Notes from the Clown Tour by various clowns:
July 21, 2016 Carlie
Our first stop on our two week tour! We arrived at St.
Timothy’s in Geneseo NY, around 3 o’clock. We were welcomed into a nice air
conditioned church. We ran into a few problems with the sound as we were
setting up but we figured it out! They provided us with cold cuts to make
sandwiches while we talked with people from their congregation. Once it came
time, we put on our makeup and started the service! We had incredible reactions
to our service, the entire congregation there loved our cross made out of the
boxes. And there were a ton of tears shed with communion! It was really nice to
see how big of an impact we have on people who have never seen anything like
this before! Once we had thanked everybody who came and took off our makeup we
started loading up the trailer and went home with our host families! The entire
day was a ton of fun and it was a great start to our two week tour!
July 21 2016 Footinator
When we were all done with the service, Josh Cameron and I
went with our host to spend the night. There was no A/C in the house which kind
of sucked but whatever. Our host mother, Joyce showed us around the house
including the kitchen and our rooms. When we first saw our rooms Josh said “I
have seniority” so he took the nicer rooms out of the 3. So I picked mine and
so on. Cameron was the first one to point this out but there was this doll
right behind my door in a box and honestly, I was scared out of my mind. I was
awake for like an hour just thinking about it. If anyone of you have seen the
movie Annabelle, that’s where it came from.
July 22, 2016 Bella
After we were dropped off at the church from the previous
night, we traveled to a lake house that one of the congregation members offered
us to visit and stay at for the day. We were able to swim, kayak, and reflect
on what has happened to us so far on the tour. The second church we went to on
our tour was The Town Line, Lutheran church in Alden, NY. Even though the
church wasn’t air conditioned, we had a great time! The church provided a great
dinner of lasagna and salad for us and it was so good that no one talked much
during the meal, (That’s new for us). Getting on the makeup was a routine so
there weren’t many problems there, but Mrs. L made sure to powder really well,
so the makeup could stay with the heat. Once the service started, we knew we
had to create a lot of energy, because the congregation was smaller than we
were used to. During Preparation, the sign didn’t light up when Cameron pushed
the button. We were thrown off for a minute, but the sign eventually lighted up
towards the end of the song. I found that communion was really powerful for
this service at the end when we were greeting people. Many people enjoyed the
service and we received many positive comments. The host families were all nice
and it’s easy to say that Alden was a very great second stop of our tour.
July 23, 2016 Cameron R
On
Saturday we went to Niagara falls, when we got in we went to see the falls from
above than we went down an elevator to the bottom of the falls to the cave of
winds. We walked near the falls and got
soaked on the hurricane deck which was really fun. Than after the cave of winds we went to the
other side of the falls. We also saw a
Canadian zip line than we went back to the van and went to Ohio.
Jul 24, 2016 Josh Foote
Today we performed our service at Pastor
Amber’s old church, Christ the Redeemer in Ohio. Since the shape of the
sanctuary was different from most churches, it took some getting used to but we
did a good job adjusting. We also had to adjust to the praise song muting out
in the middle of the dance which was exciting. After the service, we went to
the Rock and Roll hall of fame. This was really cool because the building was
so big and had so many floors, there was so much to do. The music was really
good and the building had air conditioning so it was a really nice way to spend
the day. After the hall of fame came the exciting part of the day. Right nearby
the hall of fame was a dock where we could rent paddle boats. So of course we
were going to do this. The boats held four people in it, so we divided the boats
into the groups of, Josh, Amber, Bella, Carlie, and the other boat was, Jim,
Andy, and both Camerons. So the boat with myself on it got all situated pretty
quickly and we were waiting to be unhooked. As we were waiting, Jim, Andy and
Cameron Rogers were already in the paddle boat and only Cameron Foote had to
get into the boat on the same side as Mr. Roberts. I look over to my left and
in slow motion, I see Cameron falling into the boat. At the same time, Mr.
Robert’s face changes from happiness of the calming boat ride we were about to
take, to a face of sheer terror that these will his last moments on earth.
Cameron hits the boat and the whole thing pitches towards the side he and Mr.
Roberts are on, and both are leaning over the side close to being flung into
the water. Miraculously, the boat resets and becomes level again, but for the
ensuing boat ride, everyone on that boat was scared they would at some point be
submerged in the inlet. My boat had an awesome time listening to music and
singing. Every time we passed the other boat, Mr. Roberts begged us to take him
with us (See Cameron and Mr. Robert’s accounts for a complete description of
the incident.) After all of this we went to a barbeque put on by one of the
host families and we had a ton of food and we played game and it was so much
fun. Then we went back to our house and played Apples to Apples before going to
bed.
July 25, 2016 Cameron F.
