The Chamber Choir of the Mennonite Children’s Choir performs outdoors in Tirana, Albania. Photo by Galen Sauder.

Thirty-nine young people making up the Chamber Choir of the Mennonite Children’s Choir of Lancaster (MCCL) partnered with Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) on a choral tour to Albania and Bulgaria from June 10 through June 24, 2015.

Eight chaperones joined the choir members, who ranged from ninth-graders to new graduates from high school. Rosemary Blessing, artistic director of the Chamber Choir, said the kids have been preparing for the trip for the good part of a year.

“They have all been singing for years, this trip is just an extension of who they are,” Blessing said.

And sing they did in more than 16 venues, ranging from an orphanage to a retirement home to church services to a grand old theater. “Often they sang spontaneously at tourist sites, on the beach, on the streets, in airports, and in host homes,” Blessing said.

“The tour is an opportunity for the choir to be part of something bigger than themselves, to be stretched by experiencing new cultures and new environments,” said Blessing. “Cultural immersion can be difficult but also an incredible shaping experience. The difference in economic status of the places they visited was an eye opener. It puts life back home in proper perspective.”

Micah Martin, a rising junior at Ephrata High School, said one of the highlights of the tour for him was climbing a mountain outside of Korce, Albania. At the top of the mountain was an Orthodox chapel.

“We were the only ones there but we started to sing anyway. The acoustics were awesome,” Martin said. Martin said he learned about how powerful music can be, noting that some concert-goers cried during the concerts.

Troy Landis, EMM discipleship coach, said the high school students were “receptive and engaged throughout the training. I was impressed by their discussions and the ways they processed information. We discussed the big story of what God is doing in the world and how their trip fits into that.”

Upon returning to the U.S. the choir had a debriefing session where the experiences of the trip were discussed and reflected upon.

“A lot of preparation goes into trips like this and sometimes in life our response is to just keep going. We don’t stop and think about what happened,” Landis said. “A short-term missions trip can turn into a trophy if participants don’t learn, grow, and change. That doesn’t happen unless people are intentional about processing what happened.”

Landis warned that short-term missions trips can have a negative impact if not done correctly.

“Short-term trips can be fraught with a lack of understanding with participants coming across as rude and not honoring to their hosts,” Landis said. “Well done trips are part of a much larger process that brings transformation to the participants and honor to the hosts.”