When Karen Gosselin picked the music a year ago for the 2025 OneVoice honor choir, she did it thoughtfully and prayerfully.
But she had no idea how the perfect the lyrics would be when it came time to sing them, or that their first audience would be a cafeteria packed full of powerline workers.
“We had some incredible unexpected opportunities,” she said.
As Gosselin and the choir of seventh through 12th graders gathered at Shocco Springs on March 14, they all knew they were staring down the barrel of a stormy weekend.
“The first cool thing that happened was that I didn’t have one student pull out because of the storms,” she said, noting that past years have all had a 5% attrition rate for other reasons. “With this event, we knew storms were coming, we knew we could be in the middle of a mess, and still every parent allowed their kids to come.”
And as the choir and the storms began to gather, so did more than 780 power linemen from surrounding states, all staying at Shocco so they could be quickly deployed to areas affected by the storms.
“I got to thinking about that and thought, ‘OK, y’all, we can do our practice performance for these men who are here,’” Gosselin said. “On Saturday we were supposed to do our dress rehearsal at 7, and we decided instead that we would go a little early, eat and then surround the people in the cafeteria and sing while they’re eating.”
The cafeteria was packed as the students began singing to them the well-timed words chosen a year ago.
“Throughout the music, the common themes were that God is our shield and the lifter of our heads, through the raging storms and even where affliction is found, I will still sing alleluia,” Gosselin said.
She said she wasn’t sure how the crowd would respond.
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This article was originally published at TheAlabamaBaptist.org.