New Light

By: ED WISMER
Ocean City Sentinel critic
June 18, 2009

“OCEAN CITY - The Ocean City Tabernacle continues to expand its campus and its many services to Ocean City and surrounding areas. Under the direction of Tabernacle President Dr. Richard Stanislaw, the programs at the venerable and growing seasonal place of worship at the Tabernacle continually expands its offerings of high quality music and highly qualified and respected speakers and youth activities keeping the general public awareness of the Tabernacle high. An important innovation has been the Kull Youth Center which offers Christian entertainment and youth activities unequalled in this area.

Last Friday evening the Youth Center hosted a concert by the New Light 2009 Summer Music Team. The septet of singers and performers is from Messiah College which is located in the Harrisburg, Pa., vicinity. The personable talented and wholesome young singers utterly enchanted their sizable audience with a largely a cappella program of traditional sacred music in unique modern arrangements, contemporary hymns and some intriguing African songs sung in Swahili dialect. Some of the music featured unusual percussion effects and dancing gestures.

Tim Agnolutto is a junior public relations major from Dunkirk, Md., while Richard Chagnon is a senior theater major from Windsor Locks, Conn. The other two male members of New Light are Jonathan Eastburn, of Chalfont, Pa., who is a sophomore at Messiah College majoring in music education, and Bryant Vance, of Lowville, N.Y., a senior theater major. Erin Smidt is a sophomore music education major from West Milford, N.J., while Melissa Shumaker of New Bloomfield, Pa., is a senior church music major with a soprano voice that would earn her an operatic career. Sarah Wingard is a junior music education major from Harrisonburg, Va., whose bio says she is very fond of Oaxaca, Mexico. Whether as soloists or when singing in ensemble they were all superb.

Their harmony was perfect and they continually changed key without once going astray. On Saturday morning New Light performed again for a large Tabernacle sponsored breakfast gathering.”

Tomorrow we head to Washington D.C. to sing at the World Vision Headquarters office! It sounds like a really neat gig and we are excited for it. After that we will head to Virginia, spend the night in a hotel and then Thursday we will go to the Highland Retreat for the day to lead worship and work with the kids!

Today we talked about all the different camps and took some time to learn some camp songs. It was fun, but we got a lot of strange looks when we were doing hand motions and weird dances in front of Eisenhower Campus Center… haha.

Anyway, hopefully we’ll get a little bit of time to walk around D.C. tomorrow, but if not, our hotel has a pool! We’ll try to post some pictures later this week! Sorry we have been a little slow with the updates - we’ll try to be better!!

so we had a little bit of extra time because we ended up not having any service projects to do. so that was nice! But come tomorrow we will be very busy! Tomorrow we have three gigs and they are in PA and MD. So lots of van time tomorrow. Then we have some gigs in the early part of the week and then Wednesday we head down to DC, then spend the night in VA and go spend the day at a camp working with younger kids… should be a fun week though!

We went to see Bryan and Karah’s baby - pics will be posted shortly! Our concerts this past week went really well! We have our entire set memorized so we don’t take our music with us anymore which is really nice.

Anyway, we’ll most likely post again soon with pictures and a longer update!
Hope you are all enjoying summer!

Well, it sure is nice to be home after the long trip this weekend, but the beach was wonderful! We arrived before lunch on Friday in Ocean City, NJ. It rained part of the way down, so we weren’t sure if we would actually be able to enjoy a sunny day on the beach, but it cleared up as we set up the system in a sweet new youth center at the New Jersey Tabernacle.

What a great space! After eating a delicious lunch, we headed to the beach for a few hours. In spite of the freezing water, we body surfed for a while and then crashed on the beach. Erin and Sarah built a nice little sand cottage while Melissa and the boys slept.



