Pictures and an Update

.....I don't know.......



.......lights professionally engineered by Cameron Price......riiiiiight.....





........the engineer at work........focus....focus......



......This is how impressed we were with the last band......

I posted some pictures above of the event Friday/Saturday morning, as promised. Yesterday was a great day of relaxation and hanging out with Benny and Korny and their family. Mrs. Paska is an incredible cook! Thanks again! Other than that I have been working on a contact list for the studio, as well as general editing on the GO Missions webpage. Tomorrow is Korny's birthday so I think we're going to do something here at the studio for that. We finally got the real stairs today so we will be painting the staircase and installing the stairs sometime in the future. I also got a box from home the other day...it had my ipod in it and that makes me incredibly happy...you have no idea. That's pretty much it for now....

Ich habe Rücken

Yesterday was the big outdoor event in Munich. We left the Center at 9:00am and arrived back at 7:00am this morning. I was tempted to stay awake the extra hour just so I could say that I had been awake for a full 24 hours, but I quickly decided against it. All in all the event wasn't too bad. There were three bands, there were supposed to be four but one didn't show up until 1:30am and then decided that they didn't want to play. The first band was a sort of jazz type band...they were pretty good. The second band was a ska band. The were interesting, but after a while all of the songs start to sound the same. The last band was....I don't know what they were, but let me tell you, if you ever have the chance to go to a L'gojazz concert.....RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!! It was by far the most grotesque butchering of music I have ever witnessed. And then someone decided that it would be a good idea to set off one of the fire extinguishers during the last band's "performance". The entire crowd was immediately engulfed in a plume of white powder...it was kinda funny because the band was so bad anyway, but then the plume reached the sound booth and let me just tell you, fire extinguisher powder doesnt smell or taste so good. Lots of coughing and wheezing going on...and it burns your eyes. All of our equipment and cables that were under the stage were completely dusted. When we finally got back to the Center, I crashed until about 4:00pm...now my sense of time is so messed up.....I will be posting pictures at some point...but not now.

Bowling

Just got back from bowling with Benny and Korny. Apparently Americans are supposed to be better at bowling than Europeans. Let me assure you...I destroyed this assumption. It was sad...and Benny was even playing with his left hand! It's all good though. I had a lot of fun, as always, even though I did get my butt kicked about four times. Tomorrow is the event in Munich. We leave at 9:00am and probably won't get back until 3:00 or 4:00am Saturday morning...so because of that fact...I'm going to try to get a little sleep while I have the chance!

Kirche, Küche, and Kuchen=Much confusion

These three words led to about a 20 minute coaching session with Benny and Korny tonight. Church, kitchen, and cake is the translation in order. The problem is while these words are distinctly different in English, they are not in German. The all sound almost exactly alike. And to make matters worse, the slang term for Kirche sounds exactly like Küche...so you have to figure it out by context...i.e. someone probably wouldn't say "let's go bake a cake in the church." Something else I realized today is how complicated the English language is. I have never really thought about it before, but there are some pretty crazy rules and phrases. Anyway, more on languages at a later today...it's a little after 1:00am and tomorrow....I'm going bowling...

Super Mouse...more randomness

So it would seem that Fendos is not doing her job. Yesterday, I walked into the kitchen and hear the sound of rustling paper. I look over and there is a mouse on top of one of the pastry bags. It pauses for a moment then scuries across the counter and does a swan dive into a gap between the wall and the counter. Fendos had better pick up her game.

Today I tried to make lunch. However, my chicken cordon bleu quickly turned into chicken en flambe...ok not really...but it was black on the outside and raw on the inside...I think I was supposed to thaw it first...oops...praise the Lord for döners. For those of you that don't know what a döner is...it's this amazing sandwich type thing from Turkey. It's almost indescribable, but you haven't lived until you've tried a döner. I'm pretty sure it was in the running for the food in the desert, but mana won out...so it's the best we've got.

Some Thoughts

God absolutely amazes me. The more I realize the depth and the gravity of what He has done for me the more dumbfounded, grateful, driven, humbled, and silenced I become. I find even more astonishing the fact that He can use anyone...ANYONE...for His Glory. Think about it. I often catch myself thinking that there is no way that God can use me. I think about all of my shortcomings and flaws and because of those I think why would God ever want to use me. There are tons of stories in the Bible where God uses the most unlikely people to accomplish things for Him. Moses hated speaking in public (maybe as much as I do), Abraham lacked faith, but I think my favorite story is about Gideon. Talk about unlikely candidates. The story begins in Judges 6:11 "Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abieyrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites." I don't know if you can picture this like I can, but bare with me. The angel of the Lord came and sat down under a tree and watched as Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press. I don't know much about wheat threshing, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be done in a wine press. Wine presses back in the day were about 6-8 feet deep and so Gideon figured it would be a good place to hide from the Midianites while he threshed the grain. Ok, so picture this from the angel's perspective from under the tree. Just a short distance away there's a hole in the ground and in regular intervals little puffs of wheat come flying up from the hole and then flop back down. Now, as you approach the hole and look down you see a man covered in dust and wheat because no wind can blow away the chaf like on the threshing floors. I hope you're following this because to me that is a really funny picture. Verse 12, "The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him 'The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior." The angel called him a "valiant warrior." Gideon...the wheat covered guy hiding in the wine press because he's afraid. The angel then goes on to tell Gideon that God wants him to defeat the Midianites...fast forward: The Lord uses Gideon and 300 men to defeat the entire Midianite army! There is a lot more in this story, but the part that is the coolest to me is the fact that the angel calls Gideon a valiant warrior even though he isn't acting like one. God sees through our actions, our doubts, our fears, our wretchedness, and He sees who He has created us to be! What an awesome thought. Again, this post might be a little random (this seems to be a recurring theme), but thats what I felt like I needed to share for now. Blessings.

Heidlbron

Waiting.....

....and waiting...

...and waiting...

The Polizei looking into a noise complaint...apparently the band was too loud...

but it all worked out in the end!

Just got back from Heidlbron with the Antz. It was a really good concert. I really enjoy hanging out with them. The day started out with rain, but fortunately the rain stopped by the time the Antz played. Oh...side note: you guys need to check out what Benny did at the Mute Math concert on Wednesday here...It's very interesting to talk to different people about various topics. I have noticed, however, that 90% of the time George Bush comes up within the first few minutes. I absolutely love Germany. I can't wait to move back here! This has been one of the most random blogs ever written so I'm gonna wrap things up. I'm going to try to put pictures up now, but I'm not really sure how they are going to end up. There is a good chance that I'll just leave them and come back and fix them tomorrow because I am really tired...