So. There is this annual Youth Easter celebration parade from the entire protestant churches in our province. Huge. Thousands of youth from across the province gathered in one place to worship and then march from point A to B. Me and a friend from my church -Rio- was elected as commitee member for our region, and we were appointed to be in charge of the attractions during the parade. We were supposed to setup a 'moving' stage that consist of acoustic musicians and singers. And then after that, the dancers.
This was pretty much like the -legendary gig- where all things went from bad to worse except this one went a little differently. So lemme walk you through it.
We were told by other commitee members that the mini truck we'll be using for that day (the plan was to use a loading container at first.)will be borrowed from one of the youth. Fine. So Mini Truck: Check.
And then we need to find an electricity generator around 2000 watts to accomodate all the gears and amps. One of the commitee members has one at his house. Fine. So Generator: Check.
Generators are unstable. They need a stabilizer with the same amount of watts. And the one from the other comittee members doesn't have one. So we borrowed from another friend who has a generatior with built-in stabilizer. So Generator + Stabilizer: Check.
The tambourine & banners dancers from our church agreed to perform on that day. Fine. So Dancers: Check.
We were prepared. What could possibly go wrong right?.
Right.
The day before the parade, the commitee chairperson for our region wanted to hold a prayer session. We were told to meet at 9pm. Okay. So me, Rio and 2 other friends (they tag along to pick up the mini truck and generator)arrived there at 9.15pm and as expected--the chairperson isn't even there yet. There were only us and 3 other commitee members. Fine. So we waited. 10 minutes later we got a call from the head of the commitee. The prayer thing was cancelled and we were supposed to settle things that weren't done yet and the chairperson with her prayer partner will pray for us. Fine. But then things went downhill from here and I started to cuss inside..
So now we went to the head of commitee's house. We were about to get the mini truck. We call the owner, she said that the car was lent to her father's friend, and we gotta pick it up from a place 30 minutes drive from our place. Fine. But then she said again that she's feelin uneasy to go and pick up the car because it was already late. Yeah right. It's only 10pm. And if you ask me I'll gladly bang the door because I really frickin have to! It's for tomorrow for goodness' sake! Grrrr. Long story short, we were asked to find another mini truck. Son of a.. Nevermind.
So we decided to split up and look for mini truck for rent. At 10.30pm. Right. We went to look for it anyway, and while I made the calls, Rio and the others went to pick up the generator. I made lots of calls, and some of my friends helped out to call their friends asking for it, and even looked for it through the newspaper ads but even until 1.30am we couldn't find one. We are so screwed.
So the generator finally arrived. We checked on it, tried to turn it on, we couldn't. The starter switch doesn't work, the rope trigger is gone, and even though we used some plastic rope to trigger it, it wouldn't work. So we are so frickin screwed. First the truck, now the generator. Great. The last option we have is to rent a Microlet (our public transportation) with full sound system in it so the dancers may dance to the music comin from it.
I went home unsettled. The parade tomorrow will be ruined. No... So I prayed so hard before bed. I cussed in my mind a lot by now -and i feel guilty- but now the Lord is my only hope. So I decided to leave it to The One with bigger hands.
So. 7.30am I went out looking for Rio and tried to figure things out. Then somehow one of our neighbor heard about our situation and offer their generator for us to use. According to them, it has stabilizer inside. Although the starter switch is broken, we can still use the rope trigger for it to work. With a little gasoline, we tried it, and it worked! YESSSHHHH! Mini truck left. It's already past 8am. We were supposed to gather with other youths from the region at 9am.
One of our other neighbor has a mini truck for rent and he heard about our situation as well. So he went to pick it up and gave it to us!!
This was pretty much like the -legendary gig- where all things went from bad to worse except this one went a little differently. So lemme walk you through it.
We were told by other commitee members that the mini truck we'll be using for that day (the plan was to use a loading container at first.)will be borrowed from one of the youth. Fine. So Mini Truck: Check.
And then we need to find an electricity generator around 2000 watts to accomodate all the gears and amps. One of the commitee members has one at his house. Fine. So Generator: Check.
Generators are unstable. They need a stabilizer with the same amount of watts. And the one from the other comittee members doesn't have one. So we borrowed from another friend who has a generatior with built-in stabilizer. So Generator + Stabilizer: Check.
The tambourine & banners dancers from our church agreed to perform on that day. Fine. So Dancers: Check.
We were prepared. What could possibly go wrong right?.
Right.
