Acappella in Jamaica, 2005

Well, another successful trip to Jamaica, mon! God brought over 3000 wild, screaming Acappella fans to the concert at NCU (a university) in Mandivlle, Jamaica. It totally rocked! Dwayne and Lewin and the entire CAE (Christian Arts & Entertainment) entourage did a fantastic job promoting the concert and making sure everything ran smoothly. As usual, they treated us like we were Bob Marley himself…okay maybe like kings anyway. Marshae – who was with us the whole time - kept us in line and made sure no one took advantage of us (especially not the security guard at Devon House). Thanks Marshae! A lot of crazy things happened this trip, which is normal for Jamaica, but also for Acappella trips in general. It took us the usual 2 hours or more to get through Customs with our sound equipment, and ourselves. We rode around in a van driven by Mr. Murray (call me Wayne, he said). Sometimes he evaded pot holes by driving the van like it was a Yamaha R1 sport bike (no, not everything in my world is about sport bikes…almost everything). After the airport, we went to a press conference at The Jamaican Observer (a huge Jamaica newspaper) and convened around what seemed like the worlds largest boardroom table. Okay, who has ever heard of this: they gave each of us our own cell phone, with our own number to use while in Jamaica! We had too much fun with those. Thanks MiPhone! That night we showed up for a radio interview and recorded a few jingles for the station. The next day, we were able to visit a children’s home with kids who are physically and mentally handicap (the same one we visited on our last Jamaican trip). It was filled with children that you might only see in a Medical book of human diseases. Singing for them was a joy! Later, we took a picture of a complete rainbow (actually there were 2 complete rainbows), where the end of it was a couple hundred yards from us. I had never seen the end of the rainbow before…yes there was a pot of gold and yes we are all rich now ;-). That night we had Chinese food and had the concert. The concert was so much fun to say the least, and God worked in His ways, as He always does. Nice sound D-Money (Darren, our cool soundman) Jordan had to fly back to the US after the concert, so he’s not in some of the pictures. The next day, we went to the beach and swam for hours. We went on an “adventure”, which means we hiked out over hundreds of yards of crag coral that would cut your feet, almost got swept into the raging sea, both of Zac G’s sandals broke, and he had to tackle the razor sharp coral barefooted… but we managed it all without too many injuries, and we had a BLAST in the process. That night we had to get I-scream (ice-cream) from the Devon House, which was the bomb! I climbed a flag pole, fell, and ripped my shorts and my leg (that’s all normal too). The next day, before our flight departed, we took a trip to buy “crafts” (souvenirs). We all got some good authentic Jamaican stuff. Then we went to visit Port Royal, where pirates used to live. Then we headed to the airport, flew through Customs with no problem, and missed our flight. Yes, we missed our flight. So as I type this we are still in Jamaica. It’s rough being stuck on a Caribbean Island in a nice hotel with good food and good people. We’ll return to the US tomorrow. Thank you Dwayne, Lewin, Marshae, Wayne Murray, and all of CAE! Let’s do it again!