And we're back in the real world...

though, truthfully, I think the Lebanese have more "real world" experiences than we France-dwellers and the highly protective government who serves us.

Sunday we did get to Wadih's church, All Saints Church, Beirut, where they celebrated the baptism of an American security specialist present in Beirut to help train the Lebanese police, the departure of another such person at the end of his tour of duty, and an excellent testimony/sermon from a Dutch missionary who works IN the Palestinian camps (one awesome story of actually talking to the Hezbollah leadership about his faith!!). The church building itself appears to be fairly new, but I think it replaced an older building on the same site. The site used to be right on the waterfront in the central business district, but is now a few hundred meters from the sea due to some land reclamation. There are huge building projects all around the church, as it is in the prestige quarter of Beirut.

After the service, the church held a community lunch in which we partook - more humus, more unleavened bread with meat in, but also a refreshingly western-style cake to celebrate the baptism (the church blog has photos of the baptism, by the way). We met up with a number of people that we had already met during the tour - Karen (the clinical psychologist), Greg and Kristina from the Haigazian University, the staff of Youth For Christ, to name just a few.

After that we went to Johnny's Cocktails for the best fruit cocktail smoothy-type drinks in town! These things really are good, but very heavy on the stomach due to the heavy clotted cream-like stuff they use to make them. Johnny's is the same we visited after the Night of the Shredders. I didn't mention: when we visited on Friday night, the place was about to close (after all it WAS 2:00 am), but they stayed open especially for us!

During this time of indulgence we had a very productive debrief with Wadih and Lindy.

We then returned to the school to pack, before being picked up by Wadih and family for a farewell meal of mezze at a small restaurant in the center of town! "Mezze?" you ask. Well the Lebanese version is basically lots of tasters of Lebanese dishes - including, of course, various forms of humus (I'm beginning to get a little tired of humus... NAH, not really - BRING IT ON!). Karen was again there, and was dutifully plagued anew with questions (we have a reputation to keep up), along with Philippe, who was the compere on Saturday night - turns out he was brought up in Boulder, Colorado, as was Lisa my wife!

After hugs and exchanges of gifts with Wadih and family and, back at LES, Jamileh, we got to bed fairly early, to prep for the early rise on Monday...

which was at about 5:00am in order to get to the airport for our 8:30 flight. We checked in and tried to get Jon (and his essential support team, of course) a place in 1st class due to his extremely optimistic connection schedule in Istanbul. Unfortunately, the check-in girl seemed to interpret "would it be at all possible to have us all sit together in 1st class?" as "could you please separate us as widely as possible at the back of economy class?" - oh well!

The flight was uneventful, the arrival slow, and the disappearance of Jon precipitous, once he'd made it through the 100's waiting at passport control. We learned later that he had in fact made all his connections despite being stopped by security numerous times on account of the number of countries that had stamped his passport on Monday! The rest of us headed to Istanbul by the more sedate means of bus and boat, where I stayed with Chris and Sarah for the night (my travel agent not having been as trusting of the vagaries of international travel as Jon's).

Tuesday, then, took me back to Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for my own second-and-third leg flights to Paris, where I was met by my good friend Lance. 20 minutes later I was enjoying a boisterous reunion with the family, handing out pressies (Turkish Delight for all) and recounting anecdotes of the trip - which would have been entirely unnecessary if they had JUST READ THIS BLOG!

There ya go - Lebanon 2009 is over - but I'll probably post a few sentences of post-tour thoughts in the days to come. Thanks for all the support, fiduciary and otherwise - it is only with the support of others that such trips (be it mine, or those of other short-term missionaries and tent-makers) are possible, and the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving sacrifice can be spread to those in darkness.

The Best of the Bands

OK, so there IS school on Saturday! Although the battle of the horns didn't transpire in the morning, the school bell continued its inexorable marking of lesson times, curtailing my sleep again. Well, OK, I did manage to remain embedded until about 11:00am. At that time Jamileh knocked on the door and said that she was making lunch for us. Therefore breakfast was reduced or even skipped by some of us.

Lunch was wonderful, if unpronounceable, and was followed by the now habitual hours on the computers responding to emails, sitting out power cuts, and writing blogs (and, when bored, bugging wives on Facebook messenger). These power cuts, it turns out, affect every neighborhood in Beirut for 3 hours a day - we are lucky not to have experienced their full effect since everywhere we have been seems to have been equipped with their own generator that kicks in when the power cut hits! Yet again the weather was cold and wet, making for a very dismal view from the computer room windows.

At 6:15pm the taxi arrived.