The day before the parade, the commitee chairperson for our region wanted to hold a prayer session. We were told to meet at 9pm. Okay. So me, Rio and 2 other friends (they tag along to pick up the mini truck and generator)arrived there at 9.15pm and as expected--the chairperson isn't even there yet. There were only us and 3 other commitee members. Fine. So we waited. 10 minutes later we got a call from the head of the commitee. The prayer thing was cancelled and we were supposed to settle things that weren't done yet and the chairperson with her prayer partner will pray for us. Fine. But then things went downhill from here and I started to cuss inside..
So now we went to the head of commitee's house. We were about to get the mini truck. We call the owner, she said that the car was lent to her father's friend, and we gotta pick it up from a place 30 minutes drive from our place. Fine. But then she said again that she's feelin uneasy to go and pick up the car because it was already late. Yeah right. It's only 10pm. And if you ask me I'll gladly bang the door because I really frickin have to! It's for tomorrow for goodness' sake! Grrrr. Long story short, we were asked to find another mini truck. Son of a.. Nevermind.
So we decided to split up and look for mini truck for rent. At 10.30pm. Right. We went to look for it anyway, and while I made the calls, Rio and the others went to pick up the generator. I made lots of calls, and some of my friends helped out to call their friends asking for it, and even looked for it through the newspaper ads but even until 1.30am we couldn't find one. We are so screwed.
So the generator finally arrived. We checked on it, tried to turn it on, we couldn't. The starter switch doesn't work, the rope trigger is gone, and even though we used some plastic rope to trigger it, it wouldn't work. So we are so frickin screwed. First the truck, now the generator. Great. The last option we have is to rent a Microlet (our public transportation) with full sound system in it so the dancers may dance to the music comin from it.
I went home unsettled. The parade tomorrow will be ruined. No... So I prayed so hard before bed. I cussed in my mind a lot by now -and i feel guilty- but now the Lord is my only hope. So I decided to leave it to The One with bigger hands.
So. 7.30am I went out looking for Rio and tried to figure things out. Then somehow one of our neighbor heard about our situation and offer their generator for us to use. According to them, it has stabilizer inside. Although the starter switch is broken, we can still use the rope trigger for it to work. With a little gasoline, we tried it, and it worked! YESSSHHHH! Mini truck left. It's already past 8am. We were supposed to gather with other youths from the region at 9am.
One of our other neighbor has a mini truck for rent and he heard about our situation as well. So he went to pick it up and gave it to us!!
So the guys loaded all the amps, gears and generator, and then we tried to turn the stuff on, and it worked!! YESSSHHHHH!! But It's already past 9am and it started to rain. So we turned off the generator and everything. Then other commitee members started calling me because everyone is ready to go except our youth.
Still we need to find a tent to save all the gears and one of the neighbor offered us their tent. So yet again, we were saved. 2 of the commitee members were in the gathering venue and they noticed that it started to rain so they came to bring us tent. And told us that everyone was leaving without us except the commitee. The commitee member had a little conflict with the region's chairperson because the commitee didn't want to leave us. Aww.
We parked the car somewhere with shades, and then most of the youth were getting into the car ready to go. We agreed to startup the generator now, and set the sound on our way to the venue. Fine. Then one of my friend pulled the rope trigger. He pulled and pulled and the rope snapped.
Okay. I don't even know how to feel. It's now almost 10am.
The owner of the mini truck - our neighbor, offered his generator for us. It's the whole package. 3500 watts with minimum noise, and built in stabilizer.
Everything were supplied by our neighbors.
OH THANK GOD!!!!!!!!
*reminded me about the Samaritans back then in BolehLand..
So off we went.
The setup there were pretty easy, we just need to deal with feedbacks and echoes from the mic and guitars. So we repositioned ourselves and et voila!
Guess what. We played for more than 4 hours, and to sip some water was our only time out. My hands were sore. I can't wave my right hand, and my left hand's fingers hurt when I type. Longest gig ever. Under the sun. My fedora was my only shade. I am tanned now.
This one was very refreshing and somehow I felt pretty cool. I have never played on a moving stage before. Not even in BolehLand. Our audience was people on the roadside. I didn't know how many kilometres we went through in slo-mo, but it was damn far. 3 of the youths passed out along the way.
One thing that I've learned: Surrender.
Surrender doesn't mean NOT to do a thing and wait for a miracle to happen. But instead, keep trying, ask God for help and leave the outcome to Him. Even if things doesn't work out, then fine. It is still God's will. He has better plans and whether you like it or not, He holds the ultimate control over everything. We still gotta do our part and we let Him do His. You see, the help from our neighbor came unexpectedly and all the stuff worked out at the very last minute. We have no control over it. We need no sorcery to get things done, but things will eventually come into place if we surrender.
*I'll post the technical lessons I've got on another post, kay?