On Monday we went to the Radefeld’s to go
to the yacht club. When we first got to their neighborhood, everyone was
shocked about how large these houses were. We were greeted with big smiles on
their faces and was offered a tour around the house. Their house was so
beautiful. Everything about it, was perfect. After we had the tour we talked
for a bit then left to go to the yacht club. We got there and Cam Josh and I
stayed in the pool while the others went to the Radefeld’s sailboat. We decided
to play dodgeball in the pool with small beach balls. Josh set some rules and
cheated a bit but for the most part, it was fun. The rest of our group, Carlie,
Bella, Mrs. L, and Amber came back and wanted to play dodgeball with us. Mrs. L
decided to be the judge. After we swam for a bit we had lunch. The Radefelds
got subway for us which was good. After we ate we went to the boat to get ready
to go sail. We turned the engine on and left the dock. Once we got to the waves
sailing was so much fun. Josh and I were on the side of the boat hanging our
legs off. It was fun because we kept getting soaked with all the waves splashing
into the side if the boat. Bella was in the front of the boat but she still got
significantly wet.
July 27, 2016 Carlie
We stayed at a hotel last night so we had a
good breakfast with a lot of options! Once we got on the road we drove from
Columbus Ohio, to Florence Kentucky and were greeted with a water main on the
side of the road that said Florence ya’ll. We had some extra time once in
Florence before we had to be at the church so we went to a nearby mall for a
few hours, while Pa (Mr. Roberts) went and visited his grandson who is only a
few months old! Bella and I went off and did our shopping, we found some pretty
good deals! We had lunch in the food court, the place where the climax of the
day occurred. So I order a sandwich from quiznos and I pay, it was $6.88 and I
paid with a 10. She goes to give me my change and she gave me 3 ones and that’s
all. So me being me I didn’t say anything because I was thinking well, maybe
she really needs the extra 12 cents so I’ll let her have it. But I was still
annoyed about it because she stole 12 cents from me. But oh well, so Bella and
I move on with eating and then getting back to shopping. We were trying to kill
time and walked into a store called Glitter, when we first went in we weren’t
being serious about wanting to buy anything, but then we found the back of the
store. They are an accessories store so there was a lot of jewelry and hair
things. Both Bella and I found hair accessories to put in our clown costume! I
got three bows because the bows I was using before were made out of duck tape
and my hair kept getting stuck in it. As we walked out of the store we found
Pastor Amber and soon the boys. We walked around together for a little bit
waiting for Mrs. L. Once we found her we had to find the car, because she
couldn’t remember where she had parked the car! But we found it pretty quickly!
Once in the car, I told everyone the story of how I was robbed of 12 cents, and
thanks to Josh I found out I wasn’t robbed by the cashier, I was robbed by my
own stupidity. Apparently the change fell into a small bin and I was to take
the change from the bin. But I didn’t see the change bin, so when Josh walked
up behind me and saw the change he took it! But once he explained this to me,
and I realized that I was just being a stupid blonde and missing a change bin,
Josh gave me my 12 cents back! Once all of this was figured out, we drove to
the church and set up our props and had a delicious dinner of lasagna, salad,
and ice cream! When we were unloading props we were informed of all the ghosts
that lived in the church. So while putting on our makeup we encountered the
ghosts. We were listening to music and the speaker was going in and out turning
on and off. Bella thought the ghosts were responsible for this so she said, “if
you’re
a ghost and you’re in here, turn the speaker off” and it turned off! We all ran
screaming scared out of our minds. Later we find out that the speaker was going
in and out because we were in the basement so the Bluetooth connection wasn’t
very good. And the speaker turned off when Bella told it too because Josh was
in the other room and heard her say it so he turned the speaker off through the
Bluetooth connection. And even though we all knew that the ghosts were not
responsible for the speaker turning off we all were very cautious the rest of
the night, looking out for ghosts. Soon after the ghost encounter Pa arrived at
church and told us how cute his grandson was! Then it came time for the service
to start, it went well with only a few bumps. It came time for the
confession/forgiveness part to start (the part with the hearts) and we all have
our black hearts on, Josh is already starting to walk up front. Bella goes to
make sure all the clean hearts light up and only one does! Mrs. L was able to
get new batteries in time but we learned a lesson, always check to make sure
the hearts light up before the service starts! Lucky for us it was only dead
batteries this time. The rest of the service went fine, and the crowd got up
and danced and clapped with us which was really fun! This church has their own
clown troupe so when Bella and I went home with our family we watch a video of
their clown service. It was a cool service, we have similar parts because their
troupe started based off of ours, but there were also some parts that were
different. They were a little less serious at parts then we were, but it was
still a cool service and it was fun to watch it!
July 27, 2016
Mrs. L
We aren’t even
half thru tour and we have collected wonderful memories. Churches have been very welcoming and the
members have made us feel like family.
