YOUTH CONFERENCE AND TOUR chapter 218

An attempt to make
Super Missionary
Larger than life

Youth Conference was always a great weekend. The theme was Sonsurround and this year we created a character called “Super Missionary” with a Superman like costume of orange and yellow. We didn’t know it at the time, but it did not hurt that the first of the Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves was coming out that same year. We had a mild mannered student considering the possibility of God’s call to missions (played by Ron Freeman, a little guy) who would go into a phone booth, then poof, change into Super Missionary. I cannot for the life of me remember who that actor was. He was not a Portrait Player, but he had the height and built to be the man of spiritual steel. That was such a fun theme to play with. We had a skit on that every at every gathering. The hardest part was getting SaskTel to loan us a phone booth.

Super Missionary Logo

Super Missionary helping a native. Students looking on.

We went west that summer. We had performed in all sizes of churches and frankly, setup was easier in small churches. First we knew most people could see. Second, we knew they could hear without amplification. Hearing and seeing was often a problem in large churches. This was a situation where small intimate locations beat out large venues. But none was worse than the stage at North Seattle Alliance.

The church could seat 500-600 and had an 8” rise for a front portion platform and then another two steps up for the back which was smaller and much to narrow. The back portion was about 20’-25’ from the first pew. Way to far for a stage production. We did the show, but people really struggled to see and hear. It may have been the worst place we preformed any of our shows. I got weary of the people telling me how hard it was to see and hear. I knew it would be a problem before we ever started.

The old sanctuary had been turned into a gym and I wanted to hold the show there. They did not have a stage, but they had platforms that could be set up as a stage. The church leadership felt it would be too small to hold the crowd. I’m sure it would have been, but had I known what the stage was like I would have pushed for two shows in the gym. The acoustics would also have been better in our situation.

They set up mics for us, but that didn’t help much. Several people stood at the back for the whole show while others stretched their necks and cupped their ears.

Typical casting schedule

We got over to Victoria Island for two shows but had little time to look around. We also preformed at Tenth Avenue in Vancouver. That was my first time back since leaving eight years earlier. There were very few the remembered me and I never made a comment about having worked there. Things had changed. We hooked up with several students from the area. That was good.

Typical drivel I wrote to inform and/or collect info from the team.

As part of the US tour I got into many church I would eventually visit as a district pastor. One was Moses Lake where anther of Della’s long time friend and her family lived. Anna “Jean” (Gifford) McDaniels and Mike were fun to visit.