For most of the morning, we spent time in downtown Walla Walla (home of the acclaimed Walla Walla sweet onion), or at the Whitman Mission. My morning in Walla Walla consisted of drinking coffee, coloring, and drifting about town. I didn’t visit the Whitman Mission, but, evidently, it was a mission started to evangelize the local Native American people. They also provided care and supplies to pioneers traveling west. Jeron Mullet describes the view from the mission like this: “Luscious rolling grass in the foreground, like a picture.” 

 Our route in the afternoon took us through the picture-perfect Palouse, a region of undulating hills thick with wheat. We stopped at Palouse Falls, which appears out of the brown rolling hills as you approach it. The water drops an impressive distance into a wide canyon and flows away into the Palouse River. 

That evening, once we arrived in Moscow, ID, we settled into our hotel and went for some much-needed supper. My supper group had a rather bummy experience at a Thai restaurant. We had to wait a long time to get our waters, and then even longer for our waiter to take our orders. I observed the same (rather flustered) waiter struggling to right a tipped bowl of rice on a platter of food she was carrying. The bowl rolled in playful little circles, bumping another bowl of food that was on the same platter. She set the platter on a nearby table and muttered something self-consciously. I found the whole ordeal very engaging. When my bowl of rice arrive (much later), it was fun to try to recreate the performance.  

After supper, we headed back to the hotel for a presentation about overtones brought by our very own Ivan Godoy. People headed out for ice cream, talked, and played games late into the night.  

Friday morning dawned quite early, again. We packed onto the bus and drove a few minutes to our concert venue for the evening. Our schedule consisted of a two-hour choral clinic with Dr. David Erb, more rehearsal, and a pre-concert photoshoot. 

Dr. David Erb is a professor from New St. Andrews. We spent the morning with him, exploring various interpretive and technical ideas in our repertoire, which included doing a sort of dance thing to help us find “more weight on beat one.” 

Our concert in the evening went quite well, and most of us left the church rather earlier than usual for an early night to bed. However, three members of the choir stayed after the concert for three folk dances for both children and adults. According to Twyla, “It was a high old time! It was so community oriented, with eight-year-olds and grandmas dancing together.”  

Joshua Miller, Bass 2 

The scenery on this tour has been an unexpected delight. Bus time is punctuated by frantic searches for peaks, Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep, and timing in that one measure of Crucifixus.  

Oasis Chorale members are also readers! A brief sampling of authors being read on this year’s tour bus (listed alphabetically):  

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  
• Frederick Backman 
• David Bayles & Ted Orland 
• Wendell Berry  
• Kate Bowler 
• Daniel James Brown 
• Sarah Clarkson  
• John Coblentz  
• Matthew Crawford 
• Steve Cuss 
• Charles Dickens  
• Sean Dietrich 
• James Percival Everett 
• Audrey Frank 
• Makoto Fujimura 
• Neil Gaiman  
• Elizabeth Goudge 
• David Greene 
• Jonathan Haidt 
• John Hendrix 
• Anna Lembke 
• Ursula K. Le Guin 
• Lucy Maude Montgomery 
• Beth Moore 
• Alex Pang 
• Chaim Potok 
• Russ Ramsey 
• Terrance Real  
• Nina Riggs 
• Marilyn Robinson  
• Richard Rohr 
• Leonard Sax  
• Stephen Sizer 
• James K.A. Smith 
• Tyler Staton 
• D.E. Stevenson  
• Paul Tournier  
• Gene Veith  
• Derek Walcott 
• Tish Harrison Warren 
• Lis Wiehl 
• Jen Wilken 
• Connie Willis 

Authors and books like these punctuate Oasis Chorale bus conversations about music, culture, politics, and the church. (And for our three tour babies, we have Where’s the Duck?, and Dog Breath.) 

We received a warm welcome from two German Baptist communities in Washington: the Zillah community and  and the Cascade Valley congregation. At 104 degrees, it was our warmest stop!  