Yesterday I had most unusually greeting that I have ever experienced at
a church. The second person that I met
as I was entering the church I was greeted by an officer from the TN State Bomb
Squad. I thought that he was there to
check our truck and van because we were foreigners from the north. He didn’t stay long and the problem had been
resolved before we arrived.
This church also
has their own clown ministry and it was a very nice feeling for me to know that
people that I had worked with as teenagers had spread this ministry to other
churches.
July 27, 2016
Bella
Carlie and I
woke up and were greeted with a great number of options for breakfast provided
by our host family. Soon after, we headed for the church, and then back on the
road to Michigan for our service in American Lutheran Church. We stopped for
lunch along the way at Taco Bell, and everyone bought frosties in Wendy’s after
lunch. When we arrived at the church, Pastor Amber told us to stay near the car
while she found the pastor and asked the questions about where we can set up
and other little things. Getting out of the van was usually easy, but for
Carlie, today was different. Carlie fell out of the van, but was caught on the
seat. So her head and half of her body were swinging out of the van. I nearly
fell because I was laughing so hard. We all got pictures and then we helped her
up. But as Mrs. L came around with her phone, we realized she didn’t get a
picture. So Carlie put herself into the position again, only this time, she was
holding the old frostie cup…and it was spilling down her shirt. She sits up and
chocolate is all down her shirt! We then walked into the church and Mrs. L
helped get the stain out. The church was holding a barbeque to help raise
awareness for homelessness, and I found it to be very inspiring. We all ate
burgers, hot dogs, and cookies before returning to the room to get ready. While
putting the makeup on, a girl walked in and said she wanted some make up. So we
put a cross and a smiley face on her cheeks. This led to many kids wanting make
up, so Mrs. L told them to go outside and find it. I think eventually they gave
up looking. During the sermon, we couldn’t find one of the boxes that make up
the wall and the cross. It was hidden behind something so it never made it up
for the wall. The box was brought to the front during the reading, so we had it
for the cross, but I think we all were a little bummed that the wall wasn’t
even. Everything else in the service went really well, and the congregation
seemed to love the service. After cleaning up, Carlie, Pastor Amber, and I went
home to our host family and actually finished a puzzle. I took some breaks
because I couldn’t figure out how to do it at some points, but it was finished
eventually.
July 28,
2016 Carlie
The adventures
of the day started very early in the morning today! Around 2 o’clock in the
morning I was really cold so being half away I reach for my blanket. And I go
to put the blanket on me but it doesn’t cover me completely some I’m thinking
to myself, my blanket it big why doesn’t it cover me? So I open my eyes and
realize I’m not in my bed! I had somehow moved! So let me just backtrack a
minute and paint you a picture of where we were sleeping. So if you’re looking
into a living room Bella is asleep on a couch very far left against the wall.
And then Amber and I were asleep on foam pads and sleeping bags. Amber was
about 3 feet to the right of the couch and then I was next to her on the right
side. So I had gotten out of bed and moved around Amber to in between Amber and
Bella! How? I’m not sure, I didn’t know that I sleep walked until that moment!
But once I realized I had moved I got up and went back to where I was supposed
to be sleeping and slept there the rest of the night. When the morning came and
it was time for breakfast we had toast and fruit! We didn’t eat very much
because it was early morning, we had to be at church by 7 in the morning,
luckily the women we were staying with only lived two blocks from the church!
Once we were all at the church we packed up the cars and went on our way! A
little while into the drive we stopped at a gas station and Bella and I bought
a bag of Hostess Donuts! Not long after we bought them and were back in the car
most of them had been consumed, most of those consumed were by me and the sugar
started to kick in. I got hyper pretty fast and started on a sugar high. Bella
had mentioned that she wanted to learn how to yodel so I decided that that was
the time to show off my yodeling skills and teach everyone how to yodel! So I
yodeled a few times and then moved on with the process of eating the rest of
the donuts. At one point I was looking out the window and looked back in the
car and saw the bag donuts saying, “Oh look! Donuts!” and Bella’s response to
that was, “Oh Carlie, you have the attention span of a walnut”. And then while
eating one of the donuts I turned to Bella saying, “Bella, there’s a hole in my
donut” and she started laughing because obviously there was going to be a hole
in my donut. So I had to be more descriptive and said, “There’s an extra hole
in the cake part of my donut” and then she understood but we all got a good
laugh out of it. Once we got to a rest area we had to tell the tales of
everything that happened while in the car with the donuts and Pa’s response
was, “Why didn’t you call me as everything was happening? I want to be able to
hear everything as it happens!” So we’ve all agreed that when we have fun crazy
moments like those in the car we’ll call each other to share the excitement as
it’s in action! We made good time and ended up getting to the church a half
hour early but luckily there was someone there to let us in! We set up our
things and were really hot so we were all standing outside in the rain. Josh
comes up the hill limping and we’re all thinking uh oh, what happened. Turns
out he got stung by something, we think it was a hornet. He was able to do the
service and his ankle is feeling better now, but when it first happened it was
really swollen! When it came time for dinner we were fed fajitas and salad!
