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We caught up with Cristi and Carrie of Alathea at the 2005 GMA festivities in Nashville to see what they were up to these days...
MQ:You guys are all over the place. With all your travelling, do you have any funny stories from the road? You know, who can read the map the best - who reads it the worst...
Cristi: You want the whole down-low! (laugh)
all: Laughing...
Cristi: We travel in a Dodge Ram diesel truck and pull a trailer. That's what we've done for the last four years or so. Actually this is kind of a funny story. We had been on a women's retreat - doing the worship and concerts for it. It was at this nice hotel and it had catered lunches. Carrie kept commenting, "Man, the women know how to do it! You know, if a man was in charge, you'd be having pizza and you'd be sleeping in sleeping bags..."
Carrie: Not all men, there are exceptions...
Cristi: Yeah, there are exceptions, but just as a general rule.
Carrie: It was thought out by women, like our mom's ages...
Cristi: They had snacks and door prizes and gifts...
Carrie: It was all comfortable - a nice hotel - we all had to wake up and eat breakfast together. We had lunch, there were snacks in between...there were outings...
Cristi: Carrie was like, "We've got to do more of these! We've got to embrace our femininity. We've got to go after this full-force! This feels so good." Then we were driving home - away from that talking about 'embracing our femininity' and all this stuff and our trailer tire goes out. It was 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, so everything is closed. We pull into two little shops. Dead...closed...nobody. So, we pull into a little Ace hardware store and there's one guy working and he can't leave the desk ... he can't help us. So, we're like, "Ok, here we go!" I have on a skirt and I have to go into the Ace Hardware store to put jeans on. And then Mandee sits in the parking lot with a manual. Carrie is the director, and Carrie and I just change the tire in the parking lot. We were laughing. "Embracing femininity...changing a tire...this is our life." (laughing) Yeah, so that's kind of how it works.
MQ: I ran into some folks from Milligan College while I was helping out at a Passion Conference in Nashville. I mentioned you guys and their eyes lit up, and there was an instant connection there. Can you guys talk a little about those early days - just starting out as a group...
Cristi: I do remember the first performance. It was...
Carrie: - 1997.
Cristi: We opened for Bebo before he was Bebo. He was just this little 'Young Life' guy with a guitar.
Carrie: He hadn't signed with Essential yet. I think he was on Watershed records.
Cristi: He was coming to Milligan college. So, we opened for him because they (Carrie and Mandee) went to school there. It was the biggest deal. We were so nervous.
Carrie: We made posters...and lots of people came - of course, for Bebo.
Cristi: I got a toe cramp in the middle of it and had to walk around the stage. We were all sitting...
Carrie: Yeah, she gets a toe cramp and starts walking around and we're like, "What is she doing...?"
Cristi: We made our first stage purchase! We bought two candle holders...(laughing) and four stools. We had to borrow microphones. We had to borrow everything else. But we bought the stools and the candle holders...and we still have them. I remember the songs that we did. Probably about half of them we've never recorded. We did record a few of them on our first independent CD.
MQ: What do you feel God is teaching you these days - whether it's personal or with your career?
Cristi: Yeah, you know it's funny because we are artists, sometimes you realize what you're learning or what you've been taught by what's coming out of you. I think about a few different things. I'm in the middle of writing a book, so, a lot of the things I've been thinking about and writing about are things that I'm realizing I'm learning. And I don't think I realize I'm learning them until I start writing them down and then it comes out. I'm thinking the same thing about the songs that are being written for our next album. They kind of tell the story of where we are right now. I think one of the major things is change. I guess there is this idea that at some point things will level off and things will get normal, but they don't, really. They keep evolving and changing. So, Carrie has gotten married this year. That was a big change. She's moved to Nashville.
MQ: Congratulations...
Carrie: Thank you!
Cristi: Yeah. That's a big deal. And then, Mandee's been sick for a while, so that's been a different kind of pace, a different kind of change - something we weren't expecting. I was talking to an old friend last night and I was like, "You know, when there's a lot of change going on, you realize what is permanent and what isn't going to change." And with Carrie being married and moving, it makes me know even more that we're all in this thing together - because that hasn't changed, and it's not going to change - you know? But you don't really know how committed everyone is until change happens and it's not what you anticipated. One of the things that I've been learning is that in real particular ways that God is present. When I was in college, I used to sit around and talk about ideas and figure out which theology felt more true today because of 'this and that' or whatever. And now I really feel like I'm in a season where I really want to understand the particular - not the big idea - but I want to understand what it means for God to be present right here and right now and in this relationship. And what it means for God to be a part of this hour of this day, in this town that I'm in, as I'm talking to this stranger that I've never met before at this concert - or whatever it is. I really feel like my big ideas are fading into small opportunities to experience God's love for me - and to share God's love with someone else.
Carrie: I think change is the biggest thing. I feel like in change, you have to be patient with yourself, your circumstances and with others. It's a time when it's more unknown and uncomfortable ... and mysterious in some ways. So, you really have to believe - it's when your faith comes in - and you have to believe that just because these circumstances are happening - change is happening - and people are doing things different than you think, or you expect, or you don't know how to deal with. Your faith has to kick and you have to rely on God for the strength to get through that change and to not freak out. I think for women especially, we tend to freak out and go, "Oh my gosh! What do I do? I'm not used to this!" (laugh) You just have to really have that faith. What you believe is what you have to stand firm on and know it's going to be ok.
MQ: Who would you like to perform with? Is there anyone you'd like to play music with - or maybe just hang out and spend some time with?
