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Nathan's Life Action Site
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Updates Archive
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I'm finally here! After 6 days
and just under 35 hours in the car altogether, we finally arrived in We pulled into the *The times here may change
by as much as 30 minutes during the summer, but the basic idea is there. inspection
on Tuesdays and Thursdays) session,
our director tells us what song we have to memorized by the next session later on in the day,
so REALLY, MEMORIZATION TIME!!!!) SHOPPING!)
Free time (yes folks, this IS free time, we can actually do anything we want as long as its
legal and conservative! Lets see, that involves email/snail-mail, volleyball, sleeping, and talking....guess that about covers
it!) wonder
if there will be a night where someone DOESNT break this rule?) Notice they never tell us when
to sleep! Dah well, I guess Ill figure it out somehow... AND THATS THE SCHEDULE FOLKS! Uh, lets see, its Monday, so
I have not made any real close friends, meaning I dont have a WHOLE lot to take pictures of...except for us singing, and I
think I might be shot if I stood up in front of our rehearsal, shouted This is for the website! and snapped a few (besides,
who wants to see us singing anyways....it'd probably look like a bunch of dressed-up people yawning). OK, here are a few things that
have happened as of yet worth mentioning. There are
4 Nathans here. Yes 4. That makes things fun (actually, one of them is a returning singer, and therefore will not really be
here for a couple of weeks, but he was here on Sunday and I met him). I have, of course, befriended the two other great-named
fellows who are new singers. Concerning
attire...we are to wear casual clothes basically anywhere we are going to be publicly seen and are not going to be doing some
type of rigorous physical activity. Now, when I heard this, I thought, Great! Khaki shorts, polo shirt, and sandals! Oh no,
my friends. CASUAL at Life Action means dress slacks, belt, MATCHING shoes, and a TUCKED IN collared shirt. Yes, mom, that
means you WERE right about me regretting not keeping that third pair of khakis (how do you KNOW this stuff?!), oh well, at
least Im learning from my mistakes, huh? After I stopped laughing, I realized I actually had to wear these things everywhere
I went. The only plus here is that it is NOT sweltering here, like it is in my beautiful home state, which leads me to my
next point. The weather
is, in a word, perfect! Many of the singers here are FROM up north, and its funny, because they will often leave the room
and just kinda swing the door, not worrying about whether or not it shuts. The first few times I found myself getting up,
shouting, What, were you born in a BARN?! and slamming the confounded door. After about the third or fourth time, I realized
I felt a cool breeze when I shut that door. Yes folks, it was somewhere BELOW room temperature yesterday evening. The outdoors
is your air-conditioner, except in the heat of the day, where it reaches a scorching 85 or so degrees. Ahhh. Now, I must close this edition
of...whatever this is, for the sake of time and boredom. But, I will leave you with a verse or two (since Im AT a Christian
place, I figure I may as well ACT like one...*sigh). I pray that this verse will
be more descriptive of my life, and also those who are reading this right now: James 1:22-25 Do not merely
listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says
is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks
like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what
he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does. Finally, dont we serve an INCREDIBLE
God?! (Oh yeah, I added a few exclamation points and capitalizations in this next one....just so you know) : Romans 11:33-36 Oh, the depth
of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has
known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from
him and through him and to him are ALL THINGS!!! To him be the glory forever! AMEN!!!! Hope to hear from you soon.
To start, let me say that you had better read all of this, because SOMEWHERE in here I have told you what team I am
on, and therefore if I'm going to be in Texas, but you're gonna have to find it, and the best way is to read every precious
word I have written! I just got out of church, so I'll let YOU guess what today is. Let's see. We'll work our way from Thursday
to today (ruling out Thursday as "today" if you still can't figure out when "today" is). Hmm...We went to Walmart on Thursday.