Both were really delicious! While putting on our makeup we met one an eight year
old named Nina, she told us all about her birthday party, and it’s going to be
at a bird museum! While we were doing the service she drew us a bunch of
pictures, one of which will be the bulletin cover for Sunday August 7! While we
were doing the sermon part of the service with the boxes and building the cross
Josh got hurt again! I was putting the black rod in the love box and hit Josh
in the nose with it. It only took of some makeup and skinned his nose luckily,
but I felt really bad. The rest of the service went fine, and we foudn out that
when talking to the vicar that 1/3 of the people who came to our service didn’t
go to the church, they were just members of the community that came to watch
us! That was a great feeling for all of us knowing that members of the
community came to the church, some of whom were members of a different
religion. They came just to see us, even though they didn’t follow the same
religious guidelines as us!
July 29, 2016
Josh Foote
Right now we are
in the car. I am practicing typing without looking at the keyboard. I am typing
slowly but I hope to type fast this way eventually. The ride is somewhat boring
but the views are really nice. I am now going to type what I see as we drive
without looking at the screen to practice. I just edited every word in that
sentence because I messed it up so many times. Right now, we can see many hills
and trees as we drive downhill. There is a sign that says Super Store for
something I’m not sure about. The truck with the trailer is kind of far behind
but they always catch up. For some reason, there is always construction on
these roads. From Kentucky to Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania, there is so
much work that needs to be done on these roads. I just took a break for a
little bit. Not much has changed over
the last few miles. Now we are stopping for gas because Terry’s truck with the
clown trailer doesn’t get great gas mileage. Now we are back on the road and
we are in a tunnel and there is a truck
ahead of us. We are under a mountain and soon we will not be. We see the light.
Now we are free. The views on this side of the mountain are even better. Many
mountains in the distance with that muted teal color of a forest far away. I
think I have done enough practice typing for the day, and I will resume after
the service we have tonight. We are in a tunnel again and both girls won’t
breathe any oxygen because they are strangely superstitious and both might pass
out. We made it out of the tunnels alive so all is good.
Our first stop on our two week tour! We arrived at St.
Timothy’s in Geneseo NY, around 3 o’clock. We were welcomed into a nice air
conditioned church. We ran into a few problems with the sound as we were
setting up but we figured it out! They provided us with cold cuts to make
sandwiches while we talked with people from their congregation. Once it came
time, we put on our makeup and started the service! We had incredible reactions
to our service, the entire congregation there loved our cross made out of the
boxes. And there were a ton of tears shed with communion! It was really nice to
see how big of an impact we have on people who have never seen anything like
this before! Once we had thanked everybody who came and took off our makeup we
started loading up the trailer and went home with our host families! The entire
day was a ton of fun and it was a great start to our two week tour!
After we were dropped off at the church from the previous
night, we traveled to a lake house that one of the congregation members offered
us to visit and stay at for the day. We were able to swim, kayak, and reflect
on what has happened to us so far on the tour. The second church we went to on
our tour was The Town Line, Lutheran church in Alden, NY. Even though the
church wasn’t air conditioned, we had a great time! The church provided a great
dinner of lasagna and salad for us and it was so good that no one talked much
during the meal, (That’s new for us). Getting on the makeup was a routine so
there weren’t many problems there, but Mrs. L made sure to powder really well,
so the makeup could stay with the heat. Once the service started, we knew we
had to create a lot of energy, because the congregation was smaller than we
were used to. During Preparation, the sign didn’t light up when Cameron pushed
the button. We were thrown off for a minute, but the sign eventually lighted up
towards the end of the song. I found that communion was really powerful for
this service at the end when we were greeting people. Many people enjoyed the
service and we received many positive comments. The host families were all nice
and it’s easy to say that Alden was a very great second stop of our tour. 
We’ve only been here two days and I already see
connections. Many of the church members we’ve met have visited the States. One
family had spent several years in Brooklyn while the father earned at
Columbia. Several folks had been to New
York, although it was New York City and not upstate. There is a family from St.
David’s with a connection to a family
from Oregon. The daughter, enjoys making cupcakes, something she learned from a friend in the
States. 
Greetings
from Naas, Ireland 9/15/13
I
could dwell on differences including the fact that I usually had to ask people
to repeat themselves as I sorted out their accents, but the unity in Christ far
out-weighed any differences. The one God was present in the gathering of God’s
people, and in the hymns, and in the preached word, and in the coffee hour. 