Cristi: Oh, yeah. There's lots of them. Well, I think if Mandee was here, the first thing out of her mouth is 'Dolly Parton'. (laugh) She's just been doing it. Her faith continues to come out - over and over. It's her life. It's what she does. Like, Emmylou Harris - the people that have been around doing it - who have made a life - regardless of the circumstances - regardless of everything going on. They plugged away and they did it because that's what they had to do. Gosh, there's lots of people...the Indigo Girls...
Carrie: I'd like to sit and talk to Bono for while - or be a fly on the wall.
Cristi: Yeah.
MQ: Do you want to talk about your recent trip to Honduras?
Carrie: Yeah, it was great! It was a Compassion retreat. Every year they have these retreats for artists to thank them for participating with Compassion. This was a special retreat as it was in another country - they always have them in the states. So, we went to Honduras with probably 70 other artists. There were so many there that we really didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with everybody - just a handful of people. It was a weekend retreat. Tony Campolo was the speaker they brought in for the retreat. While we were there, we decided to sponsor another child in Honduras. His name is Alexander. So we got to meet him and his whole family - which was really cool because normally you just get to meet the kid. There was his mom, and his little brothers, his teacher...
Cristi: - his teacher, and his principal...they all came.
Carrie: Yeah, and they spent the whole day with us.
Cristi: We had just started sponsoring a couple of months right before we went on the trip. So, we went shopping for him because you could take a couple of presents. When we went to see Maritza, it was easy because she's a girl - and we're all girls - and we picked girly things and it was easy. And then we had this little boy and were like, "Oh no! What do we buy?" (laugh) On his information, it said he liked soccer. So, we grabbed a soccer ball and took it to him. He just lit up! We played soccer all day long. I busted flat out on the ground! We played with kids all afternoon. It was a beautiful day. The moment that we got there, we met with his family and his mom said, "Thank you for helping my family." And she would tell him throughout the day, "Tell them thank you" or "Give them a hug" - all day long she kept instigating him...and he would. He was just this sweet, tender hearted little boy. But, we were out playing soccer with him that afternoon, and him and Mandee had went out there ahead of everybody. And he got out there and he had the soccer ball, and he dropped the soccer ball and looked up at her and said, "Gracias!" He just gave her a big ole hug! It was totally not because his mom told him too - and it wasn't for the soccer ball. It was because we were helping his family be who they were supposed to be. It's just so humbling to be a part of that situation. What seems so insignificant to us, they're doing so much with. It just seems that we waste so much, and they are treasuring everything that they have. So, it was a really neat experience. It was really fun being around the little boy - he's precious!
Carrie: And it was neat being there around the other artists. It was just a special time to be in another country...and Tony Campolo's speaking was real piercing. It was actually overwhelming. It was one of those things, after being home for about three weeks, you could actually think about it all because so much happened at once.
MQ: What are you guys listening to or reading these days?
Carrie: Well, we're all kind of different. Cristi and Mandee tend to swap books a lot. I'll answer for me, the things I tend to read are more novels. I love Frederick Buechner. He's my favorite - hands down - with the way he delivers his thinking, theology, and life stories. They just roll out of his mouth and onto the page. I enjoy reading art books. I'm more visual, so, I like to look at things. I'm really into architectural design right now.
Cristi: - a little bit of influence from her husband.
Carrie: Yeah, my husband and I are both into stuff like that. So, it's fun to do that together. Because of him, I'm listening to a lot more world music which has influenced me a lot lately. He's a percussionist so he's always listening for different sounds and different kinds of drumming. It's gotten me into Bossa Nova music and Brazilian. He's into a lot of Indian instruments. So, I'm listening a lot to that. And we're into looking at a lot of architectures from different countries. So, looking into different parts of the world has gotten me into politics and Compassion International and all that stuff. We've actually done a lot of missionary retreats lately. Somebody gave a statistic at one of those that if you own a house and a car, you're in the top 5 percent of the whole world in wealth. If you own a house and two cars, you're in the top 3 percent of the wealth of the whole world. I think a lot of times we don't realize because in our world everyone is like us - in America - and in our neighborhood, everyone tends to be similar to who we are. And we don't realize that it is such a minority compared to the whole world. We are so, so wealthy and we don't even know what to do with that wealth. So that's the thing that I've been thinking about so much. India is one of biggest countries right now that has not really been touched by missionaries as much. It's not been influenced and the culture is so different from who we are as Americans, that it's really hard for us to try to get into that country and influence those people and talk to them about Jesus. And I think it's just a huge need that we're unaware of.
Cristi: I think we continue to get more and more connected with the ministry of Compassion - especially after this last trip. You know, that whole story of Alexander out in the field with the soccer ball and saying 'Gracias!' It was interesting because Tony Campolo was speaking and he was talking about if God came to us in all His glory and all of His splendor, we wouldn't have a thing to give to Him. There'd be nothing that we have that we'd be able to turn over to Him and give back. But, because He clothes Himself in the poor children of the world - and says, 'If you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me' - and through them we are able to give something back to God. And I think that the whole idea is really starting to affect us. Mandee said when Alexander said 'Thank you'...she said it was like it came full circle - and it was God saying, 'Thank you for giving back to me...because that's how I've allowed you to give back to me and you did it.' That's kind of been a real powerful image for us over the last few months and specifically, realizing how small our subculture is and how big the world is and how big the needs are ... and if we really do want to be giving something back to God, it means paying some attention to what's going on around us.
MQ: What are you working on these days? Any new projects?
Cristi: We are working on some new music. Mandee has written - I think some of the best songs she's written. We're really excited about that.