I know that doesn't sound like a very exciting ordeal, but if you could only understand the fact that we do not leave this
campground EVER except to go to Walmart (or if you wanna rent a car, but who wants to do that?), making the Walmart trip very
exciting. We all get decked out in our own individual styles (because they let us do that...that's what we call "active wear"),
and go have the time of our lives in the South Bend, Indiana Walmart. They have a place up here called Meijers (I THINK that's
how you spell it...it sounds like "Meyers"), and it is just a wannabe Walmart. Embarrassing. Anyways, I bought some cookies
and a CD case, and one of those things that unfold into needlenose pliers, and have like a knife, screwdriver, and all
that other fun stuff in them. It's so awesome. Friday was just a day. We had singing. Then we sang. And for a change of pace,
we sang. All of this was preparation for the dreaded Finals on Saturday. Saturday came, as did Finals. So we didn't do them.
Yep, Roger Cabe, our Creative Services Director (in charge of finals, basically), decided that he trusted us ("You're far
too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your Rebel friends
soon enough." - Tarkin, A New Hope....Ahhhhh), and would therefore not make us sing at finals. Instead, he just talked to
us about some different stuff and had us give him our input on different things. He did go over some music-related things
we should have learned since we've been here, though. So then we had lunch (blast it, guys have kitchen clean up all day Saturday
AND all day Sunday...dah well, it really isn't that bad, and we mess around and make it fun). But, I didn't eat lunch here,
because Crishonda (Blue team music leader), Anna (my roommate's cousin who works at headquarters), Kennedy (a baritone from
St. Troy, Virgin Islands), Tim (another roommate of mine..a tech from Dothan, Alabama), Joel (a 1st tenor on Blue Team), and
I all went to the mall! I didn't buy anything there, except some chicken from Chick Fil A, and a blizzard from Dairy Queen.
We just wandered around and marveled at the $100 Jansport backpacks. Insane. Then came the trip to the Family Christian Bookstore
place...I used my family perks card (MAN those things come in handy, huh? I think I get a 20% off shopping spree when I fill
it up...only 5 more purchases to go!) to buy the WOW 2002 CD. Then we picked up John Moorman (Blue Team tech) from the airport.
Then, we played some frisbee golf (I ended at, I think, 10 over par, and I lost my frisbee...NOT a good game!) and then had
a camp-wide game of smuggler, which is similar to capture the flag in the dark. Only one sprained ankle and one set of bruised
ribs, though, which is good! That's all the fun goofy stuff we've been doin, HERE'S what God's been doin: Today's worship service was quite convicting. Laine Johnson preached it (ok, I used the word "preached"....you'd BETTER
know what day it is!!!). Remember him, New Braunfels people? It was entitled "Intimacy With God" and he started by asking
the question "What is eternal life?" and then proceeded to work through a couple of passages (one passage in John which I
honestly must say I don't ever remember reading except maybe once...oops!) that showed that eternal life is not something
we will someday get; it is not "living forever," but according to Jesus Christ in John 17:3, "Now this is eternal life: that
they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." A concept I'd never really thought about. We
HAVE eternal life right now! Craziness! I love it! He then proceeded to talk about hungering for God, and how only He can
give us a hunger for Him, which I love, because that means we are 100% reliant on Him...we have to ASK Him to make us hungry
for Him and to help us love Him. What a huge God! I wish you all could be here to experience some of the worship times we
have together, because words only dull the picture of it, but in as few words as possible (yeah I know, that's not my forte),
we all join hearts in complete, unrestrained worship, praise, gratitude, repentance, and awe of the Creator of the entire
Universe and then some. What a privelege! We occasionally have spontaneous worship services, and other times they're planned...I
like the spontaneous ones better. Here are a little bit of the lyrics to one of the songs we actually sing as a
group, but is an amazing song of thanks to our Lord, called Were It Not For Grace. "Time measured out my days. Life carried
me along. In my soul I yearned to follow God, but new I'd never be so strong. I looked hard at this world to find how Heaven
could be gained, just to end where I began, where human effort is all in vain. Were it not for grace, I can tell you where
I'd be: wandering down some pointless road to nowhere, with my salvation up to me. I know how that would go; the battles I
would face. Forever running, but losing the race, were it not for grace. So here is all my praise, expressed with all my heart,
offered to the friend who took my place and ran the course I couldn't even start. And when he saw in full just how much his
love would cost, he still went the final mile between me and Heaven so I would not be lost. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace
that will pardon and cleanse within! Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin!" Thank God
for His FREE, unlimited, undeserved grace today, without which you and I would be wandering down some pointless road to nowhere
with our salvation up to ourselves. Now today's verse(s) (who can have just one?): Philippians 3:7-11 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider
everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so,
somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." God bless you. OH YEAH! Ha ha! I'm on Blue Team! Praise God! They're
the ones who came to our church. We'll be (supposedly..."dupposedly!") in Greenville, Texas and Archer City, Texas in December.
