From a younger crew member....

You may recall that we had three young ladies from Little Portion on the road with us at the beginning of this last leg. They were a breath of fresh air to have around and a big help too! Maria Ims was kind enough to write a bit about her time out on the road with us. Here it is:

Hola! I was asked to write about what I thought about the Monk Rock Tour, but what the whole thing was about could be put into two simple words: being prepared. I knew I wasn’t as soon as I found out I was going on the tour for six days. I was way too excited. Basically, Abigail, Faith, and I just ran around doing jobs for everyone. =D Don’t get me wrong, that part was awesome! I love being busy with any sort of hands-on work. But as I was working, I noticed a lot of things, especially the way the crowd reacted to JMT’s new rock songs and how they seemed to love it. Without a doubt, everyone at those concerts could feel God’s presence. That was one thing I wasn’t prepared for. Personally, I thought that people would just scoff and leave, thinking that JMT turned to the modern “dark side”, but the result was exactly the opposite. I have to admit that I was surprised. Another thing that I wasn’t prepared for was how many fans JMT has. WOW! When I saw all those people come through those doors I was shocked. I didn’t realize that he had touched the hearts of so many people. One thing I could never forget was when I was selling CDs during one intermission and a mother with five (scary thought, huh, FIVE!) children who all loved JMT’s music. I remember looking down at the boy she had with her and the mother telling him, “Tell her what you want to be when you grow up.” He looked up at me and said with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen and answered, “A PRIEST!” ...woah. To tell the truth, I could NEVER do that myself...literally because I’m a girl, but even if I was a guy, it would take a lot of faith to do that.
FOR SURE I wasn’t prepared about how much fun it would be. Sure, I knew that I was going to be sleeping in really nice hotels, stuffing myself with food (what an image xP), and not doing school for SIX WHOLE GLORIOUS DAYS, but when I was there, I didn’ t really care about the hotels, big bags of potato chips, or me not doing school (I actually did some of my history while I was there, lol.) Those were DEFINITELY not the reasons why I enjoyed being there, I enjoyed working on my hands and knees, taping wires to the floor as neatly as I could...though they still came out sloppy (you remember that, John Cotton, don’t you? =) ) and FINALLY learning how to wrap mic cables (yay!). My only disappoint was that I didn’t learn more than I could have. If I was asked to go again, I would definitely say YES right a way (HINT HINT =)!!!), though not just for the freedom of my parents (lol), but for my service to the band members.
I just want to thank EVERYONE who put up with us during the time we were there! It was an AWESOME experience that I could never forget. Each of the guys has a relationship with God that I could only dream of having and putting them together was the most genius plan ever to be thought (...ok, maybe GENIUS is a bit much =) ) I learned a lot about being on the road and about how long driving hours can wear you down, lol. Thank you for making me laugh so much! Let me tell ya, those guys are hilarious!!! PEACE!
Mia Ims