Christmas Newsletter

Hello all! I hope this little message finds you all enjoying your Christmas season! God has been teaching me so much over the break, but I really wanted to share something that God showed me today, especially considering the time of year that we are in right now.  

During my time on the road, my Mom has had the opportunity to minister to a very sweet lady named Kay and her husband Gene for a full day, once a week, for about the past 4 months. Kay has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and now is to the point where she forgets things after about only 10-15 seconds.  Mom mainly just spends time with Mrs. Kay for a day so that Mr. Gene can go out and just spend some refreshing time by himself. I learned that Mom would be going over a couple of times while I was home ,and I wanted to get a chance to meet them before I left, so yesterday I took a detour and went to their house to stop by and visit on the way to spending a day with extended family. When I first met her, we talked for about 3 minutes (and got to dance to Christmas Songs, I was sold after that J) and then she took me into their living room where their Christmas tree was all set up. We had “a really good time” in her words. J The first ornament she showed me was a snowflake, her favorite. A couple others were shown off, like a church steeple and a picture of her and a friend of hers. And then, all of a sudden, she went back to the snowflake, and started all over again. This happened for about 6 times, sometimes the order varied, but it was always the same ornaments. She also showed me little knick knacks that she had collected, and a little bit around her house. I only got to stay there for about 30 minutes before I had to leave, but God used Mrs. Kay and Mr. Gene to impact my heart in several ways in those few minutes.

Mrs. Kay is so in love with God, to the point that it is part of her very being. Even if she can’t remember from minute to minute, she still knows the truths that she learned years ago about God, and she is still sharing them with anyone she comes in contact with. What a testimony and what a challenge to become more like Him. Words of encouragement for me about God always being with me, finding value in Christ, and totally leaning on Him all came out in just those few 30 minutes. What a blessing to my soul!

Mr. Gene is 100% loyal to his wife. You can clearly see that he still loves her, and will love her “until death do they part.” After only 30 minutes of spending time with Mrs. Kay, it was great, but it was very physically and emotionally draining. I cannot imagine the amounts of patience that Mr. Gene has to live day in and day out with her, but I was shown an example of marriage today that I hope that one day I can at least come close to being worthy of living out in my own life.  

Lastly, as I look back on my day, I can only think, “How silly are my worries and troubles that plague my mind every day?” The most that Mrs. Kay knows about Mr. Gene is that he is a very nice man, who takes very good care of her, and yet he still lives with her, fully aware of that knowledge and cares for her every day. And I find myself complaining about things not going my way sometime or someone getting what I would really like. How selfish. And even especially around this time of the year when the biggest problem we have might be as little as someone cutting us off in traffic, how silly does that seem when compared to Mr. Gene and Mrs. Kay’s life? And yet, how do they respond? With love, joy, peace, patience…hey, those sound familiar don’t they? So often we talk about living through the Fruit of the Spirit, but I feel like today, I got to meet two people who truly live them out, not just in an “easy” life, but in one that if they were to get angry or depressed, the world would think it as the “normal” reaction. What an encouragement to see two people not being normal, but instead looking to Jesus for strength and comfort. Wow wow wow!

All in all, an incredible time, and I hope that it was an encouragement to you as well. As I close, I just want to take a moment to thank you all for all of the support and prayers that you have given me this past 5 months, and for some of you, perhaps even longer than that. It has been such a blessing to see God work in these churches, but without your support and prayers, it would have made things a tad more difficult to make this a reality. J I look forward to sharing with you all what God does in 2012, and I am so excited to hear about how God moves and works in your hearts in the days to come.

God bless, and remember the TRUE reason for this season (and for the rest of the year as well!)

In Christ, 

Josh    

Aledo, IL

Last summit of 2011- Aledo, IL

(This one is going to be a little bit longer, but that is because this is probably the last post of 2011)

For the last summit of the year, our team left the Life Action Camp after Thanksgiving Break, and hopped down to Aledo, IL, a small little town of about 3,700 people total. (Note: I have found out this year that I am a huge fan of small towns) This was our only 8 day summit of this half of the year, where we arrived on Friday, started Sunday and continued until the following Sunday, and then tore down that night. But this week showed us that God does not need a “time frame” in order to change lives and hearts as we got to see many different stories told and lives change in just the short time we were there.

The Church

First Baptist Church of Aledo has about 300-400 members in it, but since the community is so small, this church still has a big impact on the town. Pastor Luke has lead the church for a number of years, and every single member that I ever talked to had nothing but glowing comments about him. I got to talk to him a little myself, and he was very deliberate and thoughtful when he spoke, but still could carry on the conversation and was interested in what was being said. In short: I like him. J The stories that came out the last night during popcorn testimonies were pretty amazing, including one couple thanking God for bringing their daughter’s boyfriend to Christ that morning, a prayer request that they had been praying since the beginning of the relationship. Please continue to lift up Aledo as they continue to seek God’s Will for their lives, and also about some important decisions in their church’s near future.

The Ministry

The Praise team got really stretched for this summit, in more ways than one. First Baptist has a much smaller stage than most churches, so we had to drop two male and female singers, so that we only had about 4-5 singers for every song. This put a LOT more pressure on the ones leading, but they held up and carried through to the end. Our worship leader Dustin left on Thursday to get home to spend time with his wife, Jen, who has been having medical problems for the past 2 months (Please keep her in your prayers, we’ve kind of adopted each other as siblings J) . In his absence, Trevor Jones picked up the slack, and led the worship team on Sunday morning and night. (And might I say he did a fantastic job too!) Me and Jason Farson roomed together this summit, and we got to stay with Jo and Paul Kernan, a dear couple that I KNOW we will miss (Along with Banana splits, late night talks, and all the bickering we did back and forth J) I am going to save the comments about signing for the “My Life” segment, because this church touched me in signing much more than most of the other churches.