Call my parents for a ride! (So much for ending this on a solemn note! Ha ha!)
Alright, here's the deal. I'm gonna be short and sweet tonight. I had a fellow team member approach me about my site (yes,
a fellow team member...I guess he wanted to know what was going on at Life Action), and he goes, "Man, there's alot of dialog
on there," so here it is. Blue team is rehearsin like crazy. We're just sing sing singin all day. I DID get a nice nap
in yesterday (1 1/2 hours!) and got some ice cream last night (butter pecan...YES!). I still can't up in the mornings. I wish
that alarm wouldn't turn off when I turned it off...you know what I mean? Now, enough of this for an evening. The prayer requests: -Our revival this week (for US)...that God would make His manifest presence overwhelmingly known, and not one person would
leave this place in September wondering, "Did we meet with God?" -Our revivalists this week...Tom Mahairas and Bill McLeod, two VERY godly men, who can preach like crazy, and will, I'm
sure, have messages straight from God for us, that will convict us and spur us on to closeness with Christ -The singers...that we would be rested, we would be faithful to learn our music, our voices would not fail, and that we
would have hearts focused on our Lord -The spots in our schedule that are not yet filled...that God would prompt churches to schedule a revival with us, and
that we would be used by Him in a mighty way -The churches we have scheduled already...that God would be preparing the hearts of the people in those churches, and making
them long for revival Thank you for your prayers, your support, and for visiting this site! May the Lord bless you. It's bedtime for me! Hope
to hear from you soon!
8/15/02 Yes, yes, it's been a few days since I've updated. Sorry. I don't just sit around up here and
wonder things like, "Now what in the world should I DO with the next 4 hours?" Dah well. I'm here now, it's ok. Now, here's
the deal. I'm being quick again. No elaborate discertations on the meaning of life derived from some random experience
I had in the past few days. Just plain facts. Sunday afternoon I ate brisket with the Canfield family (Gretchen Riedel, another
singer (soprano) from San Antonio ate with us too) for lunch, and we had a grand ol' time. I then went to a little theater
called the Round Barn Theater (I THINK that's what it's called), it seats about 400, where Josh Canfield (their 21 year old
son who minored in vocal performance and theater in college and helps us with alot of our drama) performed for a year
(Fiddler On The Roof...he was a Russian dancer...the one with the cool solo...and somebody else, I don't remember) (man, there
are tons of parenthetical comments in this statement, huh?) and saw West Side Story with Josh, Gretchen, and Ivy Dixon, who
is the teacher for the Canfield kids. It was way fun. OK, so I AM being elaborate...sue me...I'm not sure if my support checks
count as assets or not though...if I give 'em all away, then you can sue me for all I own and come out with a few articles
of clothing, a laptop, and a ferret...do what you like. ANYWAYS! Monday we did Bring Back The Glory (our dramatic presentation
on the first Sunday night of the crusade) rehearsal with the red team...choreographed 4 songs. Then Tuesday we did...oh yeah,
REHEARSAL, and it was SO cool because we learned this NICE song called "I Am" and it's a cappella and it's crazy good. Wally,
I'll get you the writer-person's (what's the person who writes music called? I forgot) name and whatnot...this one is amazing.
