Gary Van Engelehoven already has rooms booked at Kalona’s Dutch Country Inn for next August, when he and his gospel trio Living Water Music of Oskaloosa will return for Kalona Gospel Sing in 2022.

Van Engelehoven and Living Water Music were one of 15 gospel groups to share the stage in 20-minute sets at the Windmill Ridge Campground over the weekend of Aug. 27-29.

Despite heat in the 90s and a heat index much higher, a generous crowd gathered at Windmill Ridge, bringing their own lawn chairs and arranging them in the shade, to hear the wide variety of gospel music on display during the festival.

Sheryl Fenton, Van Engelehoven’s niece and also a member of Living Water Music, said the variety of music is one of the reasons she’s returned to perform at Kalona Gospel Sing for three years in a row, since she joined Living Water Music.

The group as a whole has been performing for 25 years, fluctuating between a trio and a quartet over that time. The third member of Living Water Music is Ron  Rozenboom, who has been performing with the group for 15 years.

In their set on Saturday morning, Living Water Music sang “Long Black Train”, which featured Fenton as a strong alto voice, and “‘Til the Storm Passes By” before closing their set with an acapella rendition of “It Is Well With My Soul”.

Another group to perform Saturday morning was Voices of Peace, consisting of Bud and Carolyn McAtee, Ruth Franz, Don and Elaine Olson and Mike Brown. Voices of Peace hails from Wisconsin, where they also host their own two-day gospel festival, which took place the week before Kalona Gospel Sing.

Bud said many of the volunteers at Kalona Gospel Sing also helped with their festival, and said they are a big reason why Voices of Peace continues to return, year after year, to Kalona Gospel Sing.

Many of the performers cited the community present at the festival as a blessing, saying they look forward to traveling to Kalona in order to see their friends and colleagues for a weekend of worship.

“To us, it’s like a family reunion,” Carolyn said. “For this gospel fest, and for our gospel fest, we get to meet with our band friends and see everyone we haven’t seen in over a year… We fell it really is just like a family reunion where we get to proclaim the name of the Lord in music.”

Brown, who has performed at Kalona Gospel Sing for four years in a row, said the freedom to worship with others is the reason he keeps coming back.

“It’s nice to come out and perform for a group and the freedom to worship — the freedom to actually come out and worship the Lord is one of the big reasons why I come out here,” Brown said. “It’s wonderful performing for these people, seeing their smiles, their expressions, their enthusiasm that’s all for the Lord.”

The performers at Kalona Gospel Sing value their ministry — their ability to share the word of God through music. But why music?

“Music touches hearts. I don’t care who you are, music will touch anybody’s heart. It sooths the beast,” Van Engelehoven said. “I was in the feed business for 59 years, and when you went into a dairy barn or a cattle barn what do you think was in there? A radio playing music. That keeps everybody calm. It’s the same thing when we sing God’s message, it sooths our hearts.”