Oh COME ON!!! Just how hard is it to tell a taxi driver "Go to the Lebanese Evangelical School, pick up 4 guys and take them to such-and-such-a-place?? Either Wadih has far greater faith in our knowledge of Beirut and Arabic than he has a right to assume, or the taxi company phone service operators need rockets up their rear ends! Yes the taxi driver AGAIN turned up having no idea who he was there to collect nor where he was to take them - and not able to speak English! Happily THIS one had decent French so I was able to tell him "The Doctor's Union Building" in words and signs that got the general idea across to him, and we arrived with no further incident.

"The Doctor's Union" - not a phrase that immediately conjures up images of classic rock venues such as London's Hammersmith Odeon, or New York's CeeBeeGeeBees, but the fact is that the building does have a very nice 700-seater auditorium in its basement, which Wadih had managed to secure for the evening for his "Best of the bands" competition, along with adequate lighting and sound equipment for an event of this nature. The building itself is in a fairly central and accessible location as well.

We arrived to organized chaos - except that it wasn't organized! Takween, a Christian thrash metal band, who kinda co-sponsored the event by offering one of the prizes (a month of rehearsals at their rehearsal studios), were doing their sound check. Thrash metal, and its close cousins death metal, metal core, speed metal, extreme-ear-damage-metal etc etc, is very big in Lebanon (see the previous post) so using it to convey the Christian message could prove very fruitful even if it doesn't meet with everyone's approval. I forgot to mention that we had already met a couple of the Takween members on Thursday - that evening HAD attracted 4 non-staff and non-family members to Cherry's, even if it was by specific invitation (from Wadih).

Most of the other bands were hanging around having done their sound checks (mercifully for us :-)) - many of these (11 including us) were not Christian bands. Wadih was pulling out his hair because his security team had phoned to say they weren't coming, so he was trying to get some of his employees to act as security. There were also the inevitable problems with sound, light, video projection etc. At least for THIS event we weren't doubling as stage crew so we could sympathize but we would probably have just been in the way had we tried to help.

At last our turn came to sound check - which went off OK - no decent bass monitor (surprise surprise), stage sound WAY too loud etc, but otherwise fine. We then mingled with the other bands, and also took some time out to pray for the effectiveness of the evening and to have Burger King Whoppers!!! Yes, I know, they do not qualify as Haut Cuisine Libanais, but Burger King does not exist in France so it's always nice to have maybe one when I'm in a country that does welcome them (or at least tolerate them) - and it WAS a small one, not one of those "Supersized GigaMegaHyperWhoppers with extra meat and cheese".

The way the evening was supposed to work is that each of the 8 competing groups had who had signed up had been given (or sold, not sure which) 100 tickets that they were to sell on to their fans. During the course of the evening each band would play two songs, or for 10 minutes (we were never quite certain which). The fans were supposed to come, hear the music, and then at the end, vote for the band they preferred.

Takween, ourselves, and Resident Alien - a pop-rock group from the Youth For Christ organization, and thus peopled with members we had already met (including Lyndi on bass) - were guest bands, not in competition. During the vote and the count, Resident Alien would play one song, then we would play 4 and then announce the winner (Takween played earlier in the evening).

And, for the most part, that is indeed how the evening unfolded. Five of the competitors were also at the thrash end of the metal spectrum, but there were a couple of more Led Zeppelin-ish bands and one that was positively popish. The fans came and went from the actual auditorium as interest peaked and waned in each band - and unfortunately a few used the building's atrium as a smoking and drinking venue (out of the sight of the make-shift security team), but really nothing very bad happened and control of the largely non-Christian crowd was just about maintained.

The second to last band, named Purgatory, tried to argue with the compere when they were told to leave the stage after their two songs, but quickly acquiesced when they were informed that they were 5 seconds from being disqualified! The last band then arrived, and the drummer promptly split the bass drum skin (probably the most abused surface of the evening) with his blistering double pedal technique. That took a good 15 minutes to repair with bits of tape retrieved from around the building. They performed their second song and then tried to start a third. Upon being told to leave the stage the bass player mooned the compere! Ah, we are a fun-loving breed, us bass players!

We played to about 250 people and, as on Friday, went down VERY well, probably partly due to us breaking the monotony of thrash that had pervaded the evening. We then announced the winner - Purgatory!!! They were breathing a collective sigh of relief at having heeded their 5 second warning, then! Again the short performance prompted a number of discussions, CD sales, and fan contact sheet completion, thus enabling followup to occur.

Each of the 4 of us was then interviewed for the video record of the evening, after which we were transported back to the school by Lyndi, leaving poor Wadih and his stage crew with the unenviable task of clearing up the Doctor's Union ready for surgery on Monday. Now that sounds selfish, but you have to understand that in Lebanon it appears to be the case that if someone has committed to do something, they PERSONALLY do it (with their planned team if necessary) and NEVER ask for on-the-spot help, and very very rarely accept offers of such help - we would have been in the way had we stayed.