The Team

Short and sweet…I miss my team. A lot. But I know that if we stayed which each other all year….we’d probably kill each other. Haha, the entire team is now officially home, but I have a feeling that we will all be Facebooking, Skyping, and texting throughout the month. A couple team members even get this newsletter so this is a shout out to them! Please pray that as we are home for a month that we do not grow slack or lazy but that we will continue to pursue God, and come back more in love with Him than when we left.

My Life

This summit, I was asked to play a couple of parts in skits for Base Camp (2^nd-5^th grade) and I loved it! It was a great group of kids and it’s a LOT of fun to act with the BC teachers because they are very “improv” minded when they act, so sometimes you just go with the flow and the resulting skit is much funnier than the original idea. Now, onto signing. J

Since we only had two male singers, I kind of knew that I would be one of the ones off, but I got a surprise when I was told that they still wanted signing, just no singing! I got to sign without a mic! It was definitely one of the most fun and enjoyable times I have ever had on the team, and at the same time it helped me learn self control in signing while still putting joy and energy into it. God really blessed me again through signing this summit by encouraging words from the congregation. During popcorn testimonies, an elderly woman got up and thanked the team for being there and then thanked me for the signing that it had greatly blessed her. It was truly humbling, and even more so when more people came up afterwards to thank me. Praise God, because without Him, I couldn’t sign, let alone take my next breath. However, my biggest encouragement came in Base Camp. One of the teachers asked a young man what he had liked about the summit so far. The boy turned to me and said, “I actually kinda really enjoyed the signing, it’s really cool how you do that on stage, even though you don’t sing.” Out of the mouths of babes. That one little answer encouraged me more than that boy will ever know, because that was the first time a kid had said that he appreciated the signing. Up until then, I had just viewed it as a ministry to adults, but now God has encouraged me that in the next half of the year, He can use it to bless anyone He wants to, even kids.

Prayer Request: I am so thankful to go home, but I must admit I am a little afraid that I could easily get into the mindset of “I’m not in Life Action right now, so I can just go back to what I want.” That is so far from the truth. Please pray that I would continue this upward climb towards knowing God more that started this year, and that I would never be satisfied with what I know of Him. 

Well, here I sit in Midway airport, ready to take off. Thank you again so much for the prayers, they honestly do mean the world to me. Thank you all again!

Merry Christmas!

Josh  

Adrian, MI

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings from the North! And when I say north, I mean Adrian, Michigan! The email finds me sitting in my fourth host home, enjoying one of our rare (and much needed) rest days. Let me start this out by saying that I need to apologize to a lot of you on this list. I have been trying my best to keep up to date on my “blog” online, and whenever I wrote on it about a summit; I would post it to my Facebook page. However, I realized this summit that a lot of my supporters either don’t have a Facebook, or just don’t get on it that much, and in that, I have not been able to allow to enjoy all that God has been doing in me and through me at these last four churches. So from me to you, I sincerely apologize. I have taken a different route now, and instead, I will be sending out an email update instead. This is actually much better because if you have sponsored me at all, it shows up on my private page of the ministry website, along with information such as email address, that way I won’t be missing anyone.

Let me start by showing this link. This is a web address to my first blog posts about our first three churches that we have been to so far, along with other musings from before the year started:

http://alifeinaction2011.blogspot.com/

So now, hopefully that you are all caught up, let me go ahead and tell you a little bit about what is going on.

The Church

Right now we are serving Ogden church; it’s a church of about 750 and it is right outside the city of Adrian, Michigan. We have had some really cool stories come out of this church, but please keep praying that God continues to give this church “Ah-ha” moments as they learn more about him.

The Ministry

 God has been using music and signing in some really cool ways at this church. Ogden is a much more contemporary church than ones we have been in, and so we have gotten to break out some of our more “energetic” songs, which has been a lot of fun! Our host home (Jerry, Wendy, and Paul) have nothing but incredible to me and Clay Debolt, and I know that he and I will miss them greatly. I had an elderly man come up to me one night, and talk to me a little bit about signing, and how much he appreciated it, so I take that as a confirmation that I am still totally in God’s Will for doing it in worship.

The Team

You all can be praying for the team. As we get closer to the winter months, more and more of our team members continue to get sick, and right about now we normally have about 4 or 5 people feeling really under the weather. It’s going to be really hard saying goodbye to the team in December, but on the plus side, we get to spend Thanksgiving with them, so that’ll be nice. In fact, we are getting ready for our Christmas Party as we speak!

My Life

God has been using this summit to teach me that I can learn so many things from those who are older/wiser than me. Throughout this summit, I have gained more wisdom from older men on the team than all three previous summits combined, and I am so grateful for that. I hope and pray that it becomes a reoccurring theme and that I will continue to seek counsel from Godly influences in my life. I would like to ask for prayer. I am getting very homesick. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to miss my team so much, but I have not been home in almost 4 months, and I really do miss my parents and family. Please pray that God can work through me, so that I can finish with a spirit of Excellence and bring Him glory, so that I can then rest in Him during my month off.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, and I look forward to seeing you all soon!

