Friday night’s Twila Paris concert with the World Vision Korea Children’s Choir was a great experience!
Twila Paris’ concert tour came to Huntingdon, PA last night. We enjoyed hearing her sing some of her classic songs, including, “The Warrior is a Child,” “We Bow down,” and “He is Exalted,” as well as a couple songs from her new (yet-to-be released) CD (pre-release copies were available at the concert, though).
While we enjoyed Twila Paris, the main reason we were there was to hear and see the World Vision Korea Children’s Choir. Watch the photo page for photos from last night’s concert (we’re waiting for permission from them to include a photo from last night’s event in this post).
The event caught our attention, of course, because we are awaiting the adoption of a child from South Korea. We’re glad we had the chance to be there. While we had already bought tickets, we received a call from World Vision to volunteer at the event, helping people sign up to sponsor children (as you may know, we sponsor a child in Rwanda). We gave our tickets to two children of Joleen’s cousins (hi Sam and Em!). After the concert, we went to The Meadows for ice cream.
The children’s choir did an amazing job. They are a very talented group of children! The World Vision Korea Children’s Choir is an excellent program, founded in 1960. Children practice 3 days per week after school and intense practice during vacation.
In addition to singing many Korean (and American) songs, it was also nice to see them join Twila for the closing worship songs and to see the heartfelt worship of the children. As many of the children spontaneously raised their hands in worship to God, many of them also placed a hand (or two) over their heart. It brought back memories of the Renovare workshop we attended earlier this year where one of the speakers (Richard Foster, we believe) said that, whereas Americans/Westerners tend to go to God with their heads and their mouths, Koreans go to God with their hearts and their ears.
Also very moving was seeing tears in the eyes of at least two of the children as they sang a closing song of blessing for the audience, a wish for God’s peace (which we were able to see from our second row seats). We picked up a couple of the children’s CDs to continue enjoying their music. The choir is on their 39th America tour. They are spending the month of August traveling in America serving as “a voice for the voiceless.” May God bless them and their ministry!