We arrived back at the school by midnight, with the promise of being collected the following day at 10:00am to go to Wadih's church. That meant a bit of a lie-in - providing the school didn't run on SUNDAYS too!!!

And thus the playing portion of the tour ended!

The night of the shredders

Friday, then, began very late - for the other three. I have the joy of hearing the parents arrive at the school to drop their progeny off for a day of education, starting at about 6:45am Monday to Friday. At that hour of the day their car horns are probably fully functional but apparently need further testing, and the one-lane road leading to the school is, evidently, the perfect place to sharpen those essential horn-pressing and dodgem-driving skills so necessary for daily survival in Beirut. I dozed a bit after the last stragglers had skidded and hooted their way off the mountain, but with the school bell ringing at 30 minute intervals, no further deep sleep was possible.

(A sage piece of advice: never leave your blog entry half completed and still in the editor when you have band mates using computers next to you - upon returning I found this little gem added to the previous paragraph: "Just so all of you are aware I'm a big silly poopy pants. Don't be afraid though kids love me and I can be pretty funny sometimes though it may be a bit infantile"!!!!!! Infantile????? I ask you!!!!!)

Part of morning was spent in quiet reading and 'shedding. This last word does not refer to the act of discarding a no-longer required hair covering (though that too was performed on this particular morning via a razor) but to the act of "wood shedding" - or practicing one's chosen instrument in private. I use this term in preference to "practicing" to convey to you just how cool and "integrated" into the music scene I have become. Hmmm.

Charles and I also risked our necks by taking a walk further up the mountain (in still essentially good weather) in search of a supermarket - a vain search in the end since all we could find were a couple of corner stores that didn't stock what we wanted (boxes of cereal and loaves of bread), a couple of patisseries and an inordinate number of gas stations and hole-in-the-wall junk shops.

Any health benefits derived from the bracing stroll were nullified by the tons of exhaust fumes that we inhaled during the excursion! The views were nice, though, excepting the severed bulls head hanging by its nostrils from the awning outside one of these stores (somebody needs to give the proprietors a lesson in marketing!).

Anyway, after "lunch" (the last of the ham purchased earlier in the week wrapped in the not-so-crispy crispy rolls we got from one of the patisseries) we had some excellent group time in discussion and prayer. Very encouraging indeed! After that we headed down to the computer lab to do emails and blogs, ending in the sudden sign-off that you saw two posts ago.

The taxi actually arrived about an hour later, and, true to form the driver had no idea who he was collecting nor where he was supposed to takes us! He did speak English though, so we managed to communicate, and, en route to Cherry's, he joked that he hoped our instrument cases truly contained instruments and not ordnance of any description. By this time the rain had well and truly settled in, but, despite that, we seemed to arrive quicker than the previous day with Wadih! The scene in the pub upon entry was completely different to the night before! There were already about 50 to 60 people there, mostly young guitarists and their possies. The sound system was half erected, and the other band scheduled to play an interlude spot was setting up their stuff. We mucked in to complete the setup and then agreed to take the interlude spot after the first round (a cunning ploy to play to more people - the first round would eliminate over half the guitarists who would then probably return home with their entourages, but the announcement of the eliminations would be after our intervention :-)).

Before competition started, we headed across the road (in the now torrential rain) to buy some groceries to tide us over until Monday, and to grab a bite to eat in what turned out to be a hookah restaurant - everybody there was smoking enormous hookahs of various scents, though we declined (counting on our second dose of secondary smoking in Cherrys later!).

Needless to say, the expected smoothness of the transition between each of 10 young Steve Vais (or choose your own guitar shredding hero) never transpired - each had their own particular effects pedal, and the pre-distributed tracks that they were to play along to were each EQd differently and had different volume levels. Added to that was the panel of professional musicians (some the top in their field in Lebanon) who were acting as judges, yelling at Wadih and the guitarists themselves to "lower the bass; bring up the guitar volume; change the mids". After a while these instructions were passed through one particular judge who resembled in both look and comportment Colonel Clink from Hogan's Heroes. I ended up as defacto pedal-changer to alleviate some of the congestion, though this didn't stop the first round running WAY over its allotted hour, and that after having started about an hour late too!

Though listening to 90 minutes of screaming guitar solos over the same selection of canned backing tracks is a bit wearing (even for the judges, as attested by Charles who was sitting and chatting with them), it cannot be denied that there was some serious talent on show - especially considering the age range which was 14 to 17! Every one of them had fantastic chops, but the real standouts understood that a solo consists of more than lightening scale playing - they displayed an understanding of the melodic and harmonic development of the ideas they were trying to convey. It was truly impressive, and having to follow them took some courage (I certainly admit that I personally am a LONG way from the musical maturity shown by some of these guys).

