My Story: Bells Are Ringing

 At the age of fourteen, soon after discovering a new passion for music, my friend began telling me about this handbell choir she and her brother had joined. When they had been ringing for about four months, she said to me hopefully one day, "There's an opening in our choir. It's lots of fun."

   And that was how I came to learn the art of English handbells! 

   Our choir director had one focus: to share God's love through our music. When I came on, I got the second easiest spot, up with the high bells. My friend was three spots down from me, also in an easy spot. For those not familiar with handbells, the higher the bell, the smaller it is. Also, everyone except the bass ringers had around three to five bells each. Usually only two or three of them would be used in one song, so it wasn't that hard! Because the bass bells were not used as often, bass players could have six to eight bells each. For performance, we had two concert seasons: Christmas and Mother's Day. Then we'd take a summer break from weekly practices. 

   For the next seven and a half years, every week during the school year (except over Christmas break), I would come on Thursday evening for practice. I loved it! 

   I could share with you numerous memories made from handbells. News and Prayer requests time, and how we saw the power of praying as a community group when God brought slow but still miraculous healing to a relative of someone in the other choir. Speed Stacks and rhythm games, played over snack, and the mad scramble at the end when our director would shout, "One minute warning!" and all the girls would finish their first helping of snack while the boys shoved a hasty second helping into their mouths.  Post-practice tag games (we had trouble finding a spot that could safely be "tee" without damaging the church lawn, the church flowerbeds, or our palms and wrists!). Polishing parties, often rounded off with do-it-yourself banana splits and pop. Or was that the dress rehearsal? Pre-concert performances at local seniours' homes, chats with the residents, and crazy mishaps (like the time our fabric gloves, worn to protect the brass from tarnish, got left at the church, and we had to wear latex gloves for an hour and a half!). Carpooling to events, and heartfelt chats with friends on the road. Christmas "Secret Santa" gift exchanges, where we went crazy finding ways to hide our identity from the recipient we were giving to. Skits, complete with small costume props like camo bandanas, neon wigs, or Christmas tree hats, where we all got a chance to express our dramatic side. Crazy pre-concert prep, where our director rushed about like a whirlwind. Elegant Mother's Day concerts, complete with an intermission for dessert, where we, the ringers, waited on tables, then scrambled to gulp down our own generous slabs of cake and make it back upstairs in time for the skit (which always followed intermission). Relaxed Christmas concerts, with a cookie potluck after the first concert and before the second one (and that made a really long day for us, so we needed the sugar!). Concert mishaps -- turning two pages instead of one, skit moustaches falling off halfway through, discovering the bell you need for this particular song was at the other end of the U-shaped series of tables and slowing everyone down until it was found. And of course, ringing all the wrong bells in the song everyone knows, only to discover that, oddly enough, the audience still thought it sounded great (for a reason you can't understand). 

   All the little things that combined to make one wonderful experience. And to teach us an important life lesson: whatever happens, keep playing, keep smiling, and keep your eyes on the Director.  

   

You can't see me, but I am in this photo. I'm on the left side of the table, behind the woman in black who is ringing (not the singer). If you look closely, you can see my bun poking out from behind her. This is both choirs. Ours was the "white" choir.