Gift of Music

Members of Ashley River Baptist Church’s handbell choir -including (from left) Cathy Richardson, Wendy Taylor, Ann Marie Fairchild, Daphne Rice, Linda Yarborough, Chistopher Aleman, Sally Evitt, Ben Rice, Beverly Rawls and Joe Richardson – rehearse at the church a few days before departing for Uruguay.

The handbell ringers of Ashley River Baptist Church, Charleston, launched a weeklong mission trip June 19, fulfilling a challenge that began four months ago on another continent.

The team of 11 ringers traveled to Uruguay to perform, inspire and leave behind a set of refurbished bells.

Yarborough

The seeds for the mission trip were planted when Philip and Peggy Johnson, who have spent the past year and a half in Uruguay, contacted the South Carolina Baptist Convention to find out if there was an available set of handbells, according to Ashley River Baptist minister of music H.S. Yarborough.

“Philip Johnson was a minister of music at his church in Rock Hill,” Yarborough said.

“His work there (in Uruguay) is to try to reach a more educated part of the society, and as a result, he has discovered that the best way to do that is to establish relationships with people.”

Because of his music background, Johnson understood that people respond well to the arts, Yarborough said.

Meanwhile, back home in the Palmetto State, where worship services are relying more on electric guitars and less on handbells, a church in the Upstate decided to relinquish its set of bells.

The Singing Churchmen of South Carolina, a choral group of Baptist music ministers, heard about the newly available bells and Johnson’s request, raised some money during performances to purchase and refurbish the set, and wondered who could make the trip.

The chairman of the missions committee of the Singing Churchmen has a son who is a handbell ringer at Ashley River Baptist.

When Yarborough was contacted, he thought about the prophet Isaiah, who said, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’?”

Wendy Taylor, mission projects coordinator for Ashley River Baptist and a member of the bell choir, was among the group traveling in Uruguay.

Taylor said she has been ringing for more than 25 years. She started in the fourth-grade children’s choir, then rang in her church, Oak Park Baptist in New Orleans, where she grew up.

Her ringing colleague and the son of the Singing Churchman who notified Ashley River is Ben Rice.

The group raised $14,000 to subsidize a trip that cost about $26,000, Taylor said.

The Ashley River ringers heard about the request in March, formed the choir by mid-April and rehearsed madly every since – two times a week for two hours at a time.

Typically, ringers play hymns, but the choir, which is tasked with reaching out to unchurched folks in Uruguay, was asked to play a few popular tunes, Taylor said.

So they prepared a version of the “William Tell Overture” and the classic song “Moon River,” and the Coke commercial hit “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” They also played a few spirituals and, of course, one or two hymns.

They performed in schools and cultural centers and at Rotary Club meetings, Taylor said.

The choir of 10 ringers and one conductor was armed with a three-octave set of bells. Each ringer was in charge of three to five bells.

The mission trip centered in Punta Del Este, a beautiful community near the water, about an hour and a half south of Montevideo, Yarborough said. It’s a playground for the wealthy travelers of Europe and South America. The summertime population is 250,000; in winter, the locals number 7,000.

It’s the locals the Ashley River ringers wanted to target. That’s why the trip was scheduled for the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn season.

In addition to bell performances, the missionaries held “conversation classes” in English and talked about Charleston, Yarborough said.

The group stayed busy, presenting two to five concerts a day.

Then they left the bells with Johnson.

“It’s been great for the church,” Yarborough said. “It’s a test of faith, an opportunity for fellowship.”

And a chance to share the gift of music.

– Copyright ? 1995-2010 Evening Post Publishing Co. Parker is a writer for The Post and Courier (Charleston). Photos and stories reprinted with permission.