           In Christ,

                              Josh

The End (of the Beginning)

Dear Readers,

Well, we have come to a fork in the road (keep on walking and you’ll find the knife later). I have decided to end this blog with this final post. Why do you ask? Good question. I’m glad I had some answers ready.

After this post, I will be switching to an email style of newsletter, where I will still do the same format (with some tweeks of my own) but it will be sent out to the group of my supporters (and anyone else who wants to follow along) The main reason for switching was that some of my supporter simply are not on Facebook. If they aren’t on Facebook, even though I am posting all of my blogs on a regular site, it is hard to explain to people how to get on there without Facebook (even I can’t remember the URL sometimes). Also, in moving to the email, it’ll let me know who is getting and reading the updates, so I will have a much better sense of who is following along, instead of only being able to guess from the 500+ Facebooks friends that could have been potentially reading it. Don’t get me wrong, if you’ve been following on Facebook and still want to, that’s great! Just shot me your email on a message, and I will get you on the list, but this way, it will be much more controllable. I also check my email much more often than my blog, so if I get any responses, I’ll be able to see them a lot quicker. In fact, even as I wrote this, I already got a reply back from someone, now isn’t that nice. :D Thank you again for all the prayers, love, and support you all have shown, and I can only hope that this change can help the connection between all of us stay that much stronger!

Once again, if you would like to be added to the email list, just message or text me. Thanks!

                                                                                                                                                                Josh

Senatobia, MS

It's time to hear about church number 3, so for that, we are heading back down South, where Sweet Tea is measured by the amount of cups of sugar you put into it!

After leaving Morton, we shot straight down through Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, finally ending up in Senatobia MS. Lifepoint church is about 7 years old, and they have just moved into a new building. It's a church of about 600 or so, and their Pastor's name is George Ross. (Trivia fact: George was actually the former youth pastor of Clay, one of the boys on the team.)

Throughout the next two weeks, God really broke through and changed a lot of hearts and lives in the church. Marriages were restored and God made himself known in a lot of lives of the people. The staff/Pastor relationship was greatly strengthened, and we are all excited to see what God has in store for them in the future.

My host family you ask? Well, let me tell you about them! The Cole family opened up their house to me, Joel, and Caleb, and it was an incredible time. Some of the events included shooting guns, racing go karts, and dancing around a bonfire (at a safe-ish distance of course). We really got to spend some quality time with them, got to go on long walks around their property, play some video games with them, even laugh our heads off with games like Balderdash and Apples to Apples (BTW: did you know that a kakkerlak is an Albino Cockroach? Oh the things you learn in family games)

Signing has been going good, I continue to have about 5-6 people come up each summit and ask where and how I learned it, and it has been encouraging to see the response and the welcoming atmosphere of the churches so far. I am starting to get some different songs thrown at me, since we are going into more contemporary churches, we're having to do quicker songs, so it's a bit of a challenge, but by God's grace, it has been going well.

Finally, God has still been doing a continuing work in me, through these summits. His grace is being made known to me more and more every day, and the Holy Spirit is continually showing me areas that I am not giving up to Christ. I would say that each summit has been a different "period" for me. The first summit was the "test run" period, where God was showing me just what I had gotten myself into. The second was definitely the "breaking" summit, where God broke me wide open to show me where I really was in my relationship with Him. This previous summit was probably my "rebuilding" summit. I came in to this summit a little overwhelmed by what I learned in Morton, but now I have had a chance to sort through some of it, and have been able to start to look at my life one area at a time.

Thank you all so much for your prayers AND DRUM ROLLLL!!!!!! I GET TO COME HOME IN 27 DAYS! Excited much, and I so excited to see all of you again!

In Christ,

Josh        

Morton, IL

Dear friends and family,
               

                It’s officially the end of the second summit! Well, almost, it was about a week ago, but that’s ok! We have left the beautiful city of Morton, IL, and I…..am going to tell you about it!

                We arrived in Morton at the end of September, and it was a LOT larger than our last church! Grace Church is located in the little town of Morton (it has 16,700 people for the population, so says the sign) It’s a really cool little town where everything is only 5 or 6 minutes away from everything else, so if you want to get a coffee at Eli’s or just see a pumpkin farm or two, it’s only a good 5 minute drive. We were able to get our truck unloaded on the same day we got here, and at dinner, we got to split up dinner between three of us, and wound up getting three appetizers for three people, life is good. Senior Clay DeBolt and I got to hang out this summit, and we were greeted by the Wright Family when we got back to the church that night! The Wright’s consist of Craig, Tammy, Jordan, and Taylor oh and Mogli (dog) too! I had such a good time with them, and they were such a blessing to me and Clay’s life. They will be dearly missed (and so will all of the Wii Tennis games, the Nerf Gun Battles, and the late night study sessions J )

                This summit was a lot easier materials wise, I feel that God is blessing me with wisdom…either that or I am slowly losing it and the craziness that is materials is starting to make sense to me. Signing has continued with little or no change, but it was great to hear how God has been using it, and how people think it is really cool that it is adding another level to the worship. Pause: a team member came up and started narrating my blog for me; little does he know I’m going to include it in here. J

I would just like to say that Nathan Cowles is the most amazing guy in the world. He has better looks than anyone on the planet. Also, he is so strong; he makes me look like a pip squeak. I wish I could grow down to be like him. Maybe, someday, if I’m good, Santa will bless me and will turn me into Nathan.      

