T WAS A CLASSIC AMERICAN MOMENT. Minutes before the sleek black limousine carrying President Bill Clinton and President-elect George W. Bush to the inauguration ceremony rolled past Pennsylvania Avenue’s Freedom Plaza, an angry chorus of 4,000 protestors waved placards and screamed for a dozen different causes. Police in riot gear struggled to keep the protestors from surging into the street as the passions stoked by a bitter election controversy and the day’s miserable weather boiled over. The “peaceful transition of power” so celebrated in the mainstream media seemed uncertain amid chaotic expressions of First Amendment rights.

Just then, from an island in the angry crowd, 13 fresh-faced American teenagers began, in their own way, to let freedom ring. Up from the full-toned English handbells they were playing came the familiar lilting strains of “America the Beautiful,” piercing the angry cacophony behind them with a golden hymn to community and promise. Determined to be heard above the din, the teenagers played with musical abandon, belting out their faith in an America that was difficult to see that day, where good is crowned with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

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“I knew it was a big deal,” says 15-year-old Erica Aranda, “but it wasn’t until we got into Freedom Plaza and saw all those people protesting that it really sank in.” Erica, a four-year member of the Ring of Fire handbell choir from Tualatin Valley Junior Academy, an Adventist K-10 school in Hills-boro, Oregon, acknowledges being

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a bit overwhelmed by her brush with destiny. “I couldn’t help thinking, Wow! I’m playing for a world leader—me, of all people!”

“I was actually too tired to think very much about how big a day it was,” admits Ryan Sturges, an eighth grader in his second year with Ring of Fire. “Our schedules that weekend were pretty crazy.”

The whirlwind that swept the elite Adventist musical group to multiple events and national visibility on inauguration weekend this past January began inauspiciously enough during the protracted postelection controversy last November. While the group had made an impressive debut at Pinnacle 2000, the annual national festival for English handbells in January 2000, and had even played at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, they were primarily known only to Adventist churches and some civic organizations in the metro Portland area.

“One day in November, after a brainstorming session with Jason, it hit us,” says Carol Holm, publicity coordinator and mother of Ian, a seventh grader in the group. “We didn’t know who our new president would be, but we were sure that somebody was planning inaugural events for him.” Carol contacted Oregon U.S. senator Gordon Smith’s office, and within a day she put a demo video of the group in the mail.

A week later a phone call from the official Presidential Inaugural Committee invited Ring of Fire to make a formal application to participate. Three days before Christmas, phones all over the Portland suburb began ringing with news that the bell choir from the Adventist school had been selected to share their music during the inauguration events. Out of thousands of applications from musical groups across the nation, the Presidential Inaugural Committee had selected only 42: 39 marching bands, two vocal choirs, and one very excited handbell choir.

Major challenges—musical, financial, and logistical—dominated the next four weeks. “Our repertoire in the run-up to Christmas had, of course, been Christmas music,” says 30-year-old Jason Wells, the founder and director of the 4-year-old group. “I couldn’t imagine playing Christmas music in late January, much less at the inauguration. So Ann Cockerham [the group’s manager and mother of Ring of Fire members Andrew and Ellen] and I ordered everything patriotic we could get our hands on and went to work deciding what was realistic to expect from the kids.”

When Ring of Fire met for its first post-vacation practice on January 2, a hefty stack of new music to learn—and memorize—awaited them. Almost alone among nationally prominent bell choirs, Ring of Fire plays all of its concerts from memory, a feature that Wells believes contributes greatly to the group’s emotional and musical intensity. Well-known favorites of the group were mixed with technically demanding new selections in an ambitious concert program that Wells knew would push his group of teenagers to their musical edge.

“I continually tell them, ‘You’re incredible,’” Jason says with a smile, “and they proved that to me in our most demanding time. The bottom line is that the kids are always more important than anything. The player is more important than a wrong note. Yeah, we were going to the inauguration and a big national stage, and all the fun that goes with that. But if the kids aren’t having fun, it’s not worth it.”

The intensified early January practice schedule was made even more complicated as Portland area media became aware of the group’s historic invitation. The majority of rehearsals were photographed, filmed, or recorded by reporters from every major radio, television, and print media outlet in greater Portland as public enthusiasm for Ring of Fire began to swell. Group members quickly grew savvy about answering reporters’ questions even as they struggled to master the challenging new music.