SO fun! Wednesday and Thursday (the latter being today) I didn't get up early to run....Wednesday intentionally, and today
because I slept through my alarm....TWICE, once at 4:45 and again at 6:15. So I gave up and slept until 7:20...10 minutes
before breakfast. Corrie Vermillion (those of you who have encountered the blue team in the past 2 years are BOUND to know
Corrie...she recruited me) left today to go home, and so did Crishonda, our music director. She (Crishonda) will be back
Sunday evening, but in the meantime, rehearsal tomorrow is up to JJ Canfield, our team manager. Fun times! Today (yes today)
we took team pictures and tried on some clothes...one decently kickin' (kickin' is my new word, except I don't pronounce the
apostrophe) outfit which consists of pants of which I don't know the color yet, but a white button-up shirt and black
wool vest over it. I tried it on w/ black shoes and khaki pants and it looked actually kinda cool (not because it was on me
but...you know what I mean). So here's the cool stuff now: Today (yes today) the executive staff and board and all the high up people of Life Action
(I met a few, they're so cool and godly!) met with us at the NMC for prayer. The NMC is one of God's hugest answers to prayer
and I'm tellin you how. Twenty-six years ago, our founder, Del Fehsenfeld II, began praying and asking other people to pray
for a piece of land he had seen as a future home for Life Action. This land was a garbage dump. Literally. We've always leased
the land we've been on, and Del saw this as something that God could do that could be way cool and could hugely minister
to people (AFTER we cleared out the smell), so he began to pray, along with other people. Last year, that land was deeded
over to Life Action, free of charge. Crazy? Listen. We figured on two-point-something million dollars for this new headquarters
which we dubbed the NMC (National Ministry Center). I'm getting ahead of myself. So we get the land, and start looking at
building on it. After clearing out 700 tons of trash (I'm not exaggerating...literally 1 million, 400 thousand pounds), God
showed us again how awesome He is. When you build, you want to build on sand (regardless of how the song goes..."The foolish
man built his house upon the sand..."), and once the trash was gone, it had left pure sand where we wanted to build. How awesome
is that? Look at the picture: we, in Life Action, do the same thing...go clear out the garbage from people's lives (actually
God does that), leaving pure sand which they can build their spiritual life upon. Then, the first check that came in for the
NMC was from a widow, for $25, which was seen as an approval from God, because Life Action has spent the last 25 years ministering
to widows. God's behind this project. THEN (sorry, this IS long! bear with me! I'm excited!), some of the board was going
to do a thing where they put their life verse on a 3x5 index card and put it in the foundation as it was being poured, but
Dan Puckett (who knows everything) said they couldn't do that because once you put the whole building on top of that foundation,
a simple 3x5 index card can make the whole thing collapse. How symbolic, huh? Just a tiny little piece of trash in your life
can cause everything to come tumbling down on top of you if you don't get rid of it. So after hearing all of that history,
we stood inside of the concrete walls (that's all there is so far....and not even all of those yet) and sang and prayed for
God's blessing upon this place. I know everyone truly feels God has His hand on this place and has a plan for the NMC and
its ministry to people. BUT, we're 1.2 million dollars short (chump change for an almighty God, huh?), and if we don't get,
I think, $110 thousand by October, we're gonna have to quit building altogether. Please pray for that! Now...this evening
we had a time of getting to know the board members...basically the people who make rules and things that dictate our lives,
and it was really great seeing all these amazing men and women of God so wholly dedicated to revival in our nation. Please
pray for them too! That sums up my life since Saturday, though, and it's 10:15 so I must go. I do wanna leave you with a thought
though. Ask yourself, "Do I have a 3x5 index card?" If you do, I urge you to be obedient to God's conviction. If not, thank
God for it, but keep asking Him to search your heart and test your resolve...lest a tiny piece of trash creep in and cause
everything to come tumbling down. Thank you for your prayers and encouragements. I leave here in 3 weeks! God bless you, and
good day/night (whenever it is that you read this...pick one)! 8/20/02 Yeah I know, it's been almost a week since I updated. It's craziness out here though. We have Bring Back The Glory rehearsal
all this week, so I ask that you pray for strength and patience for me and all the singers (and the directors) as we pick
the production apart and make it presentable. You really haven't missed much since Thursday, though...I had one of the most
uneventful weekends of my entire life, and that's not a complaint, because I needed it, plus if I didn't need it, our team
motto is: "You can't make it tough enough for me to complain," and I never know who could be reading this....Jeremiah, are
you out there....? ANYWAYS...oh, the Bring Back The Glory dress rehearsal for red team was on Sunday evening, and it was amazing!