Darren Sensenig, tour manager, has done an amazing job of scheduling our tour to allow plenty of rehearsal time in each venue. We enjoyed another wonderful concert with new friends, and then drove an hour north to our hosts in Ellensburg.  

Esther Swartzentruber  

Alto 1 

Monday was a day off for rest and sightseeing. I had never seen the Pacific Coast before, and it did not disappoint. We spent the afternoon at Cape Lookout State Park, where many of us took a muddy but gloriously exhilarating hike on a trail that afforded spectacular ocean views. We also enjoyed the lovely beach area in various ways: exploring the cliffs and little caves, walking along the shore, finding a spot to sit and soak in the beauty, or (for a few of our number) briefly jumping into the frigid waves. 

A day spent enjoying the glories of creation reminds us that creation praises God. “Awake, Awake to Love and Work,” one of our concert pieces, speaks of this, and it invites us with these lines:  
“Come let thy voice be one with theirs, 
Shout with their shout of praise.” 
 
Rosalie Beiler 
Alto 2 

Upon winging their way to the western USA, choir members gathered to rehearse for three days at a church in Brownsville, Oregon. They greeted each other generously with grins and guffaws, glad to be together after months of lonely practice alongside Bluetooth speakers. To be sure, after three days of serving with rigor as conscientious choral musicians, the overall level of energy was in a state of wane. A new member in the bass section spoke candidly: “It’s a lot of work; it’s tiring because you’re doing one thing all day long.” One of the new tenors had this takeaway: “It was less taxing than anticipated … not monotonous. It felt very productive.” 

Give me, for shelter, shadow of Thy cross. 

A highlight mentioned by multiple choir members was the food served by our talented cooks. Indeed, this sustenance played an outsize role in our music making, furnishing calories to sustain forty living instruments for many hours of intense physical, spiritual, and social activity. Sincere thanks to Darlene Kauffman and her team! 

I am the candle of the Lord, and truth and love more powerful than sword! 

Wendell is our gracious conductor and did well to keep the choir engaged while using the rod and the goad sparingly. “You be the little engine that could.” Many characteristics of musicality were explored while interacting with deeply meaningful texts and music. Kristin, our spirited vocal coach as well as full-time alto, provided helpful tips and exercises for shaping the choral bubble. “Embrace your inner cow.” 

Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. 

As we embark on the tour, we are grateful for the rich, focused time of preparation we could spend as a choir. It was a time of bonding — with our section mates, our conductor, our God, our repertoire. We anticipate also bonding with our audiences in worship, wonder, and friendship. “There are two places we love our people — onstage and offstage.” 

The Lord almighty grant us a quiet night and a perfect end. Amen. 

Matthew Miller 

Tenor 2 

We reconvened and headed to our first concert of the season. It was a beautiful venue—lots of “space to breathe.” Wendell helped us find our “true piano,” commenting that during the rehearsal days he had “felt like he was with the choir in a five gallon bucket.” 
 
Giving our first concert was a lovely feeling—we finally got to share our work with a real live audience. ☺️ of course, we had some nerves to work through: will we remember the movements? Will we look where we are supposed to? Will all of the lyrics stay solidly in our minds? 
 
Post concert, we interacted with our audience and headed back to our kind Brownsville hosts, spent a night of (hopefully) restful slumber, and then left Saturday morning for the beginning of tour proper.  
 
We drove south to Medford. Our concert was again hosted by kind and excellent people who fed us well (special shout out to the cake and strawberries and cream trifle!😋) At the concert, the audience, though not super large, was very attentive and friendly when we talked with them afterward. As I walked through the auditorium looking for any left behind items, I picked up a paper from one of the benches. It read,  
 
“Name: Esperanza.  
Email: nothing.  
Prayer request/comment: I am a kid. I like this concert. Bye.😛 Boom boom.” 
 
Yay for good feedback from a kid!  
 
