First Church of God Vero Beach

Well, I got home from Florida last night, but it sure wasn’t easy!

I sang on the morning services at First Church of God in Vero Beach, and also got to sing with the kids in their program and do some of my scripture songs. And yes, I can still do all the motions, even in 3 inch heels and a jacket! I am woman, hear me roar! (And then, please, please, let me out of these heels – it’s just vanity to try to appear remotely tall for 3 days in a row. Note to self – accept that you’re short.)

One sweet story from the morning: I work with World Vision, and had the picture folders on my table. A woman came to the table, and just snatched up one of the children named Christian. She told me she’d seen him at the retreat, and felt she was supposed to sponsor him, but she let it go, and decided to just take a brochure and think about it. Well, apparently she went home and dreamed about him all night long – she said she was sure she was supposed to have him, and thought she’d missed her chance. She didn’t know I was singing on the services as well. She was so happy he was still there! It was so sweet, and that’s exactly how I’ve felt when we’ve sponsored kids – God just knows who you’re supposed to have. 🙂 If you’re thinking of sponsoring, please don’t hesitate. These kids need the help so desperately, and you will never regret it – it’s wonderful. You can do that right off my homepage.

Okay, so the service was longer than I expected and we talked to people, and I was staying with wonderful friends who I love in Vero Beach and we went out to lunch, and the long and short of that is that I left later than I wanted to, but still thought I had plenty of time. Well, there was construction on 95, then an accident. Then I couldn’t find a gas station anywhere near the airport, and had to drive 10 miles out of my way to fill up the rental car. By the time I got to the airport, I knew I was going to have to pay extra on the car, and I didn’t have time to drop my luggage first, so I went straight the rental car return.

I also had an extra case of CDs I was trying to get home, so I basically had to repack everything in the garage at National. That was fine, though – the line was so long to return, I’d repacked everything before anyone came to check me out. Now I was getting worried about making my flight.

Guess what? That rental car return is as far as it can possibly be from the airline check in I needed. Great. And now I have two huge suitcases, a case of CDs and a 40 pound briefcase bag, jacket and purse. And all the carts are gone because it’s spring break in Florida, and I’m late for my flight. Things are going well.

I dragged all my stuff for miles, and when I got to the airline, the line was so long, I knew I’d miss my plane. I decided to go out and try curbside check. I got outside, and literally my arms stopped working. I dropped the case off the rolling suitcase twice before I gave up. I left if where it fell, and dragged my suitcases to the end of a ridiculous line (and yes, going the opposite way from me, of course) and hoped no one would think it was a “suspicious package” and confiscate it. I ran back to get it and left my bags in line. By the time I got back, the line had moved around them, but I must have looked really pathetic, because the man who was in front of me let me back in the line.

I checked in, got rid of the massive luggage, although I still had one roll-one and the briefcase and my jacket and purse (!!), and started running for security. I want to go on record as saying that I pack maybe one square foot of clothing for myself, and everything else is for the gig – aargh!

Got through security, ran for the gate, got a boarding pass (I was too late to get that when I checked in) – yea! I made it! I was super hot, and literally shaking from hauling that stuff all over the world. And yes, I was the 3rd to the last one on the plane.

Well, I prayed on the way down the aisle that God would tell me who to sit next to. There were only a few seats left toward the back, and I ended up having an awesome conversation with a woman on the plane. If you read this – I’m praying for you. 🙂

I was struck by the fact that if all that hadn’t happened, I would never have sat next to her, so God knows what He’s doing, even when I’m throwing boxes of CDs on the ground at Orlando International airport.

And, yes, pathetically enough, I’m super sore today. Guess I need to do some more weightlifting if I plan to get myself to the airport alone on a regular basis! 🙂

Teaching Isaiah 40:31 to women who are not afraid to move

Well, I’m not sure when I’ve been this tired, but what an awesome day.