But we approached our slot of four songs (wisely having chosen 4 of the "hardest" sounding) in the best possible way - with outward confidence and assurance (whether or not we really FELT those things internally!) - and we hit big time. They loved us. The judges loved us (possibly because we DIDN'T play any screaming solos, but instead presented complete SONGS). We even got taped by the TV crew who had arrived at the tail end of round one, though what will become of that we have no idea. After we left the stage to roars of approval, Charles and Jon were mobbed for CDs and fan contact sheets - and those are the things that provide for lasting contacts from these tours, leading to deeper discussions and eventual conversions!

The rest of the evening passed off quietly - not! The 5 guitarists who made it through to the last round were subsequently required to play an improvised solo over a funk track that they had not heard before. For the later guitarists, this element of surprise was afforded by expelling them from the pub until it was their turn. After this final round the other band took the stage for - I am not making this up - a 20 minute guitar solo backed by the same four chords played over and over. I have no doubt that the band can play some truly good sounding stuff at a real concert (when they normally have a singer with them as well) but even THEY admitted that this was over doing it by a LOOONG way!!

During this eterno-solo, we were approached by the parents of one of the finalists because they had seen us at the Club Social last Saturday!! They told us how great it had been to hear us then, and how pleased they were to catch us again this evening!

With the solo-from-... well, not heaven anyway, mercifully over, the results were announced. The guitarist I thought should have won didn't (he came third) - but I stand by my assessment that he was by far the best musician (in the full sense of the word) of the lot.

The evening ended with friendly banter amongst the musicians and staff as we packed up Wadih's gear. Email addresses and Facebook IDs were exchanged, and I really think that Wadih, in particular, now has a reputation with Cherrys of provding the goods, and valuable new contacts, opening doors for later tours.

After stopping for smoothies, we dropped the gear off at the Doctor's Union (the location for Saturday's battle of the bands contest) and arrived back at the school at 3:30am. Well, at least Saturday morning there is no school so I won't have Mr Abdulah berating Mr Jones for not moving his vehicle fast enough after having dropped off Master Jones...

The gig that nearly wasn't

Ouch - it's too early - OK, it's 1:42pm and we just had lunch but we got in really late - or EARLY this morning in fact. Added to that the school is in the middle of a thunderstorm - literally in the middle of the clouds with rain/snow/sleet/hail falling all around and thunder echoing off the surrounding mountains - quite cool actually! My estimate of our altitude a couple of posts ago turns out to be woefully wrong - we are at about 2000 feet.

But let us not get ahead ourselves - this is Saturday and you have not heard about Thursday night, nor Friday yet.

So Thursday evening, we got the call that Wadih was finally on the way in the Dodge (that's the van-with-character, or VWC) about 20 minutes after we expected him, and saying he was 15 minutes away. He must be exhausted - he is starting his own work at about 6:00am each day and going on until the small hours to ferry us around and run sound too.

Anyway, he duly arrived and hauled us off to Cherry's pub well in the Christian quarter of downtown Beirut - it took quite a while to get there in fact. The pub turned out to be in the basement of a building that houses another pub and a couple of small cafe's. That meant carting the sound equipment down a small but steep flight of steps into the club.

Our first impression was "oh no"! And, in fairness to Wadih, he wouldn't have known how the pub looked since there had been some refurbishment since the last time he was there. The atmosphere is dark and smokey, with the bar close to the entry end and the very small stage at the far end. The pub is split into two areas length wise, with pool tables on one side and tables, chairs and couches on the other, which ends at the front of the stage. The stage had a piano, stool, and various bits of equipment on it that seemed to leave no room for us. And the owner seemed somewhat offhand and a little dismissive about helping us.

(You need to know that as I write these posts we get frequent power cuts that switch off the screen - happily the computers themselves are on a UPS, but it's still very frustrating).

Anyway we cleared the stage and started to set up - to find that Wadih (who had got his employees to load the van) had forgotten to bring Chris's kick pedal and drum stool seat, along with a basket that contained a number of essential cables. Now, a drum pedal was found by the bar owner, but even I wouldn't wish Chris to play a two hour gig perched on a drum seat without the stool - that's too painful a torture even for a Canadian. And without the cables we weren't gonna be making a lot of noise - so a very tired Wadih accepted the inevitable and went off in the VWC to retrieve the missing essentials, while we finished the setup as best we could and then sat down to burgers provided by the owner.