Thanks Nathan. Unfortunately, someone still doesn’t know Santa is fake, but I’m sure he’ll figure that out eventually. Now where was I? Oh right, ASL. So it was really neat to see God continuing to use ASL in other people’s lives. God used conversations that started in ASL to move to different things and I have gotten to pray with a lot of different church members before we part ways, a really cool ministry opportunity.

In Morton, we got to do a lot of stuff as a team. A couple things I got to do for the first time were 1. Going through a corn maze that wasn’t smaller than my house and 2. Going to the Caterpillar plant. And no, not the insect, but the machine! A gentleman in the church allowed us to come to his work and see first-hand how all the CAT Vehicles operated and we even got to climb on some of them!

Prayer request: God really blew me wide open this summit. I sat through this summit so that I could hear how a Life Action Summit worked, and God used the two weeks to show me areas in my life that I had not given over to God, and I am still sorting through everything. Please pray that this spirit of brokenness won’t leave me and that I’ll continue to place God first, over everything else.  

Whew, summits are getting more and more fun, but also more and more busy! Hope you all enjoyed the update!   

Rocky Mount

Dear…..people

                Well, it’s been QUITE a while since I have been on here huh? Probably most of you have left, that’s ok, hopefully the diehard fans are still here J. I have decided (since I have come to realization that I have NO free time) that I will try to at least update this per summit (and hopefully add in extra ones here and there.)

                Our first summit was Rocky Mount, NC, but don’t let the name fool you. Mountains are nigh to be seen in Rocky Mount. Oh well, there’s always disappointments in life. We got to the church on Friday but the truck with all our supplies did not come in for about 2 hours later, so four of us (Trevor, Jason, Nathan, and myself ) got to sit and meet our host family Carol and Jess Harrington. Nice folks, and VERY generous hosts. I have loved getting to know them, and I know that the four boys who stayed at their house will miss them greatly. We started unloading the next day and went right to work, getting ready for the first summit of the year. The first Sunday went off without a hitch and by this time, we had gotten to meet our second host family, the Weeks. A family of 8 kids with a lot of energy, we got to know them as we went out to dinner and played games at their house for most of the nights.

                During the mornings as the band members practiced, I would be in my Materials Office, sorting through boxes, trying to find what went where and where went what. It took me most of the summit, but I finally have everything where I want it, so we’ll see how that turns out in the long run. Singing has gone well, I have learned some songs in harmony and I am starting to “hear” it so hopefully by the end of this year, I’ll have it down.  The main ministry I have had there is my signing during the songs. When I first arrived, I was on the verge of terror, wondering how my signing was going to be taken by the congregation. However, God has been gracious and no less than 20 people have come up to me to share that the signing has blessed them in some way, WOW!

                The final night was probably the most memorable for me. We were having popcorn testimonies, and one gentlemen stood up, and started to share that over his life, he had been plagued with different illnesses, and because of one of them, it has left his cognitive abilities hurt so that he cannot speak as well as he used to. One night, we lead the congregation in a song “King of Glory” that was always done with sign language, and as he signed the song, he found that he was not having trouble with the words because he was “singing” with his hands, and his speech problem was not hindering him. Ever since that night, he signed with me whenever I did a song, praising his Lord with his hands. Wow, when he shared that, it’s like God said “Now you know why you are here.”

God has been good to me and the team. We’ve had great times, good laughs, and a whole lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us in Illinois!

Week 3

So this last week, the sickness was really on me, but on this Saturday, I am ALMOST over it! Praise God! He also used it to show me that I need to be thinking of others, even when it isn't easy. Because thinking of others when you're sick...not the easiest. :) Let's see if I can think of some highlights of the week.

1. Ok so first off, tonight will be our very first service ever! I am beyond excited! We had rehearsal yesterday and I am just blown away by God's Sovereignty. I honestly think I am going to enjoy singing 100 times more than drumming, we'll see how that goes!
2. My team leader gave me permission to sign during songs now! I am so thankful for that, and for his spirit, that he letting me have privilege. For right now, I think I am going to hang back some, because I am not entirely confident in my singing, but now, the door is open, praise God!
3. On Thursday, we had our "date night", which meant we all got to dress up all fancy and get some really amazing food! We had a great table that talked in british accents the entire time, very proper.
4. The team outing last night was a lot of fun, in which we went to the beach, first to pizza, then to the fountains, then volleyball, and finally, back to the beach. I love how our team is one big family.

Sorry this is shorter, but it is really hectic right now, so maybe later. Thanks for following! Sooner we hit the ROAD!

Week 2

Well, as my second week comes to an end, I sit here, listening to my new Steven Curtis Chapman CD (which is amazing), trying to think back over the last week. Wow…a LOT of stuff happened. Let me give you some of the highlights.

1.       I started a small group playing volleyball this week after the evening service since there is a tournament today, and it quickly expanded to pretty much the entire team coming to play at one time or another. I am so thankful to God that He gave me the idea, because it has a great fellowship time for team members who wouldn’t normally see each other to play and interact.

2.       I got sick. Woohoo. Not the best part of the week, but it was definitely one of the main parts of the week.

3.       We had pictures this week, and I didn’t break the camera, so that’s good! We’ll see how they turn out, but I was quite happy with how fast it went.

4.       Got to go to Jimmy and Lori’s a couple of nights, both of which were a lot of fun, from watching Justin record Adena’s birthday video( happy birthday Adena!), to playing Wah.

5.       We got to go off campus last night to McDonalds which was probably one of the best fellowship times with the teams I have had yet.

