beach.  It was very hot, and I donned my sunglasses and a light cotton shawl to protect my very sensitive Irish skin and eyes from the tropical glare of the sun.  Once on dry land, we fought our dizziness (especially bad when standing on tile or any other very flat surface) and the instinct to stand with our feet wide apart for more effective balancing.  We younger kids stopped at a fresh fruit smoothie shop, where a beautiful, strong-boned woman with a dark, rich complexion and a lovely accent served us drinks made of mango and papaya and coconut and other island fruits.  I was afraid I looked very tourist-y to her, but hey, you don’t get to be a tourist every day!  :)

Gretchen and I departed from the rest of our group to tour the jewelry shops, and soon had found some beautiful, native presents and shell-and-fresh-water-pearl earrings for ourselves and some others, and, having made our purchases, we all made our way to the beach.  I had never before seen such a lovely beach.  The sand was very clean and white, the water a glittering blue so clear one could see to the ocean floor even when one couldn’t touch.  We all ate a splendid luncheon while chatting with other newly-made acquaintances, and then, donning our bathing suits, rushed into the waters.  Or rather, approached the salty expanse warily, stuck a toe into the very edge, and jumped back screaming because it was so cold!  Somehow the heat of the day didn’t affect the ocean very readily.  Jeremiah and his friends, in the natural childhood immunity, were already soaking wet and playing out in the water, but we adults were having a rather painful time of it.  Finally, seeing Annie, Scott, and Gretchen brave the frigid deep, I forced myself to plunge under the still liquid and came up shivering and gasping for air.  

We all swam a bit, trying to get our blood pumping enough to warm us, but I could not get warm.  Salt-water got into my eyes, making them sting, and, when nobody could think of anything to do, I decided I had had enough of the tropics (I know, I know, quite contemptible, I must say!) and left the beach with Mama and Daddy.  We had a very pleasant walk and shop-sifting, but unfortunately the island wasn’t much to explore, being mostly wreckage from the hurricane, and my parents are rather too old for exploring, and so soon I was carried back off to the boat.  Daddy and I got some frozen yogurt cones and sat and looked out at the ocean from the boat and had a splendid time, however.

In an hour or so everyone returned, with stories about what they had seen while snorkling, and, after another very delectable supper and melting chocolate cake to aid us in gaining those healthy constitutions and rosy cheeks that Grandma loves so much in her grandchildren, we all played a game of Scrabble and had a wonderful time.  I won the game, because of the word WINDLOG down over a couple triple word and double letter scores.  Unfortunately for the rest of the players, nobody realized till afterward that windlog should be hyphenated…including me!  I proclaim my innocence!  :)

Once it was dark we all journeyed down a back path to the very front of the boat, where there was a deck that no one knew about.  There were no lights on, and so we stood out on the very brink of the ship, the wind so forceful it was difficult to stand upright, our hair blowing itself into tangles, and our eyes gazing in rapture at the constellations above us.  I had never seen so many stars.  Planets and comets and formations and clusters, all dancing and burning in the great black deep above, which mirrored the great black deep below.  The wind strummed the wires stretching above us in the mast, creating a dissonant and mysteriously beautiful hum that increased into a shrill scream as the wind increased, and ran back down the scale to a throaty tone when the wind softened.  Our friend Jill said she had heard of a cruise where a woman murdered her husband by pushing him off the side of the boat in the dark.  A chill quivered down my spine, and my eyes moved from the stars above to the murky waves below, and imagined the cold impact and the slither of sharks against my ankles.  

Soon afterwards we all went back inside to electric warmth and fluorescent lights, all of us feeling rather creepy…especially after Jill’s husband, David, told us all he had seen another person out there with us––a shadowy woman with long black tresses and empty eyes that stared into the infinite sea and sky, her whole being yearning for the peace that would not come till she was avenged…  Thankfully I’m not Nancy Drew.  Wouldn’t you hate to be a person who seems to get picked to solve all the world’s mysteries?  :) 

And that’s day three of our maritime adventure!