By now Bassem, the owner, had opened up - and turned out to be a highly intelligent and thoughtful guy with whom we struck up an immediate rapport. He was brought up a Christian, but now characterizes himself as an atheist, though agnostic skeptic might be a better description of the views he expressed (including the heart-felt "god bless" at the end of the evening). Anyway, he explained that he is a singer by profession, with a preference for the metal end of the rock spectrum (a preference borne out by the background music that was playing). He related how metal fans have been through a number of periods of persecution by the authorities, and how he himself had spent three short periods in prison! We were introduced to a couple of his brothers, his father, and his mother - all of whom comprised the sole clientele of the pub at the time, apart from an Armenian friend if his father who turned out to be a professional jazz drummer - and bore out his claims by trying out Chris's kit (AFTER the addition of the drum stool I hastily clarify!). Chris, Jon and I spent a while speaking to him of diverse subjects ranging from music to the Armenian massacres in Turkey in 1914. It transpired out he can speak fluent Turkish (which Chris and Charles are well on their way to as well).

Anyway, after the return of Wadih and the completion of the setup, we were told we should start playing at about 10:00 when more people should be around. At 10:00, when no-one else had graced the doorstep of the place, that was extended to 10:30 - and so on until at 11:30, with still only 6 people in the bar (other than us and Bassem himself!), we debated calling it off.

However we didn't - we decided to play a shortened set or about 10 or 11 songs to this miniscule audience, who sat through it and thoroughly enjoyed it - and here's the pay off: they loved us and asked if we would like to play a short guest spot the following night during their rock guitarist competition, which promised a far larger audience and possibly even TV coverage - and we NEARLY said NO (oh how dumb can we be!). The clincher was that Wadih had been asked to do the sound too, so the gear would be already there. Finally we agreed, and with that packed the essentials (the guitars themselves and some of the mikes) and made off to beddybyes at the school, via Dunkin' Donuts, arriving at about 2:30am.

A "Tyre-ing" Thursday

Come on, gimme a break, the puns are gonna be bad SOMETIMES!

The day began fairly... oh, wait, I haven't addressed Wednesday night's meal. So, the unknown place was a favorite felafel restaurant of Wadih's kids - and what we basically got was enough of every form of humus known to man to feed everyone at Thursday night's gig (which, when you get to that bit, you'll find isn't as impressive as it sounds right now). Just how many forms of humus ARE there?? Plain humus, humus with meat, humus with egg, humus with pine nuts, felafel (which is basically deep fried balls of humus) - I'm sure I have forgotten a few too! I DID manage to restrict my eating to only three of the Arabic tortilla things stuffed with veggies and humus in all its forms, only to be stuffed myself with 6 flavors of ice cream at the next stop. At least we finally GOT the promised ice cream (no, the stuff served for dessert on Wednesday did NOT count).

And so to Thursday - which started very promisingly weather-wise (and continued that way, just so you aren't waiting in suspense for news of flash floods and lightning strikes). From the window in the school's kitchen we have a spectacular view of the mountains further up from our own lofty altitude of 900 feet. What we HADN'T seen before was the snow-covered higher peaks behind the relative foothills in the foreground. Now they WERE - um - spectacular? (hold on, looking up synonyms...) sensational? pick your own here! We got our "taxi's coming" phone call at just before 11:00, and thankfully this time the driver both knew where we were supposed to go AND spoke very good English. Charles explored the limits of personal boundary intrusion again by asking him loads of questions, but, as always, managed to strike up a serious meaningful conversation. Due to the clarity of the day, the view coming down from the foot hills into central Beirut was breathtaking (or pick your own synonym again).

Our destination was the offices of Youth For Christ (again). The plan was for Wadih's brother-in-law, Johnny, to drive us down to Tyre, show us around, feed us, and get us back in time for that evening gig. It was a little disconcerting to find that a) his English isn't great, b) he took Charles's tongue-in-cheek offer to drive seriously (the offer was quickly retracted) and c) he'd never driven an automatic before, but the journey eventually got underway "safely" (I use the term loosely - we entered the Beirut traffic chaos in an appropriately aggressive manner).

Once he got used to the car, Johnny was a mine of information concerning the political situation in Lebanon - I'm not even going to attempt to address it here - suffice to say its impossible to imagine a more complex and sensitive situation. Johnny also explained his own journey from an Assyrian catholic background to a true faith in Christ with Evangelical affiliations. It turns out his mother tongue is Aramaic, and he can understand 70% of the movie "The Passion Of The Christ" without translation!

The route to Tyre took us ALONG the green line road, with the ever-present evidence of its former strategic importance in times past - it really IS green in many places, with fields on both sides and being tree-lined for much of the way. Once out of Beirut, the demolition derby calmed to a mere bumper car ride, and it was possible to admire the view - which consisted of a bewildering mix on modern apartment developments (including expensive seaside properties), run-down-looking Arabic-style townships, wild palm trees, and fruit plantations (with oranges and lemons visible in the groves), all embedded in the ever-present mountain foothills. This part of Lebanon (which approaches the border with Israel and is, consequently, a very sensitive area) is a Shi'ite region, with a strong (but apparently unpopular) Hezbollah presence (the flags and propaganda posters are everywhere). The UN presence becomes more evident the further south you travel.