They have some mighty talented singers on their team, and they did an incredible job of getting that production ready last
week. We'll see how we do on Friday probably, although that is subject to change, as is everything that has ever been scheduled
at Life Action. Wow, I'm really searching for things now. Not much is happening...well, I guess I'll talk about rehearsals
for a second before I retire (no, I mean for the night!...man I'm getting tired, the jokes are getting dumb). We rehearse
from 9AM-12PM, have lunch, rehearse from 1:30-about 5, eat supper, and then rehearse from 6:30 or 7-9. So we do alot of practicing!
It's fun, but tedious, and at times you are tempted to get irritated because Laurie (the lady helping us with staging and
acting) says you're doing something wrong, while you're sure you are not, and then she shows you the video of you doing it
wrong (we video rehearsals and then watch them), and you try to fix it the next time, only for her to say you didn't fix it.
So we're getting stretched and squeezed, but I know God is faithful to pour out grace in the form of patience and as of yet
He has been for me, but only if I desire it and ask Him for it. I have to be in bed in ten minutes and I haven't even showered.
Trouble. Oh yeah, we got a "C" on cabin cleanliness check today (which is not good)...little perplexed about that...but hey,
nobody's perfect, right?! Hee hee. Goodnight. I'll try to be more faithful about updating the site..."a thousand apologies
oh patient one" (the thief from Aladdin, said to Jafar at the very beginning...I forget his name at the moment...Habeeb?).
Eh....
8/26/02 Hello. Yes I know it's been a while. It seems more and more people get on the Internet, and the time I have that I can
do the same gets shorter and shorter. This is about how I'm guessing it'll be when I'm on the road, though, which, by the
way, is only a week and a half away. One week from this coming Sunday we'll be in Iowa, singing. I had an absolutely vicious
weekend, praise the Lord, with more mishaps than I usually have in two or three weeks. It started Saturday morning, as all
weekends do. Nathan quit being dumb and talk. Ok, so the first mishap occurred actually Friday morning (my bad) with the wasp
sting. I was casually riding my bicycle to breakfast humming a little tune, and making S's as I rode, when BAM! Yeah, just
like that. A stinkin waspy lands on my arm and stings the fire out of me, on the right arm, just above the elbow, at least
twice. It was like "no wasp" and then all of a sudden "STING!" I didn't even have time to react before it'd stung me twice.
I finally smacked it off of there, 8/30/02 For the first time in a while I don't have to apologize for making you look at the same thing on my site for like
72 days in a row. I gave you all just enough time to check it, but not so much time that you are reciting it in your sleep.
