[During June and July, 1998, the General Board of Global Ministries led a group of 21 students from United Methodist-related colleges and universities in singing global choral music in the Baltic States and Russia. The participants wrote statements commenting on their experiences. Following is one such statement.]

One by one the blue-shirted Youth Mission Chorale stepped into the waiting room of a boys' prison in Lithuania. The walls were white and blank. We sat down in tight rows of wooden seats and waited. In the hallways outside we could hear guards talking.

Minutes later, a woman came in and told us that there were two groups in this prison, those who had committed crimes and those who had done "anything imaginable." We listened to her description of their behavior and of her years of "mothering" them.

She finished. We waited.

The door swung open with two guards in view. They led us through a hallway to a large room like a warehouse with a hard tile floor. Wooden benches were set up in semicircle rows.

We quickly set up our electric keyboard and bongo drum; tuned the clarinet, flute and guitar, and brought out the claves and shaker. We waited.

Again, a door swung open. Two men entered followed by "the boys." We watched them sit down on those benches in front of us. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they were squeezed in. Their heads were shaved. They were Lithuanian; all white, all thin. Several had their arms thrown over the shoulders of the guy next to them.

It seemed as if they'd dressed in their best clothes--Adidas and Chicago Bulls running suits. One in the front wore light-colored jeans, a pressed shirt, and sturdy shoes. Most, however, were sockless in rubber flip-flops.

They sat looking at us. We sat looking at them. No one said anything to the other.

Then we started to sing. We sang and sang, and clapped and swayed. Our songs were French, Latin, African, Caribbean, Korean, Indian, American. . . and one Lithuanian. Our songs moved to many different beats and styles. While we watched these imprisoned boys, we saw that they moved with us. The "us and them-ness" disappeared into a unified experience of transformation. We were drawn out of apprehension and into praise.

The love of God filled the room and became visible on all our faces--us and them. I thought of a passage from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice:

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music.