For the entire way we had the Mediterranean to our right - it was a (another synonym for spectacular) blue in the fine sunny weather that we were experiencing at last. We passed through Sidon and saw the ancient fortress island breached by Alexander the Great in 333bc. After that, and three security check points, we arrived in Tyre - a very Arabic-flavored city with a visible UN presence. We visited the remains of Greco-Roman Tyre, focusing on the remains of the huge hippodrome once used for chariot racing. I always have a feeling of confused awe when visiting this type of antiquity - firstly the remains represent MANY consecutive generations occupying the site so making sense of them is difficult, and secondly the occupants probably thought that their civilization was as invincible and eternal as we have the habit of thinking of ours!

We ate lunch somewhat late (various sandwiches and freshly squeezed juice cocktails purchased at a restaurant recommended by Wadih himself) and then headed back by a somewhat faster, but less scenic route, arriving at the LES at 5:00pm, where we were able to rest before the evening activities got underway ... (see the next post - we have to leave in 5 minutes for FRIDAY's gig! Yes, the last YOU knew was that we didn't HAVE a gig on Friday, wasn't it!).

Another day in Beirut (Wednesday we believe!)

This one is going to be hard - I've promised Chris I wont make fun of him due to having upended half a cup coffee over him in Starbucks earlier today (accidentally I hasten to add!).

I awoke not feeling too great this morning - I think I'm beginning to succumb to the cold that has Jon in its grip and is still bugging Chris, plus the little sleep aid I took last night has left me feeling very drowsy (no it WASN'T alcoholic!)

The gig today was a midday chapel at the Haigazian University on the Moslem side of town. It's actually an Armenian Christian-run university but it welcomes people of all faiths. There are about 750 students, half Armenian, 40% Moslem and 10% from an Evangelical Arabic background. The gig was arranged by the University chaplain, Greg Lee-Parker, who Chris and Charles know very well from when he and his wife (Kristina) spent time in Istanbul.

Apparently Chapel isn't usually THAT well attended, but the promise of good music attracted between 70 and 100 people into the 200-seater "Women's auxiliary hall" (not even the MAIN Women's hall!!!) - it's amazing how people can be fooled, eh? We did 9 songs which filled our allotted 50 minutes, and it went pretty well (excepting certain mistakes that are now becoming FEATURES of some songs! But nobody except us noticed those - I hope). We were certainly well received, with quite a few staying to speak with us afterward, and many more leaving contact details via the the band's fan contact sheets! We were also joined by a number of students for lunch in their cafeteria, as well as by Greg and Kristina, where discussion of music, courses, families, and vocations etc filled an enlightening and invigorating hour.

Talking to Greg later, we understand that at least half of those who came had never been to a chapel before, and a good number were of a Moslem background - so he's hopeful now that at least some of these will return next Wednesday (even if no internationally famous band will be playing :-)).

We also got to meet the president of the university (Paul Haidostian) who explained a bit about its roots in Armenian teacher training, and the fact that it is now considered one of the top universities in Lebanon - but you can catch up with that by following the link above.

On leaving Paul's office, we were met by Lindy, Wadih having been called away for something - it is she who transported us the very short distance for the ill-fated visit to Starbucks - and the coffee wasn't even that good. There (apart from having a food fight) we chatted again with Greg and Kristina about ministry and the difficulties of adapting to foreign cultures - even Jon has experienced that, having moved from his native California to Georgia three and a half years ago!

I said the university was on the Moslem side of town (in fact it's very close to where Wadih's parents live) - to get to it we have to cross the infamous "green line" that separated the main Christian and Moslem quarters in the civil war days. Apparently driving this route was very risky in those days, with snipers taking pot shots at travelers from both sides - and very slow, with three checkpoints on the main road. You can see the shrapnel and bullet scars in many buildings, and there remain a good few burnt out shells too. I know I keep going on about it, but really, on these journeys through town, the battle scars are very sobering.

We arrived back at the school (note that that is a link to the school's site now - so you can see where we are staying) just in time to see the closing stages of a basketball game which the LES team won!!!).

One piece of bad news - well two in fact: the two university gigs for Thursday and Friday have been canceled, Thursday's because there will be no-one there (the students there aren't back from vacation yet!) and Friday's because the university refused permission.

Tomorrow then, instead of the midday gig, we are playing tourists in Tyre, about 90 minutes by demolition derby from here. But we have to be back fairly early, because we have a pub gig at 10:00pm. Not sure what Friday holds in store now, but have asked Wadih to try and get us another pub gig.