In spite of taking plenty of sunscreen, Jon and Tim ended up with some pretty bad burns…
But it was still wonderful! We ate a quick dinner at a Greek diner before running back to change for our concert. We had no idea how many people would show, but we had quick a crowd and an exciting concert. Visiting was great and then we headed off to the boardwalk for a nice of cotton candy, caramel corn, and deep-fried oreos! (which were quite delicious!) we walked the whole stretch of the boardwalk and then enjoyed the cool sand on the walk back before crashing on the huge bean bags upstairs and calling it an early evening!
Breakfast the next morning was delicious! We sang for some VIPS at the tabernacle and then enjoyed a few more hours on the beach before packing up and setting off for Erin’s hometown. Somehow God really blessed us with great weather, because it started raining again on our way!


After some yummy picnic food and setting up our system again, we all went our separate ways to our host family’s houses and enjoyed a relaxing evening there! Although I must admit, it was quite strange being separated for the evening! Our reunion this morning was nice with our concert at Erin’s church and a picnic after that as well. The sun finally came out right before we left and we enjoyed a sunny, almost 4 hour drive back for our Harrisburg concert this evening. Meeting up with old friends as well as new was great as we sang in the outdoor pavilion and watched a gorgeous sunset on our ride home.


Now we can settle in and enjoy a day off!
By the way, I’ve finally figured out how to upload photos (as you can see!) so check out our group photos page for some more! We’ll upload them as we get a chance! Thanks for all of your support and prayers!
Melissa

We have been so busy this week! We had two gigs yesterday and two gigs today and we are leaving in about 6 hours to go to New Jersey for the weekend! First we’re going to Ocean City - we have two concerts there and time at the beach/boardwalk! It should be a lot of fun! Then we head north to West Milford, NJ which is Erin’s hometown! We will sing at her church Sunday morning, then drive back for a concert in Harrisburg Sunday evening.

The past two days have been great! Lots of quality van time - and this is just the beginning! Today our concert was longer than we had anticipated and we had another gig to get to that was an hour away! It was all ok in the end. We set a new record for breaking down our sound system though - 10 minutes! It was pretty amazing.

Yesterdays gigs also went well… one in the morning then we came back to campus for a few hours, then we went to Lancaster and sang at Brethren Village. Then we went to get icecream with Jon’s parents and Mr. T - it was great! Then we drove back and it was storming so bad! So, naturally, we did what we do best - we sang about it! “A rumble of thunder, a rumble of thunder!” But you wouldn’t know what song that comes from unless you’ve heard us sing… so come here us sing! Harrisburg on Sunday night! See the “Travel Schedule” link on the right hand column of this page for an address and time.

Have a great weekend! Probably shouldn’t expect another post until Sunday night… maybe sooner… we’ll see!

Today we rehearsed, did group work outs, went to panera, and rehearsed more. After working out in the guys room it smelled awful, so Erin did the guys a favor and provided them with some air freshener. So now their room smells like lemonade.

Tomorrow we have two gigs! We’ll let you know how it goes!

Now it seems as though we are having a group tea party in the guys room. Haha. We’re such a crazy group.

:D

Today we went to meet with Shawn Spear, who will be leading the youth section of Roxbury Camp in August… It was a lot of fun… we played video games and hung out for a bit, then we went out to a Mexican restaurant for lunch, then we came back and did a few things. He had us write down our goals for ourselves and for the group for this summer, and we sealed them in an envelope and we’ll get them back at the end of the summer - it will be fun to see how things end!

Then we came back and rehearsed! Learned a few new songs, then we went to dinner at Dockside Willies and ate outside by the water. It was a good meal.

Then we came back and rehearsed more. We just finished and it’s almost 11 pm. Ew. But GOOD NEWS!! Tomorrow is our LAST scheduled rehearsal day! From there on out it will be concerts everyday! We are so excited!

Anyway. It’s been really great, and it seems that we’re prepared as a team to get on the road!

Sorry this is shorter, but not much has happened! We’ll have good stories soon, I’m sure!

Post again soon!