6.       Had a spontaneous music session last night with Wesley, Trevor, and Blake in the Lodge last night.

Now, for some more serious notes. J

1.       At the end of last week, I was having a good time. At this end of this week, I am having an absolutely amazing time! And that is even with me being sick! I look back and I think that God has brought me closer with pretty much every person on the team in at least one instance over the last week.  It is really cool because the team has said that last year did not have this kind of unity until December. WOW, then praise God! And already, the team jokes are starting to flow, these are my kind of people!

2.       I got assigned to be a materials manager for the team, and I got to put in my first order yesterday! It was a little stressful, but God worked it all out, and we should be ready for at least the next 3 summits. Score!  

3.       At McDonalds, some of us were sitting around a table when a young man, probably around our age, came up and just randomly started talking with us. His name is Jacob, and we got to talk with him for about 10 minutes or so, and he seemed like a interesting guy. Even though he didn’t have anything he wanted us to pray for (props to Clint for asking him!), I am definitely going to add him to a prayer list I am starting soon.

4.       This week was revival week, and honestly I had no idea of what to expect. I hoped that God would show me something in my life but…wow he really showed me some major stuff, and honestly I am still in process mode, perhaps more on that later.

Quick Prayer Request

Hey all, I will write more later, but for now, I have a quick request before the service starts. I should have known it was going to happen but I oh well, I got sick. Haha it happens, sore throats are so fun aren't they? Anyways, I got about 30 minutes of sleep last night, and pictures are today, but God promises that I can do all things through Him, so I am gonna just do my best. Thanks for all the prayers and love.

Josh

Week 1

Day 1- Ahhhhhh we’re here! Well, not ALL the way “here”, but we are in Indiana so that kind of counts. It’s pretty cool up north, wish it were COOLER than Georgia, I think it’s actually hotter here than home. We drove pretty much the whole time, stopping only for breakfast and lunch, and got to Lawrenceburg around 3 or so and…….Mom is trying to spy on me…..hey Mom….. ok so back to writing, and I’m getting stoked for the Creation museum tomorrow. Random announcement #1 :Ffor dinner, we went to Arby’s and as we walked in, the radio was playing Brooke Fraser “Shadowfeet.” Made…my…night.

Day 2-So tonight is the last night with Mom and Dad. We have all been kind of out of it today, but I guess that is kind of expected. Went to Creation Museum today which was pretty cool, had someone tell me that they liked my shirt too. That’s the SECOND time in 3 days that that has happened, must be a sign for something. Tomorrow we will make it to camp annnnnd then after that, who knows? It’s really bizarre tonight, this feeling, hopefully by tomorrow it’ll be all gone so I won’t do something ridiculous. Fingers crossed! :D

Day3- So finally, we are HERE here. I’m actually cheating a little because right now it is the morning of the 4^th day, but oh well. Got to the camp round 2:30 or so, and finished some paper work. I’m rooming with Clay and Justin (who is still asleep as we speak) and we’ve already made an alliance with the guys next door in case someone decides to prank us. The afternoon and evening were cool, and I have meet pretty much everyone on my team now face to face (which is much better than Facebook to Facebook). Yesterday was definitely a shotgun experience so hopefully today will be a little calmer.

Day 4- Ok, so the first day of singing was today, twas not what I expected. I now have a new appreciation for singers of any type. It’s HARD work people, but it’s really cool, I am immensely enjoying it. Learning a lot of new stuff every day, and I am really enjoying everyone on the team. And…my mouth hurts like never before. After all my years of talking, and one day of singing makes my jaw hurt. Haha, go ahead, make jokes, I sure did. This will probably be my first prayer request, that God will strengthen me so that I will be able to sing and keep it strong throughout the entire practice, for 6 hours a day J

Day 5- So I know this won’t be all 7 days, and no, I won’t be giving a day by day all year, just wanted to start the year off by letting you all know what the first week was like. Right now, I am sitting here in the practice church listening to the band play “Standing Ovation” and listening to a recording of “I am”, one of our A cappella songs (hard but a LOT of fun to sing). The crew has been great, and it’s been neat getting to meet all the team members, new and old. We had one of our first team outings last night, and we had to make a cheer for Life Action. It was pretty much the best thing ever, complete with a sandal drum line and pom poms. Revival week is coming up next week and I am looking forward to it a lot. In between my quiet time and morning prayer time on the dock, I think there are a LOT of things I am going to learn next week.

NOW, a couple house keeping things.

1^st: The wifi here isn’t amazing, so Facebook doesn’t always work and Skype is even worse, but I will try my best if any of you want to chat, but it’ll have to be in a free time and I just won’t have long for right now this month. Texts are always welcome. J

2^nd: My first prayer request to you all: Insecurity. My worship leader, Dustin, talked to me one day here about being transparent so I am going to be transparent with my prayer warriors. God has convicted me of a lot of insecurity in my life, and that is not right because God is where my security comes from, so if you all could just pray for that, I would be grateful. Thanks for all the support and help so far!  

It's Here!

That's right everyone! I am sitting here writing to you on the evening of my departure for Life Action! I really can't believe it has finally come. I can't begin to tell you all how I feel right now. It's a mixture of excitement...and something REALLY weird in my stomach. Hopefully that's not dinner (keep your fingers crossed on that one). I wanted to take a second to thank all of you who have been praying, giving, and ministering to me over the past months. Actually, there are some of you who have ministered to me for years and years, you all know who you are, so thank you even more.

