Friday, January 23, 2009

Hooome sweet home!

Adding on to Ken's previous post, we were in my hometown just a week ago which was pretty awesome. I'm sure some of us can agree that it's always nice to be back home while on tour. While we were there, we held a concert for my church. If anyone from my church is reading this, thanks to all of you who came out and supported us! It meant ALOT to me. I don't really have that much to say about it except that it made me miss worshipping with y'all and leading ya'll into worship.

Currently, we are in Aaron's hometown in Columbus, Georgia where wrestling wildlife is a sport AND probably a means for survival. Something that stuck out to me this week was this marquee in front of a church we passed by while driving to one of our venues. It said, "Our need is not for God to prove His faithfulness, but it is for us to show our own faithfulness to Him. (poorly paraphrased, sorry)." I'm the type of person that needs something proved to me before I actually follow through and do it. Many times, it's easy for me to walk around with that type of mentality towards God. "Show me how powerful You are, first!" In reality, He's already shown His faithfulness towards us and shown us what He is able to do. Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, fed thousands, conquered death, and those things aren't good enough for me?? All He wants from me is to be faithful to Him in all that I do. Anyway, that was something that encouraged me this week.

Psalm 115:1
Not to us, O LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Houston Texas, home of Stanley Tso, and 1421 (for the next day and a half). This is our second week on winter tour, we left Willmar on the 3rd and spent a few day's in Bushnell IL at Taco's home church. Then we went to Chicago and spent several days with Laura's family. After Chicago we went to St Louis were we stayed three nights with Kim's family, Kim has done cti summer three summers in a row so it was fun to see her :) From St Louis we drove all day to Dallas were we spent one night, then we drove to Austin and played a concert and stayed the night. Today we left Austin and drove to Houston were we are staying with Stanley's family, we will play at his church tomorrow.
Needless to say we have traveled a long way, and we have had a lot of great times. God is using us in truly unique ways and that is a wonderful thing to be a part of. We would appreciate your prayers as we travel and thank you for your support... and for reading our blogs :)

Here are some pics from our trip so far, these are from all over so I'm not even going to try labeling them all. Yes we went to the Zoo :)

Monday, January 05, 2009

On The Road Again

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you're doing well. We're off again and enjoying the first few days of our 13 week tour, in which we will be traveling in IL, TX, FL, and the rest of the East coast. So far we've been hanging out in Colin's hometown (Bushnell, IL), where we've played at his church, and soon the camp that he loves so much. Today we spent our day off at Fun City playing laser tag, bowling, go-carting, and playing tons of games. It was AWESOME. Yesterday was Colin's birthday too, so that made this particular stop that much more enjoyable. There was cake and ice cream galore! Not a bad way to spend the first weekend out, if you ask me.

Beyond all that, I'm so grateful to be back. There's nothing like a nice, long, relaxing break to remind me of what it is I'm called to do this year. While it was wonderful to be at home, to spend time with friends and family, and to catch up on some sleep, I must admit that I missed our team, our nasty van (though we have a few more weeks before it really gets all that nasty), the many host homes we've been privileged to stay with, and the music we all love so much. There is a feeling of utter contentment I get every time I'm on stage (or back at the board)- knowing that I am doing exactly what I was created to do. It's a remarkable feeling, and I can only pray that I can be aware enough of God's calling in my life to be in this state all the time. While I realize that I will not always be called to be traveling with CTI, I know that God has a plan for my life, and only by following Him into that willingly will I ever recieve the kind of peace and joy that comes from fulfilling that purpose that God has in my life. I pray this for all of you as well.

Here's a few pictures from our time so far...







These are Stanley wearing Ken's new specs, Colin wearing the apron he got for his brithday, a host brother wearing the Macki cover, and Micaela and Aaron bowling.


Ta ta for now!