We are off to some unknown location for more food in about half an hour. Lindy asked at what time we would be starving. I suggested at about 7:00pm - May 1st!!!

Oh, one surprise - we found WORKING traffic lights today! But they are so ignored by the drivers that they need a policeman or soldier on duty to enforce the protocol!!

Short post today, eh (oh no, I'm becoming Canadian!!!!).

Lebanon day - one after the previous post

Oh this is ridiculous - we're being fed, like, three full meals a day!!!

So, starting where I left off - just as I signed off the last post, Chris came rushing in saying "we have issues"! Now, he's a drummer, so uttering the phrase "I have issues" would have been stating the obvious, but using the plural was obviously either a gross error in grammar (which he is more than capable of committing, being Canadian too), or indicative of something that would affect me far more directly. In the event I chose to take the latter interpretation, just to be on the safe side.

It turned out that the taxi driver knew only to pick up four guys from the school. He also knew no English and precious little French. I tried a few phrases on him, such as "la plume de ma tante est dans le bureau" and "vous savez ou il faut nous ramener?" none of which he had any comprehension! In the end our trusty helper at the school, Jamela (a teacher of Arabic who lives at the school and is constantly doing stuff to help us) acted as intermediary between the taxi driver and Wadih (contacted via her cell phone) to communicate to the driver the place where he was supposed to take his four charges - Wadih's house.

Once there we were fed MORE food - this time a great chicken curry followed by brownies - and watched two episodes of Blackadder the third! We got to bed at a reasonable time with instructions to be ready by 8:30 for Wadih to pick us up.

Today, which I believe is Tuesday, we did another school assembly thing - well two actually. This time it was at CTI (Christian something or other). We started with the same set as we played yesterday on the theme of forgiveness, presented to the 7-11 grade students - again much appreciated but in a quieter way because we were asked not to encourage them to clap or anything!! We then spent a pleasant hour drinking coffee and speaking with the head master and his mother (who also works at the school) before giving the 1-6 graders a 15 minute jolt to their day. For this second stint we chose not to do our songs but to to lead them in two well-known action songs - "Father Abraham" and "Deep and wide" - and we also changed the band lineup a bit, with Jon taking the bass and me leading the singing and "actioning". That also seemed to go quite well, a view that was confirmed by the way we were mobbed when we joined the students at recess. We did get a number of requests for autographs (aw shucks) and for email addresses - duly answered with the website of the band. We also had some fan followup forms returned!

Lunch was taken with the head and his mum and wife (it seems he needs constant monitoring!) - a Caesar salad, a sort of chicken and vegetable pie thing with salsa dip, and brownies - a full meal, note! We packed up in record time having been offered ice cream by Wadih if we did it within about 20 minutes - which we did.

We then spent the afternoon going ride-about in the van-with-character, expecting at every stop our ice-cream reward. Wadih is constantly on his cell phone and having to meet people so we tagged along, and, in the process visited the offices of Youth For Christ, where we grilled a Clinical Psychologist who is on staff there on the ethical and emotional problems related to her job (we're not an easy bunch to meet!), followed by the Campus Crusade offices, where we met the lady who is coordinating our two university lunchtime gigs on Thursday and Friday. Finally we went to the orphanage where Lindy works (she needed the drums for a practice tonight).

As usual the travel was filled with near-death experiences as the van challenged every vehicle that dared to come within 6 feet of it to mortal combat. The roads themselves were somewhat safer today, it being beautiful weather, but that doesn't stop every Lebanese driver doing his civic duty of trying to kill every other Lebanese driver that he or she encounters. By the way we HAVE found some traffic lights, but they are out of order.

I had plenty of time to just look out of the window while Wadih was trying to kill us - Beirut appears to be a city center on relatively flat land by the sea, with wild, seemingly unplanned suburbs stretching up into the mountains with connecting roads built on age-old donkey tracks (that last bit is fact!). Extended periods of rain often bring mud slides, even if holding walls have been built! You can see construction projects building into the sides of ravines, and I'm certain I saw one that had been abandoned because the whole thing (a large office complex by the look of it) had subsided!

The evidence of past conflicts here is easy to find - walls with shrapnel in, abandoned bombed-out buildings etc. I didn't mention before, but on Sunday we stopped outside the hotel where Wadih's crew had built the stage the previous night. Just next to this hotel is the shell of a huge Holiday Inn IN which a battle raged in one of the wars that this place has been through - it can't be refurbished for some reason, but it hasn't been demolished - it just stands there burnt out and boarded up as a silent testimony to the violence Lebanon has suffered, and continues to suffer.

Note that the ice cream never materialized during the trip!