“We had two weeks to raise the $12,000 necessary to make this trip,” says Holm, who also became the group’s chief fund-raiser for the Washington, D.C., trip. “I began calling metro Portland corporations that had a history of contributing to the performing arts. When the Wells Fargo Bank donated $5,000, that was our big break. Other companies who heard about us through all the media coverage and contributors from across Oregon joined with our local supporters to make it happen in record time.”

Thirteen teenagers and four adults boarded a flight from Portland on Thursday, January 18, under the glare of lights from the city’s three major television stations. As if the cross-country flight wasn’t tiring enough for the excited group, airport delays and baggage pickup caused them to arrive at their rooms at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland, about 1:00 a.m. Friday. Four hours later they were up and on their way to a 7:00 a.m. appointment at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., where Ring of Fire played for nearly 3,000 guests awaiting President-elect Bush, his wife, Laura, Vice president-elect Dick Cheney, and Former First Couple George and Barbara Bush. Mrs. Bush’s special literacy event, “Laura Bush Celebrates America’s Authors,” received wide media coverage, as did the unique Adventist bell choir that provided the morning’s only musical entertainment.

A Friday night sacred concert at the Takoma Park Seventh-day Adventist Church was followed by a 4:30 wake-up call on Sabbath morning. By 6:30 a.m. Ring of Fire had to pass security muster 10 miles away in the north parking lot of the Pentagon with hundreds of other parade participants. An hour later police vehicles escorted the group back across the Potomac River, past the Lincoln Memorial and down Pennsylvania Avenue, where lines of parade watchers and protestors were already beginning to form behind the barricades.

Under a protective awning that gave at least a little shelter from the raw and rainy skies, the group set up their golden handbells. It was still hours before the presidential limousine would pass, but already the plaza was filling with hundreds of vocal anti-Bush protestors carrying placards and chorusing their disapproval.

“We performed as often as physically possible for the next three hours,” Wells says. “Because of our commitment to the Sabbath and the witness we hoped to have, we had decided to perform only sacred music for the day. As the crowd began to grow and surround us with their angry chanting, we realized we were in a unique opportunity. We had a chance to communicate something positive to hurt and angry people.”

“And it was by no means lost on all the protestors,” Wells adds with a grin. “During one particularly fast-paced piece, the crowd was chanting its frustration with the new president’s policy on gun control. Just as we finished the last note, something amazing happened. The crowd switched to ‘Bells, Not Guns! Bells, Not Guns!’ Our ministry clearly had an impact.”

This poignant moment was caught by a Wall Street Journal feature writer whose article on the Ring of Fire was read around the world after the inauguration.

Ring of Fire continued to play through the midday at its location on Freedom Plaza as the Inaugural ceremonies unfolded on Capitol Hill. Though not allowed by the Secret Service to play as the presidential limousine passed again at 3:30, group members stood at the curb to wave as the new president and his wife made their way back up Pennsylvania Avenue. As the crowds of sightseers and protestors dispersed, bystanders stopped to thank the group members for being the one positive note in that stretch of the parade route.

An evening concert by Ring of Fire at the first of the evening’s eight inaugural balls capped the group’s historic day. What was supposed to be a 25-minute performance stretched to nearly an hour as the event director repeatedly signaled the group to “keep on going.” In the huge atrium in the Ronald Reagan Federal Building the group’s passionate playing drew sustained applause from hundreds of partygoers more accustomed to rock anthems and popular tunes at such functions.

Other events in the crowded weekend itinerary included performances at the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, and concerts at United Christian and Presbyterian churches in the metro D.C. area.

“I want the kids in Ring of Fire to know that they can do anything,” Jason says softly. “After these events I think they believe me. The spiritual lesson is that anything is possible with God. With God’s direction and perseverance you can accomplish anything.”

“I want them to attribute their incredible giftedness to God,” he adds, “and I believe they do. The Lord has opened up so many doors for this group. There are other bell choirs who have been together for years and years, with almost the same lineup of songs. And they tell us that they’re amazed at the venues we’ve been invited to play at—places they’ve tried to get into for so long.”

“We know that all we have, and all we’ve experienced, is a gift from God.”

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Bill Knott is an associate editor of the Adventist Review.

E-Link: For more information about Ring of Fire, their upcoming concert schedule, and available recording, see their Web site at www.ring-of-fire.org.