I also wanted to write this to let you all know that, once again, starting Friday, I will be taking a "fast" from technology for a week, to commit myself to the camp without distractions for at least the first week, to get to know the schedule and the people. I will still be able to read messages, and anyone who wants to write or text me, I will be MORE than happy or thankful to read them (and respond when my "fast" ends). Thank you all and thank you for joining me on this adventure ordained by God!

Josh 

10 day countdown!

Only ten more days left in GEORGIA! Today, I have done my last bit of shopping to get everything I am going to need for my next few months on the road! (Apparently, people like it when you use soap and toothpaste, who knew?) It has been a pretty long road, and now, the ten day countdown has begun. It has been great getting to see friends and family for the last time, and it has been a blessing to see God work in me to let me start saying good bye to things (which is certainly not easy for me)

T-Minus: 10 days

T-minus 20

Today starts the 20 day countdown for me. In twenty days (and about 3 or 4 hours), I will be arriving at the Life Action Camp in Lake Buchanan, Michigan to start a month long training before I hit the road. It is a little surreal, this thing that I started with almost 7 months ago is about to start! I am BEYOND excited right now! Thanks to Facebook, I have gotten to meet all of of my team members and through our wall posts, I have gotten to know them a little bit and am now even more excited to meet them up North. Please don't get me wrong, these last days are pretty hard too. I have been seeing a lot of my friends for the last time, "hanging out for the last time" and it's definitely hitting me that I won't get to see these friends and family till Christmas time. However, God sent me on this journey, so what more can I do than just trust in Him and just enjoy this opportunity that He has given me? So here we go! It's the final countdown! (add in your own theme music if you wish)

T-Minus: 20 days

Schedule for Next Year

Hey all, I wanted to go ahead and post this link since I have been starting to get some people asking about where and when I will be around in the US for next year. When you get to the page, just go to the "team" option and choose the Blue Team, that should give you a complete outline of next year, hope this helps!

Link: http://www.lifeaction.org/conferences/schedule/?team=blue-team&type

(And for all you "sticklers" out there, NO, I did NOT get on Facebook to post this to my page :) )

A Facebook Fast

I chose to write this on here as a reminder to me for the future:

This morning, I woke up with an ear infection: praise God! And no, this is not sarcasm, I am truly thankful for it. Why you ask?

Well, when I woke up this morning, I started doing my regular stuff for the day, checking Facebook, getting breakfast, the usual. I had a full day planned ahead, and was looking forward to every minute of it. I was getting ready to go out in the morning with my Mom, mainly to do shopping for Father's Day AND for Life Action. However, I suddenly started to feel something wrong with my left ear. At first, I just tried to brush it off, but as we started to go from store to store, the "something wrong" turned into genuine pain in my ear. It became so bad that me and Mom decided to stop the errands and go home to see if we could clean out my ears. Normally cleaning my ears out helps them to feel better, but when we were done, nothing had come out, so we were sure it wasn't any kind of blockage. Rats, well that didn't work at all. So we decided to call the Doctor's office and try to get an appointment. Now for those of you who don't know me very well, I NEVER go to the Doctor's Office or take any kind of medication, so hopefully that puts this trip into perspective of how bad this was hurting. After we made the appointment, I decided that it would be best to call off all of my "activities" for the weekend. And that realllly hurt. I was really looking forward to seeing good friends again, having fun, and just enjoying the weekend. Why did God allow this to suddenly happen?

Well, as I sat at home, I was cruising around on Facebook, trying to figure out something to do, when a storm started to roll through the area. A basic lightning storm, but just to be on the safe side, I went ahead and unplugged our internet to keep it safe. So....now what do I do? I found myself sitting on my dad's truck's tail gate, just kind of looking out at the rain pouring down from my garage. It's these kinds of times that I value the most; quiet, alone time when I can just sit there and think. As I sat there, I thought about how nice it was to not have any technology on me. And then, it just kind of hit me. When was the last time I had a quiet time with no cell phone, ipod, tv, something around me that connected me to the outside? It seems so simple and yet in today's techno filled world, it is hard to get away from it. I decided to take advantage of this time and have my quiet time later in the day, and it was some of the sweetest, simplest time with God I have had in a long while. All because I kept myself away from technology.

As I read through Proverbs, I started to realize that Facebook specifically had become an idol to me, nothing more than Golden Calf in my life. I spend a lot of pointless time on Facebook that I could be using for reading, learning music, and preparing my self spiritually for the upcoming year. With that in mind, I am going to be taking a Facebook fast for this week. I feel that I need to take this week to get a grip on my Facebooking. With all that being said, I won't be on Facebook this week, instead I'll be using the time a bit more....wisely :)

IT'S IN!

I wanted to go ahead and write you all to let you know that my Life Action Fund has risen to $3,085!!! So my initial $3,000 is officially in! Thank you to all who have so graciously given to this, I cannot tell you all how much it means to me! Now that the initial funds are in, any donations will now go into the Life Action fund to be used by me during the months to pay for things like food and supplies that I will need while on the road (apparently soap is a "necessary" thing when you are around people, go figure) Thank you all again so much!

LA Countdown: 42 days (til I leave Georgia!)

Life Action Mode!

