yo amo cinco de mayo!

i love cinco de mayo.
for the second year in a row, i celebrated in authentic style - food, music, language, the works ... minus the tequila.

gcc's hispanic sister church, comunidad cristiana, partners with a church planting ministry called hispanics for christ every year for a ministry update/fundraiser/feast/concert/party/cinco de mayo fiesta! the music is led by cecilio, tim, and a group from comunidad, plus a certain flute player who gets to join in on the fun. ;)

playing with this group is as different from my orchestra, choir, and evangelical worship band experience as ... water and tequila!

first, there is the not-so-minor detail that all conversation and direction is in spanish. some of the group members (and leaders) don't speak english.
my spanish consists of two phrases:
yo amo esta canción! (i love this song!)
yo amo este pollo! (i love this chicken!)*

one of these is more useful than the other.

next, there is the not-so-minor detail that all the songs are in spanish. and they sing them really fast, and don't pronounce all the letters. i encourage you to try to follow a handwritten chord chart for a song in a foreign language - it's harder than it sounds.

third, these songs are not 3 chord wonders. run and hide, chris tomlin. the styles range from cuban to afro-peruvian, from the coasts of south america to the andes mountains. tricky rhythms, non-intuitive chord progressions, complicated instrumentation .... it's a beautiful thing to my challenge-deprived musical soul.

... and even more beautiful, is coming together with people i can't even share words with and laughing together over goofy musical mishaps, concentrating together at attempts to communicate, smiling knowingly together when we meet the same musical wavelength, praying together to our god who understands every language and culture, and worshipping together as we will for eternity.

happy cinco de mayo!

*and any other obvious derivatives (e.g. yo amo tequila! yo amo switzerland! etc.).