For whom the bell tolls: Music helps expand Laconia church’s mission
Posted on December 21, 2008
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Repost from: The Citizen of Laconia
Link to article, including photos: http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081221/GJNEWS02/712212190/-1/CITNEWS08
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By BEA LEWIS
bwheel@metrocast.net |
Mary Divers, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Plymouth State University and a master’s degree from Winchester University, heads up the group.
“It’s certainly another way to minister to people,” Divers said of the handbell choir that uses bronze bells made of a copper-and-tin alloy, ranging in size from tiny to giant.
She also directs the Ashland Community Choir, leads the New Horizon of the Lakes Region Band and the Lakes Region Ringers handbell choir.
Divers’ own story is inspirational. Legally blind, she said, the handbell choir let her discover that she could still do something instrumental despite her limited vision.
Handbell choir member Jan Learned said Divers makes up for her poor eyesight with her exceptional ear, noting she is still able to play a lone bell with the Granite State Ringers handbell choir.
Divers finds serving as the minister of music at the 25-year-old church rewarding, noting that she survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and, in 2005, underwent triple bypass heart surgery.
“God has given me extra lives for a reason,” she says.
During a recent practice at the Parade Road church, Divers kept up a rhythmic count of one and two and three as handbell choir members practiced “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” while telling members “it’s as legato as possible — like a chant.”
“It’s fun being able to play music with everyone,” said David Nelson who plays in the choir with his wife, Lisa.
Last year the choir performed for retired soldiers at the N.H. Veterans’ Home in Tilton and at Forest View Manor, a Meredith nursing home. Each summer it plays at the Community Church on Meredith Neck. It also played when the Moving Wall, a mobile replica of the Vietnam Memorial, came to Meredith.
Divers also founded and organizes the Lakes Region Handbell Festival which takes place each November.
“We have massed rings and got seven different handbell choirs together this year,” Lisa Nelson said.
This year’s event was Nov. 15 at the First United Methodist Church of Gilford.
“I think all the members enjoy playing at other churches and playing the praises of God,” Divers said.
Members of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church’s Handbell Choir will join the Lakes Region Ringers for a concert tonight at the Ashland Freewill Baptist Church on Main Street, across from Bob Shurfine Market at 7 p.m.
Every two years the church group goes to the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers Area 1 Handbell Conference. In 2005 the event took place at the University of New Hampshire. In 2007 it was at the University of Rhode Island. This year it will take place at the University of Maine.
The church is holding a fundraiser to help offset the cost of the trip by selling chili and cornbread muffins for takeout during Superbowl Sunday on Feb. 1. People interested in placing an order may call the church at 528-4078.
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