Abigail Heatwole, soprano I 

We bustled out of there at 10:00 and buzzed over to Crosspointe Mennonite Church where we sang a few more songs. This was a special opportunity since members of this congregation played a big role in feeding and lodging us over our long stay in Ohio. It was also special since we got to sing a song with a group from their church that has sung under Wendell at a recent mobile music camp. They fed us lunch (not quite the last meal yet) and then we wound our way over to nearby Walnut Creek Mennonite Church for the final concert of our tour. That church provided a rewarding acoustic for us all as well as sufficient seating for the audience. After singing in Dover’s large concert hall, it felt good to wrap up in a church where the choir could fill the building with stirring sound. 

People lingered long in conversation. This is a significant portion of the goodness of tour. As things wound down, the choir along with a few added friends straggled back to Crosspointe where these kind people spread one final meal for us and gave us a wonderful place to have our farewell party. Rice and chicken bowls with grilled peaches and ice cream afterwards made a happy and comforting combination. Indoors and out, people talked, children played, and eventually said their goodbyes. 

It’s been a rich two weeks. Many of us are headed back to our jobs, others to the rest of summer vacation before school begins, some to Poland for Hope Singers, and still others to summer college work. We wish you all the best in the remainder of your summer. May the Lord who gives and guides our song continue the seeking and healing and transforming of which this tour has been a part. 

Kyler Martin
PR Manager

The morning stretched before us like a blank canvas. And we filled it with beautiful things, like sleep, coffee, shopping and breakfast and what-have-you. Esther Strickler, Rosalie, and I left our lodgings at an appropriately late hour and headed to Berlin. There we shopped. My favorite find was sea turtle fabric. Then we went to Ginger House Coffee, lured by the menu’s vague promise of bubble tea.🧋 Sadly, they turned out to only have popping boba and we wanted tapioca. But we consoled ourselves with other drinks (mine was a mango matcha with dragonfruit cold foam and it did not disappoint). We also crashed a Miller Munny Meeting at the same coffee shop, oops. 

At 12:30 most of us gathered in the basement of St John’s for lunch. Then at 2:30 we met at Dover High for rehearsing and a (warm) photo shoot. Kyler got us into formation and then said “okay, close your eyes . . . 1,2,3 . . . open!” Click click click. The theory was that closing your eyes before made for a relaxed face on the picture. The only problem was when some people forgot to open their eyes, thinking that “close your eyes” meant the same as “go to sleep” and was a cue for a standing-up Power Nap. 

Later in the afternoon the LCS ensemble joined us to rehearse Indodana and also ate supper with us. We were excited for the concert after our days of recording, and it was great to collaborate with LCS. They are talented young musicians. Overall the concert went quite well, though we struggled a bit to hear each other. Afterwards we enjoyed, as always, mingling with the audience. Later that evening there was a party for Oasis people of yore (there were lots of Oasis alumni in the audience) and there was a Dairy Queen run for this human. It was a lovely day. 

Abigail Heatwole
Soprano 1

Twila Diefenbacher
Alto 1

Our much-needed day of travel and rest dawned warm. After bidding good-bye to my alma mater, Faith Builders, I loaded the bus with my other comrades, and we motored back to Holmes County, Ohio. On the bus, conversations murmured, Miller Munny made their chocolate distributions, and a brief game of “Poetry for Neanderthals” popped up. It was reported to me that Johnny Miller described “milk” as “cow juice.”

We arrived back at Legacy Christian School in Ohio around 12:45, and the rest of the day was up to each person’s discretion. One of the most pressing needs for many people was washing their clothes. Laundry is actually an important logistical issue on choir tours. Yet, laundry does not define us, as a local church sign reminds us with its upcoming sermon title: “We Are Not Laundry.”

Sleeping, eating, chats with friends, and volleyball were some of the other prime activities of the day. I, along with others of the choir, enjoyed a very informative tour of the Behalt led by Karita Keim. My day was topped off with goldfinch sightings and absolutely scrumptious dining at the Mexican Grill.

Cari Hochstetler
Soprano 1