OK, yeah, that'd just be weird. I went to Walmart tonight and got some donut sticks, Rayovac Alkaline Rechargable Batteries
for my cd player (yeah, they paid me to say that), and a box of honey buns! SOOOO good! I've been sleeping kinda late lately
(not been significantly late to any meetings...except that one, but we already discussed that), therefore I miss breakfast,
and am forced to eat my honey buns and drink a little Dr. Pepper. Healthy? No. But the "I Don't Care" factor concerning that
type of thing has skyrocketed parallel to my level of tiredness. Make sense? David Safstrom (the boy band guy...yeah, he was
in a boy band one time...they toured Chicago and New York and stuff) took my stinky blue too-small ExpressMen shirt back tonight
because he went to the mall with a couple of other people when I went to Walmart, and, although I don't know if he's
back yet or not, I believe he exchanged it for a large. BLAST! I just realized that I didn't get silver buttons for my suit
jacket thingy...it has gold buttons on it and I wanted to put silver ones on there. Sorry. Continuing. Uh, oh yeah! Commissioning
service last night. It went well...we had some worship time, some time of reading the Word and being encouraged about the
upcoming year, and gaining a vision for what God wants for us this year and how He wants to use us. It was from 2 Cor. 5,
about the message of reconciliation with which we have been entrusted to carry to the world. And at the end of the passage,
Paul begs the recepients of the letter to be reconciled to God, and Tim St.Clair (the revivalist for red team who preached
the sermon last night) said that only not too long ago did he realize that that verse was being said to believers. Paul asks
not that they be SAVED, but that they be restored into a right relationship with the Father. Tim talked about being "surrendered"
to God. Often we think that the term, when applied to your relationship with the almighty God, means agreeing to whatever
God's told you to do. But that's not it at all. Surrendering to God is not reading over the contract, discussing it with
your lawyer, ascertaining the whereabouts of the loopholes (so it's more comfortable!), then signing at the bottom. On the
contrary, surrender is signing the bottom of a blank sheet of paper, and THEN letting God fill in the terms. Rough stuff,
but last night, Tim challenged us to count the cost, consider the eternal benefits, and sign on the dotted line, so we all
went up and signed a huge banner that says our year's motto on it: "I Serve At The Pleasure Of My Lord And Savior Jesus Christ."
Good stuff, good stuff. It's scary, though...yet at the same time, it's what our faith is all about. Hey, it IS faith! Enough
of my preaching for one night, though. We (in the service last night) also talked to the father of the founder of our ministry
(our founder (Del Fehsenfeld II) died in the late 80s), Del Fehsenfeld, and sang him happy birthday, as it was his 90th birthday
yesterday. He prays for our ministry daily, and just hearing him talk to us on the phone through the tabernacle speakers was
very encouraging...he prayed for us and shared a brief testimony (he's been preaching since he was like between 14 and 18
years old...wow!). Good stuff. Check out the prayer requests page...new additions there. Rehearsal was excruciating today...even Crishonda, our director, admitted it! We are all fried vocally and mentally and
physically. This morning, we were in a very laughing mood...we were cracking up at EVERYTHING from making faces at each other
across the room to the most horrible-sounding a cappella singing in the history of the planet...and this planet has had some
bad a cappella singing. It was honestly so bad that those who had given up trying to sing it (one of them being me) were laughing
hysterically. Good times. We make so many faces at each other in rehearsal...it's a wonder we get anything done at all, yet
Crishonda absolutely loves our team, and is SO patient...never gets angry...in fact, today she was laughing right along with
us (and her facial expressions at a wrong note or at our pathetic tuning are often the cause of our laughter). This afternoon,
precious Crishonda picked the most stratospheric song EVER for us to learn...real sweet of her. Needless to
say we were all dead by this evening. So she cancelled rehearsal, thus resulting in the Walmart trip (Walmart is
what we do around here). I don't feel like I say it enough, but thank you all so much. For showing an interest in what I'm doing by enduring my
endless updates, asking my family how I'm doing, praying, and sending me support (choose which category you belong to, but
I know you belong to the first one, because, well, yeah...). It is nice to see the counter on the page at a higher number
whenever I go to update it, because it assures me that I'm being supported back at home and other places too (and mom, if
I find out that you've been just refreshing the page 20 times so my counter goes up and I don't feel like a complete loser.....I'll.....I'll.....I'll
stay in Buchanan for Christmas! Wait...no I won't.). For real, thank y'all. Speaking of "y'all," I still use that term with
much frequency, inadvertently, and absolutely REFUSE to use the word "pop" for any type of soda. You can rest assured that
I am still as Texan as I was when I left the home state. If you have any questions for me, PLEASE call or write me an email! Thank you all again, and the Lord bless you this weekend.