As I sit here, I think that this day was the very first day that the fact that I am really leaving for a year has sunk in. Now don't get me wrong, I have been looking forward to this ever since I got the phone call that said I had been accepted, however it was always one of those things that you think of as "a long ways off" Sure, it's coming, but not any time soon. I looked at my calendar today, I have 47 days left in Georgia. O_o I'm not sure why this suddenly changed today, maybe it is the fact that I no longer have to go into work or that school's over, but I think it hit me today because my vacation came to an end today. After 10 days of chilling with my parents in St. Pete Beach, Florida, I am now at home and getting unpacked. And the thought of next year hit me like a load of bricks. Wow, I am really leaving for an entire year, that's pretty cool! So I think now I am officially in "Life Action" Mode! :D

The story thus far... (Part III)

So on that Wednesday, Dustin and I made plans to do an audition on the Monday of next week. But I had to come up with a song to sing. Hmmm. So I went through some songs that I liked and ran them by him, which he shot down and in turn gave me some ideas, which I frankly didn't like either. So it was about three days till the audition, and I called him to talk for a second and suddenly came up with the perfect song, "Blessed be Your Name." After all, it is quite appropo to everything that was going on. I asked him, and he said he agreed it would be a good choice, so now we were all set. Monday came around and I started off on my journey up to Athens on my own. I left a little early since the meeting was at 5:30, and I didn't want to get stuck in traffic. So after driving, for a while, I finally found the church the team was at...an hour early. So now what? I decided on rolling over the McDonald's right next door and proceeded to sit there for the next hour, switching from my Bible, to music, to reading the lyrics of the song, and repeating. But eventually, the clock hit 5:20, so I decided to go ahead and go for it. After I had gotten out of my car, I walked into the worship building and...there was no one there. Hmm ok, well maybe they were somewhere else. So after I walked down the hall for a couple of steps, I turned the right and walked into a room where the entire Life Action Staff was having dinner. Well, here we go. As I walked over, Dustin (Thank the Lord) saw me and called out my name. He walked over, shook my hand, and said he wasn't quite done with dinner yet, but asked if he could introduce me to someone before he went back to eat. Sure why not, sounds cool. So without further adieu, he spun me around and said in a loud voice "Hey everyone, this is Josh, he's trying out for a singing part in the auditorium in about 15 minutes so everyone say hey!" Cue heart attack number two. Well, after that little stress attack, we went into the auditorium, and get ready to sing the song. Dustin got one of the other guitar players to play for me, and after a little bit of tuning, off we went. I had disciplined myself so that when I was ready to sing, I would try my very hardest to block everything out of my mind except for me and God. After all, isn't that the only one we should be singing for anyways? Well, the song came to a close and I felt very confident. And then, I hear the words "Ok, good practice. Alright, you can turn the recording on now." Well...that stinks. So I got to do it a SECOND time. And once again, God was there, so encouragement times two! Well, my audition was over...well in a perfect world it would have been. "Ok Josh, let's try some vocal exercises." Some vocal what? For those who are reading this who may not know my background history in singing, let me summarize: I have none. I sing completely by ear, so the concept of a "vocal exercise" is a tad unfamiliar to me. No matter, I was there and really had no place to go, so I prayed asking God to somehow allow me to know how to do these exercises to my best, and then whatever happened after would happen. After another grueling 20 minutes of vocal exercises, I came away, actually having sounded not terrible! Well, God's good, because I know it wasn't me. For the rest of the night, I hung out with the team, and really enjoyed myself (thank goodness the audition was at the beginning of the night0 and as I sat in the car before driving off, I remember thinking "I can do this for a year." There was no feedback at all, except for "We will see what God has." Well, fast forward to two days after, and on a Wednesday morning in a study room at my school, I received a phone call from Mrs. Thompson (remember the secretary?) saying that she was so excited to tell me that I had been accepted to the Life Action Blue Team!

 And so, all my hard work (and God's work in me) was brought to fruition. But this is just the beginning, and I hope you all can join me on this incredible journey!

Proverbs 3:5-6

The story thus far... (Part II)

And so we waited. And waited. And waited. One month. Two months. However, God was using this time to set up some important things for the next chapter in this story. Remember the aptitude test I took, the one that said I was going to be a flight attendant? Well, we got it back out, and it chose a flight attendant because according to the test, I "Liked to go new places" "Learn new things" and "Meet new people." And what exactly would I be doing on Life Action? :) However, not all things we learned were beneficial. We learned from my pastor that He had called up to the ministry and told Mr. Steven Canfield Sr. that he had a possible member and Mr. Canfield's response was "Send him up, I have a spot for him." However, in that moment, I think that my faith was taken off God and placed in people. Well, not to be outdone, God had to "free" me from that mindset, so one day in April, things suddenly became very complicated.

I was walking to my car one day after church, and my pastor was standing outside his office. He called to me to come over, and asked me how Life Action was going. I told him that I was still waiting, to which he got a little surprised, and said "That's not right for them, remind me, and I will email them this week." So I felt great about that. On Monday, he emailed them and on Tuesday, he got a reply, and the bottom fell out of my world.

In order to sign up for the drumming spot, I had to record a drum audition, and send it in. I found two good friends, Mark and John, to help me with the recording, and soon I had a CD, ready to go. So all I had to do was send it in. And all I had to do was send it in a week later. And a month later. And, I just didn't send it in. Why you might ask? Well, I am right there with you. To this day, I honestly have no clue why I didn't send it in, so your guess is really as good as mine. Maybe I thought it wasn’t good enough. No matter what the reason was, I had never sent it in, and soon, I had forgotten about it. Until that Tuesday. Life Action wrote back to my Pastor saying that they had checked their files and that they had no auditions sent in by me. So, not only did I look like an idiot (which I was), I unfortunately made my own Pastor look like an idiot too. I was called later on that day by the Life Action Blue team worship leader, only to find out that there was one spot left on their team...and it wasn't a drumming part. It was a singer's position. God, in his infinite sense of humor, had decided to give me a last chance at Life Action in a singer's position....of course He did. As I talked with the worship leader, I instantly started asking about how fast I could put together a vocal track for him, when he simply said "Instead, could you just come and do a live audition? We are actually in Athens right now." Cue miniature heart attack.