This morning we continued the retreat at First Church of God – I got there around 8:30 to sound check and get the videos set with the tech people for the worship, etc. Did worship and spoke at 10 about God training us, shaping up through difficulty and everyday experiences to be the people He needs us to be to use us for amazing things.

Then lunch and worship again at 12:30. Then the women went to some breakout sessions and I prepped the afternoon with the tech people and snuck out for a bit to call my kids. 🙂

We had our last session from 2:30-4, and it really was an amazing time. Afterward, I prayed with so many women who are going through so many hard things. This is a tough time for a lot of people, with everyday life things, and also made more difficult by the economy and job worries, etc. I know the Lord was working there, and so many women were ready to look to Him in their difficult situation – it was hard to hear so many tough stories, and so encouraging to see the Lord moving in their lives.

Then we had about 20 minutes to move my merch table and eat something before I needed to sound check for the evening service. The band here is great – very focused on praising God and facilitating worship. I was touched by their hearts for the Lord, and really loved meeting the worship pastor, Randy, and also his wife at the retreat – they are pretty new to the church, and already I’ve heard so many people expressing how much they are appreciated!

Now, here’s the incredible part. I had planned to use a retreat this weekend that I had done last fall for another group and just tweak it a bit. As I prayed over the retreat and what the Lord would have me share, I just basically wrote an entirely new retreat – the Lord changed it all. I knew He had something very specific in mind for these women, but when I went to the evening service, I was just amazed. I hadn’t told Randy what I was going to do during communion, just that I would do some acoustic songs simply with piano and voice. He stood up right before I sang and read sections of Romans 8 – the exact scripture I had just read to the women that afternoon, and the lyrics to the song I was starting with for communion.

The pastor stood up and said that the service was about looking to God in our difficult times, and trusting Him in them – a major theme of what I had just presented, and the subject of the song I did for the offertory. Then he read scripture after scripture that I had used on the retreat. God is amazing! Neither of us knew what the other had planned, but obviously, God had a message for this church this weekend. He is so good!

I’m so looking forward to being back tomorrow morning on the services and seeing some of the women from the retreat – the ones I talked to tonight were so amazed at how God orchestrated the weekend.

These ladies are ready to run an Amazing Race!

Well, I think we have our answer! These ladies are great, so much fun, and yes, my friends, they are open to motions, as proven by the picture. 🙂 You go, women of First Church of God!!

We had a great time tonight – Mark the tech guy did hero’s work setting up all kinds of portable tech to run the opening night in a beautiful banquet hall at the old county courthouse, so we were setting up a lot of the afternoon. Then a lovely dinner, worship time, speaking for which the women were so open, and some great games. I can tell we’re going to have a great day tomorrow back at the church, so I’m off to prep…

So, I’m back down in Florida for a pretty intense weekend. I’m doing a women’s retreat for First Church of God in Vero Beach, speaking and singing and leading their worship (hey, I’m a retreat in a box!!). Then I’m going to do some guest music on their service Saturday night and their services on Sunday morning, and I even get to go visit the kids and do some of my scripture songs after I sing on the main service. Then I’m driving back to Orlando and flying home. Should be a great weekend, but I’m betting I’ll be tired.

I’m speaking on “The Amazing Race” – how we sign up, train, and run an amazing race with God. We’re spotlighting a couple of scriptures – John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”, Isaiah 40:31 “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint”, and Hebrews 12:1-2 “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked our for us – let us fix our eyes on Jesus!”

Two of these scriptures I’ve set on my kid’s CDs, so we’re going to learn them in song, and I guess we’ll see how game these ladies are to do motions! 🙂

Looking forward to it.

Well, it’s been a crazy week, and you can’t tell me that God isn’t good!

I went to direct my choir on Wednesday night last week, and fell asleep in the car on the way there (and no, I wasn’t driving!!). It’s only 15 minutes, and I was so out that my husband had to wake me up in the parking lot – I didn’t know the car had stopped. Weird. In choir, I started feeling really warm and a bit woozy, and I can’t say it was my best rehearsal ever – thank goodness my choir’s very patient with me! I went home and went to bed, and didn’t get up again until Saturday, yikes!