9/3/02 Happy September everyone! Like the festive fall-colored site? Actually I just wanted something new...the blue-background,
white-text, sea-green @ sign combination was starting to kill me, therefore I changed it! This will be my last update
before I get on the road, praise the Lord, so "let me 'splain...no, there is no time...let me sum up..."("The Princess Bride",
said by Inigo Montoya to Wesley). We go to the windy city for a day, check out the place, sleep at Dave Saffstrom's church
members' homes, leave for Iowa Friday, get in, go to host homes, set up for Bring Back The Glory on Saturday, and Sunday the
crusade begins! Please pray! Ok, now I've summed up. I SO forgot to tell you all about how the recording went, though...that either means: a) no one cares b) no one looks at this website OR c) you just forgot I'm hoping it's option c), but I guess time will tell. ANYWAYS, recording went well, actually it went VERY GOOD. We got
both of our songs done in the allotted time, which red team and silver team didn't accomplish when they were there (but then
again, they had half the time :) hee hee), and even without any touching up or anything, the recording sounded really good
when we listened to it at the end. We ran through Bow The Knee just three times...three straight runthroughs, and then
patched about three, four, maybe five spots, and then we were done with that. Were It Not For Grace took a little
longer, it's harder with weirder rythms, and it's just harder...I don't know why. So we did that one maybe four or five times,
but ended up patching about half of the total song in a bunch of different spots. Bow The Knee is a Chris Machen song, and
Grace is actually a solo that had been arranged into a choral piece, so we played with the rythms and stuff, but it's actually
a pretty kickin song. Once again, they'll be on the new Life Action cd, but sadly, the cd won't be out for a while. The goal
is to have it out in time for people to give it as Christmas presents, but let's not count on that, because even Roger Cabe,
who's kinda heading this thing, said that chance is not too high. They have 6 songs so far (2 apiece from silver, blue, and
red team)...the other 6 will be songs that former team members have written, and they still have to go to Nashville to arrange
the pieces and record the instrumentation, THEN come back here to the studio we use and get former team members to come record.
I'll let you know anything I find out about the release date, though. I'm guessing February-ish, but I could be wrong. AS SOON AS I CAN, ONCE ON THE ROAD, I WILL PUT TRAINING CAMP PICTURES ON HERE! I know many of you are sick of my chatter
and really just wanna see pictures, so you'll see them soon and very soon! I sang a trio in church Sunday...messed up at the end and was kinda beating myself up over it and was already making excuses
to myself as soon as it happened (sad, huh?), and God taught me a very good lesson. I was sitting in my chair afterwards going,
"How did that happen, Captain Choke-A-Lot?" and God said to me, "Nathan, what did you, Brian, and Ben pray before the service?"
I said, "That you would receive glory and that we would be singing only for you and your glory." So He said (and I knew where
this was going) "You sang the music differently that it was written and differently from the way your two friends thought
you were going to sing it, but I don't care. All I care about is that you were singing to me." And I realized that when I
get angry over making a mistake, not just in singing, but in anything, it's usually, if not always, because I'm either embarrassed
or I didn't meet up to my perfect expectations of myself (if ya'll don't know, I'm what you might call a perfectionist :)),
and both of those reasons are sinful under the category of pride. Whenever I'm concerned about somebody thinking, "Oh, he
blew it!" or angry about messing up just because I "know I can do better than that" then my focus is on me. The only time
I should be upset with something I've done (I mean things that aren't sin) is if my focus is not on Christ when I do it. So
that was my huge lesson from the Father this week! But, then again, it's only Tuesday! Sorry, almost done! Monday, yesterday, blue team went to "the s' house" which is a house across the street from headquarters
(headquarters is not actually at the camp I'm at...it's about 15 minutes away) where the s (who are about my age....some older)
who work at headquarters live throughout the year. We played some games and had brownies and ice cream and it was good times.
Full day of rehearsal today...tomorrow will be a half-day, because we have to pack and do things to get ready to leave at
9AM Thursday! NOW I'm done! Until I update again....here's a random thought: Why don't they make mouse-flavored cat food?
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