Wisconsin UCC Gospellers
God is Still Singing!

 

A walking tour of Harlem, led by natives Rev. Carolyn Blair and Rev. Ruby Wilson
Farewell dinner at Safe Haven UCC

The GOSPELLERS Reflect on Their Pilgrimage in Germany

The GOSPELLERS sang around Germany for 2½ weeks in June and July 2019.


Building bridges across countries through the shared love of gospel music

By Don Tubesing

This is the picture I take back home with me in my soul. Seven gorgeous people (ah, but those two words are redundant!) from right to left are as follows. (In the chaos and without a pen, I did not get their names down, but the beauty is there.)

German Host mom (Wiese) and refugee women/sisters/daughters
Home country………

Afghanistan
Eritrea
Brother KC — Wisconsin
Sister Carolyn — New York Iraq
Syria

This is what God’s created world looks like!
…and this is our job to make it so over and over again.


An amazing experience!

By Cathy Jones

Not a day goes by that I don’t tell another person (many times total strangers) about our amazing experience in Germany.

I say experience rather than trip because the experience was as high for me as the most amazing memory I have of summer camp as a child.

So many relationship levels were and are – touched for me – personally, between WI Gospellers, between New York and Wisconsin Gospellers, Germans and Americans, Americans and host families, the young and young at heart …!


From our director…

By Martin Ulrich

I just wanted to thank you all for doing such an amazing job, both musically and socially! You sounded great, and have formed some fantastic new relationships.

We have quite an amazing ministry here, when you consider that we are doing is just what our mission envisions: to bridge cultural divides and touch souls.

Some of the moments that will remain in my memory for a long time.

  • the fire in the eyes of the Frankenberg orchestral musicians during He Never Failed Me
  • the open-mouthed awe of the little girl in the front row in Kalkar when KC and Carolyn were singing the Never Failed Me Vamp
  • the unbridled joy of the people in Wiehe as we Broke Bratwürste Together
  • of course, that coming together of those young women in the picture with Don Tubesing’s reflection, all of whom have felt both the tragedy of displacement and the tenuous hope of a new belonging
  • the gorgeous tone quality of the sopranos and altos at the beginning of Dirait-on
  • the moment when the tenors finally nailed what Jesus said to Dicodemus
  • when Markus Wagener in Frankenberg said “I didn’t expect you to be THAT good”
  • when so many of you said how close you had gotten to your host families
  • the tears in the eyes of some of the hosts when we left Frankenberg, and Essen

We now have a musical ministry that is working on bridging the divides between African-American and (sort of) German-American, US and Germany, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq and Syria.


 

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