I was stressing out too, because I had a show Saturday night about 3 hours from home in Chesapeake, OH, and I’ve never canceled a show. I didn’t want to start now! I also had a very full Sunday morning at church yesterday, covering a lot of stuff (we were missing various members of our worship team this week), and I wasn’t really able to stand up.

Well, I prayed a lot! And I got up at noon on Saturday, got ready, drove to the show with my mom, and had the most amazing experience of God just giving me the strength to do it. It’s in our weakness He is strong (2 Cor. 12:9). My mom drove me home, and I got up the next day and was able to do church, even though I was pretty exhausted, and then I came home and took a 3 hour nap. 🙂 But today is much better.

I do want to give a shout out to the youth at Chesapeake Church of the Nazarene! My show on Saturday was to cap their 30 Hour Famine for World Vision, and they were an awesome group – I really respect and appreciate the people who will do that to raise money for kids who really need the help and are dying of hunger. This group even baked bread for the needy while they were fasting for 30 hours – talk about torture! The smell of the bread baking was incredible, and I so appreciate their hearts. You go!!

I’m off to catch up on the millions of things I didn’t do last week. Sigh. But so happy to feel better!

Well, I spent a little time today recording some very rough scratch tracks of some new songs I’ve been working on, and sent them over to my manager and radio promoter to get their feedback. We’re planning on a new EP very soon, with a full album to follow, likely in the fall. I have to say, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the prospect, but now that we’ve started, I am getting so excited! It’s always fun to see how God will give you the ideas He wants to put forward, and in this case, I also get to have the fun of creating with other people. I’m psyched to see what He’ll do!

And also on the psyched front, the numbers are in, and we are officially halfway to our fundraising goal for the tour to the UK and Kenya! Since most of the expenses are coming now, we are definitely grateful for that. So thank you to everyone who’s contributed, during my January/February tour and everywhere else – we really appreciate you!

Please keep praying for us to get the funding (it’s a really hard time for everyone, and not the best time to raise money), and please, PLEASE PRAY for the trip! The details are coming together, and we are so anticipating what the Lord will do there. He’s opening doors for ministry every day!

Please also pray for the people who are hosting us in Kenya, Wally and Donna. Donna’s father has had some really serious medical issues, and she’s stayed in the US for now while Wally’s in Kenya. Please pray for her dad, and for the Lord to make the timing clear for her, and for them as they are seperated.

Thanks!

Okay, I know that name made me think of all kinds of crazy movies where the kids end up tangled in twine, covered with honey and chocolate, and chasing bears out of their tents, but Camp Mowana looked nothing like that. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I’m kicking myself because I forgot to take a PICTURE!! So picture this – pulling off the road onto a winding trail through the woods, over a rustic wood bridge with every tree outlined in white from the soft snow falling through the twilight.

I got to do the concert in a room with a wall made of glass, looking out into that forest, and it’s not hard to praise God when you see such beautiful creation!

What a great time I had with the ladies from St. Luke’s on their winter retreat. Thank you for having me! I hope we can do it again. And I will never malign the name of Camp Mowana after this. 🙂

Hey, check out the new kid’s CD! God is Our Superhero has 7 great new songs (if I do say so myself!) with verses highlighting God’s power to save and our hope in Him, all set from the NIV. We’ve posted the new song clips, lyrics, and artwork, and you can order the album or MP3 downloads in the store.

Rock on!

Saranac Community Church

My beautiful new niece, Allison!

We had another meeting Friday morning with my manager, and I’m pretty excited about the possibilities for a new album. Hopefully we’ll have something cooking in the near future.

We also got to have lunch in Franklin, TN, on an incredible day – sunny and beautiful and 60 degrees. Why are we heading north today??? Two days ago in Atlanta we were at 26 degrees in the morning, and now it’s all going beautiful. Oh, well, it’s supposed to be nicer at home too.

