Day 2 - New Smyrna Beach
by Brianna Smith '08

Thursday, February 28th
Bright and early we woke up to the smell of biscuits, coffee, and bagels. The kitchen was already buzzing with members of First United Methodist eager to send us off on our journey with full stomachs. Sluggishly, we all began to congregate and eat our fill of ham, fruit, biscuits and bagels around 7:30. All except for Mason Jewett and Jordan Ellis who, proving that sleep beats primping every time, woke at the last possible second and somehow still managed to eat and get out the door in plenty of time.

Another "magic nap time" came and went. Traffic slowed us, fast food filled us, and before we knew it, we were in Florida. New Smyrna Beach welcomed us with open arms! We quickly unloaded and set up the risers in the sanctuary of Concord Community United Methodist Church.

The delay in our trip from slow moving traffic meant that we had to be on our game even more than we had been before. We rehearsed, made sure we were ready to embark on another eventful night of music and fellowship, and then it was time to unload the performance outfits and get dinner.

Dinner was homemade. (Read "homemade" as "delicious!"). None of the singers wasted anytime filling their plates (some of them more than once) with spaghetti, salad, and/or desserts. We fueled up to ready ourselves for the night ahead.

The concert went very well. We had a few Catawba alum in the audience and a few more that were connected to Catawba through family. The audience was attentive, giving, and responsive. We couldn't have asked for better. Sonny Kong, Sheldon Rogers and I sang solos during the third section of the concert. Sonny sang "Without You," I sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," and Sheldon sang "Nothing In Common." The audience was very generous to all three of us and made performing a joy.

The members of Concord Community United Methodist Church and their pastor Esther Robinson, and also of the co-sponsoring United Church of Christ Congregational and Disciples of New Smyrna and their pastor Sarah Lund, welcomed us with open arms to their city and also to their homes.

Every student was housed by a different family from one of the two co-sponsoring churches. Cecilia Runge, Monica Ostroska and I were welcomed into our family's home with hot tea, cold milk, and warm scones. (Yummy!)

And then, when we had done everything we could to stay up so that we could hear more about motorcycles, dolphins, and all of the other extraordinary things our host family had to tell us, we prepared ourselves for bed.

Sweet, sweet sleep.

Two down, seven more to go.