Actual Date of post: June 28, 2010 (blogspot makes one reverse order the dates of posts in order for them to show up chronologically on the site)

Back in Michigan, Kurt Haney, a gentleman from our church, Clarkston Free Methodist, goes on at least one mission trip per year. One thing that he did often was find a decent quality lower cost guitar to take with him to lead worship, then leave with the local church or school at his destination.

I thought it was, and is, a great idea.

I leave for a mission trip to Peru soon, and wanted to carry on Kurt's great idea and share it with you here.

I found a decent Epiphone for sale on the local Craigslist, called the seller, made an offer, accepted his counter-offer, and agreed to meet at a local Wal-Mart parking lot to make the transaction.

He showed up with his younger brother, and as I was checking it out, he says "You can just have it. It will be a blessing to somebody that way." Then his younger brother, who has been fumbling with some cash (which I thought would make change if they thought I was going to pay with a $100), hands it to me and says "Here's 30$ - you can buy some strings and a strap with it."

Grace.... From teenage boys no less.

I had their home phone number and called their dad and let him know how proud he should be of his two teenage sons. He said that they had already called him and were excited about what they had just done.

I promised to send them a photo of the new recipient once the hand-off is made.

I'll post it here as well.

Going on a mission trip and play guitar? Take a lesson from Kurt Haney and these two teenage boys and spread the gift of music.

Actual post date: June 29, 2010

Now that I had the guitar, there was a little bit of work to be done. First, the guitar only had 4 strings, so I needed some strings (several sets to take and leave in Peru), and the gig-bag that the guitar came in wouldn't protect it very well even as a carry-on piece of luggage.

I also noticed that the saddle piece on the bridge needed some care as it had some grooves in it from old strings. I lightly sanded off the grooves with some 220 sandpaper. Then I oiled the rosewood fretboard with a product called Lizard Spit, which is really mostly lemon oil.

But Mission Trip Guitar needed that case and some new strings.

This is where Bill and Carol from Music Central in Colorado Springs come into the story of the Mission Trip Guitar. Bill and Carol gave me a great discount on a thicker padded

gig bag, 5 sets of strings, a bunch of picks and a strap.

Here you see Mission Trip Guitar with it's new strings and strap. I noticed that there was a bit of a buzz when playing any note that matched the open B string. I could not figure out where it was coming from. I noticed also that the action was a little high once I had MTG strung with a full set of strings at proper tension. That's when the light went on - I bet the truss rod was loose in the neck. So I loosened the strings and removed the truss rod cover up

on the headstock. Sure enough, the truss rod was completely loose. Truss rod adjustments are always a nervous adventure. There's always the chance

you can over tighten and break the thing. But since this one was entirely loose, I had less worries. I

gave it a few turns and it tightened up and started to pull the strings lower in action once I put the strings under tension. Success! Buzz -eliminated.

Here's a shot of MTG's new case that I picked up at Music Central on Academy.

I'm still a little worried that in the event I might have to gate-check the guitar, it might not survive airport/airline handling, so I'm going to do a couple things: 1. I have some heavy cardboard that I will use to line the case. 2. I am going to put an old sweater or sweatshirt on MTG before putting it into the case, and wrap the neck and headstock in a towel. Hopefully that will do the trick.

John from Australia wrote me a note about his MTG experience:

"In 1994 I went on a short term medical mission trip to Western Siberia. To be able to add to the gospel flavour of the trip in a variety of ways, I took my Morales steel string accoustic gtr, and used it in a variety of ministry settings, and also just to have fun in a totally new environment with something familair. The Morales was a moderate quality asian made instrument roughly equivalent to a Korean made Washburn or such- no pedigree but pretty flash for that part of the world at that time. Towards the end of the 3 week trip, we spent a bit of time with one of the teaching elders and his family in a very remote little village half way up the Ob river, called Oktyabriskaya. (The village name is drawn from the month of October and relates to the October 1917 Russian Revoloution, as do many place and street names in Russia). One day in that period, the Elder, whose name was, I think, Alexei, picked up my guitar and to my suprise gave it an authoritative strum and sung the opening note to a Russian folk song (I think) at the top of his voice. In that moment I knew I was to leave the guitar with him in Oktyabriskaya, and I did. As far as I know it continues to serve him and the local church there, the very first Baptist church in that region.

3 years later I returned to Western Siberia, and got engaged to I girl I had met on that '94 trip. Alesya and I were married the following year and have lived in Australia since. So, yeah, giving guitars away can be a powerful thing....?!?!"


So - the question is: What about YOUR Mission Trip Guitar that's waiting to meet it's new owner?

Actual Post Date: July 13, 2010 (after returning from Peru and back on the grid)

July 3 arrives and it's time for the Mission Trip Guitar to be on it's way to Peru. The flight from Colorado Springs to Houston presents the first challenge. It's a small regional jet that has a full coat closet (where I hoped I would be able to stow the guitar on both of our flights). It looks like it's going to get gate checked. Unfortunately, these little jets are hardly big enough to stand up in - with my buzz cut, I can feel the ceiling of the jet tickle what little hair I have on my head as I walk to my seat. Any taller and I'd be doing a Quasimodo imitation to lurch down the aisle.

Well, the pilot hears about a guitar going to be stored underneath and he volunteers to take his roll-on luggage into the cockpit, making just enough room for the MTG to stay above deck. Whew!Here's a photo of me wearing the MTG in the Houston airport - safe and sound - so far.
When we get on the plane in Houston for the flight to Lima, it's a packed flight - no open seats and they are offering deals for people to delay their flight. This is a bad sign for above-deck storage for the MTG.Sure enough, MTG has to get gate-checked and go below decks. Not a good sign at all. Any guitar player that has been online has seen the 'United Breaks Guitars'video on YouTube. For those who haven't, here it is:United Breaks GuitarsNow our flight was Continental, which is a United partner, so I was a bit worried. My wife Rachel reassured me that there were too many God moments so far in the story to have it arrive in Lima broken into pieces.

She was right. Here it is, safely arrived in the Lima airport along with the rest of our team.

Next in the journey was the 9 hour bus ride from Lima, which is at sea level, up and over the Andes mountains through a pass that was 15000+ feet, then back down the other side of the Andes into

the Chanchamayo region of Peru. Fortunately, there was ample overhead storage in the bus. At least the guitar didn't have to share quarters with the driver - who apparently sleeps in one of the cargo holds.

I'm really glad that it didn't get placed under there because the hold was jam-packed with luggage and produce that was being transported from Lima along highway 20 towards

the jungle area of Peru where our final destination was the village of Pampasilva - about 20 minutes farther down highway 20 from La Merced, where our hotel was located.

I used the guitar a couple of times during our stay at the

project before presenting it as a gift to the senior pastor of the church. The kids loved strumming while I fretted chords.

I discovered that the pastor of the church where we were doing our mission work is an

accomplished musician. The church did not have an acoustic guitar and a random survey of some of the folks thought that they could use one. I ended up giving the guitar to Pastor Jaime. Here's a photo of both of us right after I gave him the guitar. He was very appreciative of it.

So the question is: Do you have a potential Mission Trip Guitar lurking in a closet, or under a bed, that could be put to good use?

Looks like Kris Allen (American Idol winner a couple seasons ago) ended up doing something similar, but unplanned. Click Here to read the story.