God sends answers in the mail...

Well it's been a crazy week. The next tour starts in 2 weeks so we've been practicing a lot and I'm learning a lot of new music. My fingers hurt but that's not a complaint. It's a sign of a dream come true!

There's quite a bit outside of music that is keeping me busy as well, but it's all good, I'm just exhausted.

There was one particularly notable event of the last week. I'll preface a bit first.

For the last year or so, I've been feeling called to go on a missions trip. I never had the opportunity to do so in high school and feel it's something important I need to do. I originally was looking at going to Mali, West Africa in January with my worship team from church but that trip was postponed. Then I was browsing around facelessinternational.com and noticed a trip to Ukraine taking place in May. I would be working at an orphanage that helps victims of human trafficking which is something I speak about for World Vision during shows.

At first I dismissed the idea because the trip was only a couple months away and I needed to raise a lot of money, but the idea stuck in the back of my mind. I talked it over with Mindy and we had been praying about it for a while. We mentioned it to a few people, but were kinda keeping it on the down low.

On Friday I got a unanimous letter in the mail with a check made out to me for "God's Work."

I'll still have to raise quite a bit of money, but that pretty much sealed the deal. I'm mailing the application on Monday, support letters shortly after that, and if all goes right I'll be headed out of the country in a couple months.

Shooting Stars

I was listening to my ipod while driving the other morning, and right about sunrise, as the black sky dotted with stars was slowly dissolving into the pinkish purple horizon, a song came on that nearly brought me to tears. Not what I expected from a gutter punk band out of Minnesota.

After listening to it about 10 times in a row, I felt that I should share. It seems to fit in with something that has been weighing on me pretty heavily for quite some time now. Here are the lyrics.

Jesus who are you talking to
I don’t wanna get involved
I know it might be my duty
But I don’t feel called
I know everyone’s beautiful
And I try to understand
But I wish you’d stop bothering me
And hold someone else’s hand

Do you know who they are in my eyes?
Can you see the shooting stars in my skies?

Jesus who are you talking to
Do you know who she is?
Oh, of course we love them
But this is not how we live
I can try to be sorry
If you tell me that I’m wrong
Oh, of course I believe you
When no one else is around

Do you know who they are in my eyes?
Can you see the shooting stars in my skies?
Do you know who they are in my eyes?
Can you see the shooting stars in my skies?

Originally I thought the “shooting stars” line was just a lame rhyme for the first line of the chorus. Around the 3rd listen though, as the last of the stars where disappearing from sight and the sun was in view, I found myself thinking back to the last time I was lucky enough to see a shooting star and the exhilaration of catching such a moment.

How much more beautiful are even the most unlovable people to God, and if this is the case, how important should they be to me?

I apologize for the sappiness, but it put things in perspective for me.