The story thus far... (Part I)

For those of you who are just coming on board, I wanted to use this first post to give you a little synopsis of how I have come to this point. As of today, I am waiting to leave for Life Action Ministries in a little over two months. However, this process has taken a BUNCH of twists and turns and there were some times that I really thought that maybe God was going to close the door. But we'll get to that a little later, let's get started, shall we?

For a little background, I was enrolled at Georgia Gwinnett College for the first two years of my college career. It was a good way to move from home schooling into the college life, but with my first two years and my core classes out of the way, it was time for me to move on. I did things like take an assessment test from my old school, which told me that my main job in life would be a Flight Attendant (we promptly dismissed this test, but remember it for later) so we started looking around for new colleges, and we finally settled on Georgia College and State University. And so, after a trip up there to explore the campus, I went about getting ready to enroll and start signing up for scholarships. And so the trouble started. My family and I are still not sure what happened, but suddenly, the harmony was gone. When we had signed up for GGC, it was just very simple and we all were on the same page and felt good about it. However, when GCSU came up, it was suddenly like we were not only on different pages, but different books. The tensions kept rising as we had conflicts about school, and we started to wonder how this was even going to work out. 

So after all these problems, I found myself sitting in my church on the second Sunday in January, wondering what was going to happen to me with school for next year (and unfortunately not paying attention to the sermon) However, God in His infinite grace, knew that I just wasn't getting the point, so He decided to use a slightly more subtle method to get me on the right track. As I sat there, my pastor started to use an illustration that had to do with his days in Life Action...and it was like a 2 by 4 hit me upside the head. This idea had never even been in the back of my head, and suddenly, out of nowhere, it was a possibility. And my first thought of this new idea? "That's the DUMBEST thing I have ever heard of!" And I immediately tried to dismiss it. But, it kept in my mind and kept nagging at me during the service, so I decided to plan a meeting with my pastor, just to go ahead and get it out of the way so I could go back to thinking of REAL possibilities. After the service and scheduling a meeting with my pastor, I went home and looked up the Life Action website and started looking around, and it started to look even better than I had thought. So that Wednesday I went to meet with my pastor and laid out everything in front of him of what I was thinking. After I was done, I sat back; preparing to get shot down and then that would be that. But surprisingly, I sat there for about 20 minutes hearing what a great idea that he thought it was, and that he thought I should definitely pursue it. Um..........ok? Well, ok so one person thought it was a good idea, but there are a LOT more people in the world. So I decided to email my former youth pastor and ask him. His father was a leader on one of the teams so he had grown up in Life Action, so he would be able to give a different view point. And when I got the reply back, he said that it would be a great idea and encouraged me to move forward. Um..........ok?? Well, this was getting a little strange for me, considering that two men who I highly admire have just told me to go ahead with this. Well, that Saturday, I decided to take an off day and just go off and spend it with God, to seek what He wanted me to do with all this. After a day of Bible reading and music playing, I came to an ultimatum (which in hindsight was not the most spiritual thing to do) that if God wanted me to continue in this, that I would need a miracle or some definite sign to show me to go for this. So I walked back home that Saturday, ready to find out what was going to happen. The next day (Sunday) my Mom had told me that after lunch, she wanted to "share some things on her heart", which meant that something big was gonna be said. So after church, we all sat down, and she shared that she had seen that there was a lot of stress in between me and her about college, and that she knew that it was not healthy for us or for our relationship. But also, she felt that she had been trying to push "college" to happen instead of trusting God for it, and that since she had been sick the previous two weeks, she had been praying for my direction in life more in last two weeks than in a long time (two weeks in which right in the center of was the Sunday I had my idea of Life Action) Finally, she said that she believed that God was telling her that in order to trust in Him, and give her concerns to Him, she should not go out and get a second job, just to pay for my college. After all this, she sat back and waiting, fully expecting me to be angry or frustrated.....while I just sat in my chair trying very hard not to smile. This was the miracle and direction I had asked for! God had it already planned out before I had even asked Him for a miracle. Well, after this, I told my parents that I had an idea, but that I wanted to talk with another person about it before I brought it before them. Mom's exact response was "Well, as long as you don't drop out of school or anything" which almost gave me a heart attack. But I felt a voice come over me and say "It's not leaving, just taking a day off." So after that little meeting, I met with Brad Christian on Thursday, someone who had actually been a student on the road with Life Action for a year. As we sat down to eat, I asked him what he thought of me going to Life Action, and he sat back, took a breath and said "I can't tell how great it is Josh," and proceeded to tell me for two hours about how awesome Life Action. Well, three people as a confirmation was good enough for me, it was time to take it before my parents. So that Saturday, I got home from work, got them together, and spent the next two hours telling them all about what I was thinking about Life Action. When I was done, I sat back and waited. My dad spoke first, and he simply said "I can honestly say I have no checks in my spirit about this" .......O_O Wow, awesome! My mom came in next and said "I can definitely see God's plan in all this." O_O Double wow! So after this meeting, we started going about, getting things ready, and two weeks later, I was all signed up for Life Action, as I applied for a drumming position on one of their teams.