ACSC Choir Trip

By Ian Dobson

The ACSC Choir trip was a great opportunity for Dalat students to grow in their singing abilities and interact with people from different schools. This year, it was hosted at Faith Academy, in Manila. The Dalat guys stayed at a student's house, which was also a dorm, and the girls stayed at a complex called The YMC. 

Most of the trip involved singing and eating; the singing was hard for some people as we had to continue singing for longer than we regularly do. But we did things other than singing as well. We started the week with a boodle fight, which is a Filipino style of eating where all the food is on banana leaves, and you use gloves to eat the food. Everyone eats the same food, and there aren’t separate plates or anything. Later on in the week, they also had an interesting Filipino festival where there were lots of Filipino foods and activities. They had belut, ice cream, taho, chicken and pig intestines, all kinds of noodles, and much more. The activities they had included karaoke, a dancing game with two long bamboo sticks, and a game with an elastic band where they had to get their leg over the band held up by two other people. It was interesting to see the culture in the Philippines through the cultural activities we participated in. We concluded the time there with a concert, and after the concert, the Dalat group went with some of the Faith students to a mall. 

When asked about his favorite part of the trip, Andrew Mattson, a tenth-grader who sings bass, answered, “My favorite thing about the trip was getting to hang out with friends and meet new people. I also enjoyed the concert, the swimming pool, and the service trip.” He also said, “I think I learned better technique for how to sing more beautifully as Dr. Hopper taught as when to breathe or not breathe and also when to sing quietly or what type of voice to use.” He had a lot of fun and also learned a lot more about singing from the director, Dr. Hopper, who used to work at Wheaton College.

As a whole, all the Dalat students who went on the trip both made new connections with other students from international schools and learned a lot about singing.