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PROCLAIM MISSION STATEMENT

MISSION STATEMENT:
Proclaim! International is a community of missionaries called to proclaim the gospel with creativity, humility and boldness, in obedience to the authority of Jesus Christ. We desire to honor God by doing all things with excellence and, above all, to “love one another,” proving ourselves to be his disciples.


A DAY IN THE LIFE ON THE ROAD

On your 2nd tour you have to play 2 instruments at once!
This guy might not look old enough to be a veteran, but Ryan Harbert from California has served on several tours with Proclaim -- the first was in Croatia at age 17! Here is his take on on life on the road on one of the tours in Croatia:
WAKE UP

Usually this part happens way too soon and much against my will, but there’s not much we can do about that. Sometimes coffee is ready, sometimes it’s not an option. In either case, the first goal is to try and pronounce the name of the town I’m in. If not pronounce it, at least remember it.

Breakfast

Bread, coffee, cheese, most of the time in any particular order. 

Idemo 

[EE-de-mo]. Literally: “Let’s go.” Of course, it always takes three idemo‘s to actually leave. the first one is like a gentle reminder that we should get moving. Nobody flinches from their breakfast. The second comes about 10 minutes later, where people get up and put their things together. But when you hear the third idemo, it’s really time to get in the car. This phenomonon was constistant through my entire trip, by the way. No matter the occasion, there were always three idemo‘s.

Drive

An hour on the road would be a blessing. Two or three were the norm, with the longest being nine. You become very close to your seatmates and learn lots of interesting things about them. Some of which you would rather not know.

Set up

We have one large maxi-van full of equipment and a total of zero roadies to set it up. That means if it’s going to be done, we are going to do it.  Somehow, the weather always managed to be between 35-40°C (for those unfamiliar with the metric system, it’s roughly between hot and really hot). When we started, this was a two hour process, but we got it down to a really smooth and casual two hours by the end of the tour.

Play

The most fun part of the day. Time to rock out with the best musicians in the area and have an awesome jam session for an hour and a half, all while singing about God and preaching His word to people. Could you ask for anything more than that?

Tear down

Self explanatory. Like set up, but less hot and a lot more tired. On a good night, we would be packed before midnight and headed to dinner, or just our sleeping quarters for the night. Sometimes there was post show beer, sometimes people fell asleep in the car on the way to our host family’s house. Every night was exausting one way or another.

Sleep

In over two weeks of touring, not once did anyone have a problem falling asleep. The only real problem was waking up the next morning to do it all over again.

Lather, rinse (if you’re lucky), repeat.