After our jolly jaunt we ate at Wadih's again, another over-full great meal, this time of spaghetti bolognese followed by the promised ice cream, BUT by THEN I was too full to accept it.

We got back to the school at 20:30 and planned the set for tomorrow (a 50 minute "chapel" at a university) before sorting out email and blogs etc.

Lebanon Day 3

It's terrible here - we are forced to eat great food every day and there is nothing we can do about it!!

Saturday, after the post, we went to Wadih's stage "factory" (a warehouse where he and number of employees build stages for events at various venues in Lebanon) to hang out for a while before packing the ancient-van-with-character with the stuff we needed for the night. While there we had lunch - such informal meals in this country seem to bore down to "pancakes of unleavened bread filled with hot stuff" - meat, spinach, cheese etc.

We then went into central Beirut to the Club Social - um - social club (well, bar really) to do our first concert. We were due to start at about 22:00 but with socializing with the owner and - yes - eating (and the general lack of life until later) we didn't get started until 23:00. We played all the songs we had prepared in two sets and all seemed to go pretty well - well, except for the fact that my monitor gave up the ghost during the first song of each set (I abused Chris's MP3 ear buds as a stop gap so I could at least get some idea that I was playing at least the correct song). There were probably about 70 people in the club in all - and they all seemed to like us - though comments such as "oh your style of music is SO ME!!! But could you do some more well known songs" made us wonder a bit!! Actually, after we had finished, Jon and Chris had a very good "chat" with the owner, and Charles with his son. We got quite a few fan contact forms returned which will be followed up by the band's permanent members when we get back.

With the pack up happening at 1:30 in the morning, we didn't get back to the school until about 2:00. Wadih had to go on and supervise the building of a stage at the poshest hotel in town at 5:00am!!

So Sunday had a bit of a slow start - up at 9 - or 10 - or maybe later. We skipped church due to our late night/early morning, and just lazed in the morning. Jon and Chris were feeling very much the worse for wear with colds. At 1:30 Wadih picked us up and transported us to his parent's apartment in central Beirut - where he had grown up. He regaled us with stories of watching one side in the civil war launch mortars from one side of the apartment complex to hit enemy posts on the other side, and rushing to take pictures of the rockets as they passed - and many other tales of a war that just seemed to become part of daily life for "normal" people. At the apartment we met (or became reacquainted with in the case of Chris and Charles) Wadih's wife Lindy, his two children John and Jessie (who go to the school where we are staying), his astounding mother and father, his uncle, and his father's carpenter! Wadih's parents are astounding indeed - a lifetime of service to the Lord with many a story about evangelizing in difficult circumstances - you can see where Wadih gets his love for the Lord from - and his story-telling prowess!

Lunch consisted of a few dishes I HAD heard of - Humus, Tabbouleh, even shepherds pie - and a few that were new to me - "k'ber" (that's phonetically written!) and sort of whole-meal bread filled with meat, "bubba-ger-noosh" (yes, that's phonetically spelled too!) which was great but I have no idea what was in it!

After lunch it was back to Wadih's warehouse to pack up the PA for Monday, with the help of Said, a sound engineer and friend of Wadih (but then it seems everyone in Beirut is a friend of Wadih!!). We took that lot back to the school where we are staying - because the next gig was to play the two assemblies at that school! at 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning on Monday!!! A fairly standard setup and sound check was followed by an earlyish bedtime - though no hope of a long night was held since we had to get up at 6:00 to be ready.

Which takes us to today - we did indeed get up on time and headed down for a 7:30 start. We played four songs with a general theme of forgiveness, in two assemblies and I think it would be an understatement to say we were well received! I think the students also intended to take full advantage of temporary permission to scream (though one was warned "If you even start to make a noise like that when you have left this room you will find out what happens!"). We ate more "unleavened bread filled with stuff" for breakfast (this time cheese) and then went out at recess to talk to the students. I was not considered the oldest in the band (though I am by far) - Charles was referred to as "the old guy who sings" even AFTER they found out my true age!!! After that we struck the sound system, took it to another school across town where we play a couple of slightly later assemblies on Tuesday, then returned to - well, write blogs and emails and generally waste away the afternoon before Wadih picks us up to eat at his place tonight - where I will be in trouble due to having taken a bit too much editor's license in writing an SMS response to Lindy for Wadih while he was driving!!

By the way, I forgot to mention that as we taxied to take off on Friday an announcement came over the plane speakers that one of the navigation computers had crashed. They were trying to restart it but in the mean time would we all please check that our phone's were off - erm, on checking I found that mine was still ON! It appears I may have inadvertently delayed take off by about 15 minutes - sheepish grin (whats the smiley for that?).

More later, then (the taxi is coming we have just been told!!)