So today we had our first of many gigs and it went really well! We sang at two services at Mt. Gilead UM Church in Shermansdale, PA, which is about an hour from the College. New Light often begins their summer tour at this church, so they are used to being first

Yesterday (Saturday) we SLEPT IN! Then we had a brief rehearsal in the afternoon and then we went to the music store to pick some things up that we have been needing…We ordered a new head for the djembe. It took a long time. I would also like to take the time to introduce claire to you. Claire is the name of the GPS that we use. So if we ever refer to her in a later post, you will know who she is. She is also British. And the reason I bring her up is because we used her for the first time this weekend. She was a little bit slow at figuring things out at first. But, fortunately, we were able to figure out where to go based off of signs and common sense - I mean, hey… we’re in college… We got this. But eventually Claire kicked into gear. Now she’s ready for the summer.

Anyway, then we went to Melissa’s house, had dinner and hung out for a bit and played ladder golf - it was so much fun! We actually went back to her house for lunch & dinner today after the church services, hung out, and at one point we were all asleep on the floor, couch, or porch. But eventually we all woke up and we went outside hung around/played more ladder golf - that game is addicting! Some of us also played with the kittens that Melissa’s cats had. There were five of them around and they were so tiny! Kind of amusing to watch too… And even more exciting, Jon actually let the kittens nurse on his lap - he was also referred to as the nursing station. ha…

But yes, it has been a great first week and a half. We’re almost out of rehearsals - we have some rehearsal Monday and Tuesday, but starting Wednesday we’re all on the road! Ocean City, NJ next weekend… should be fun! And plus the adventures will only get better once we get on the road!

Ok, more later. And we’re also still working on pictures!

Today we had our mock concert and it went great! Eunice said something along the lines of this being the best mock concert she’s ever heard a new light group do, so that was encouraging.

So, that was pretty much all afternoon. Then this evening we went over to Bryan and Karah’s house, and they cooked dinner for us and Eunice came with her two grandkids and we watched the video of our concert from today (which had some very amusing parts too it. we had a good laugh), had icecream with warm brownies, and just hung out. mmm. it was great.

Other than that not too much has happened - we’re doing some rehearsing tomorrow afternoon to put some finishing touches on things for Sunday - which is our first REAL concert. It’s so exciting.

Hmm… what else… well.. we are working on figuring out how do to pictures… so as soon as we know, we’ll post pics. We have quite a few that are blog-worthy.

Hope you’re all enjoying summer! It’s finally supposed to be nice this weekend! It might call for another breeches adventure… we’ll see

So this past Sunday we were tubing on the breeches. Nice sunny afternoon - warm out. We bought three inflatable 2-person boats from Walmart. We began the journey with all of our tubes connected because we thought it might make the bonding experience a little bit more meaningful. Ha. Anyway, we were floating along doing our thing and then we got to the “rapids” section of the breeches so we unconnected ourselves. Bryant and Tim took the lead with their boat and the others followed behind. Before I go any further, I should mention that Bryant and Tim were the only pair that did not have a paddle. They were, in fact, paddle-less. So after the rapid section they were floating ahead of the rest of the group. All of a sudden we heard a loud *crack crack crack* and about 100 feet in front of them a HUGGGE tree fell and smashed straight across the breeches. Now when I say it was a huge tree, I mean that it was huge. At first we all just stared in awe as this huge thing fell across and blocked the majority of the creek. Then we realized that, had we been about 15 second further ahead, we would have died! Anyway, it left a gap of about 4 feet for us to squeeze our boats through to get around. Keep in mind Bryant and Tim were still paddle-less. They got around the tree just fine. Melissa and Rich also did great. Jon and Erin, however, had some issues with getting around the tree - it took them a little bit longer.

It was a special experience. The rest of the time on the breeches we were paranoid that more trees might fall on us. But it didn’t happen. We did see a water snake floating a little bit ahead of us though! We managed to avoid contact.

Somebody cut us off in the Messiah van tonight. They didn’t stand a chance.

Tonight we are all just kind of sitting around working on intros/powerpoint/watching a movie/doing nothing/eating cookies.

We can’t figure out how to upload pictures to this thing. Any suggestions?

First concert tomorrow! Kind of… it’s not a REAL real concert. But a mock concert. And we’ll be video taped and stuff. First REAL REAL concert will be on Sunday.

More to come soon!
That’s all. The end!