Got home at 9, put my kids to bed and hugged them a lot. I really didn’t like being gone so long – I don’t think we’ll do that again unless my family can be with me for more of it.

Got up the next morning, and had to be on the road by 8. My husband and I were heading to a show in Saranac, MI, at a church with wonderful, wonderful ladies I met at the Portage Lake retreat last fall. So fun to see them! But, (no offense, please, people at Saranac Community Church – you are lovely) even more fun was that we got to meet our new niece, Allison, who was born on the previous Tuesday. My brother and sister-in-law live only a few miles from Saranac (and how lovely of them to coordinate with my concert schedule – they are so thoughtful!!), so we got to see her and the rest of my husband’s family who were visiting. We may be biased, but Allison’s beautiful. 🙂

Then home again, and up for worship this morning. I loved being at my home church again. I really missed them, and really missed my band! And now, we’re seriously tired. Spent the afternoon lying on the couch with my kids and doing laundry from the last month. Not glamorous, but pretty awesome all the same.

Janine, me, my mom, and Vickie at WECC

Me and Doug at WMVV

Martin Luther King Jr.’s first church

First White House of the Confederacy

Me and Bob at WLBF

So, on Tuesday we headed back to the coast. It’s pretty hard to ever make a tour make sense in terms of when you drive where, and this was no exception. We had to actually go back to Florida and through Jacksonville, and then back up the coast into Georgia to St. Marys. Apparently there’s a big (and I mean big!) swamp or something. No worries – gave us a chance to buy more Florida oranges.

We had a great interview at WECC on Tuesday with Janine, and even got my mom on the air. She’s editing my dad’s journal right now for a book, planned for release in the summer, so after my interview, they got her on to talk about the book. She’s never done that before, but she was a pro! I like my mom. 🙂 Thanks to Vickie for having us!

After our time there, we headed up the coast and realized we were going to be near Savannah at dinner time, so we decided to see if we could get into Paula Deen’s restaurant there – my friends are big fans of hers, and have talked about wanting to go. We didn’t think we had a shot of getting in, but we did, and great Southern food ensued. The funniest thing there was our gorgeous, 5 pound waitress who kept telling us how she was raised on fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and butter cake. Mmm, hmm. I can’t relate to that kind of metabolism somehow.

We got up the next day and headed over to Griffin, Georgia, which is just south of Atlanta. I loved getting to meet Doug at WMVV – we had emailed some through Shoutlife, and he has a great ministry going there. We did an artist profile interview which will air next week.

After that, we headed out to Montgomery. I have never actually been to Alabama, so that was a state to add to my “places I’ve been” list. The next morning, we had some time to kill before the interview, so we checked out Montgomery. It’s a very interesting town with great architecture, and a lot of history, some of it very painful. We saw the first White House of the Confederacy just blocks from the church where Martin Luther King Jr. served – it’s pretty crazy to think about what was going on there not that long ago.

That afternoon I recorded an interview with Bob at WLBF which will air in a couple of weeks on a spotlight program. It was great to meet him, and hear about the ministry they are doing there!

After that, we headed to Nashville. I had a meeting with my manager there to talk about the next album. On the way, we stopped for dinner. We try to avoid chain restaurants whenever possible, because we get so tired of them when we’re on the road so much. When we got off the road, we were going to one, but then saw a place called “Clark’s” just down the road. It didn’t look very promising from the outside, but it was packed out! Always a good sign. So we decided to check out the menu.

I asked the woman at the front, “What’s good here?” and she said, “Every single thing.” “No, really, what’s the best thing?” “Every single thing is good. My husband’s the chef!” Oh. Then she says, “No, you listen, every single thing is good” and she yells across the restaurant at a man eating dinner, “Hey, Bob, what’s good on the menu?” and he yells back, “Every single thing.” “John, what’s good here?” “You know it’s every single thing!!” We were cracking up! How can you resist? So we ate at Clark’s. And while I didn’t try every single thing on the menu, you’re probably wondering, what was good? Well, every single thing, of course.