Weekend of January 20, 2008

As promised, here is the quick and dirty on this past weekend!

Long before the weekend of ministry happens, things begin to happen. First, hotel rooms had to be booked for everyone not sleeping on the bus. Sometime during the week, all the guys fast and pray for a day for the upcoming trip. Last week, Butch stopped by and installed a new door inside the bus for one of the bedrooms. On Friday, Casey (one of our roadies) and I went and checked the oil and added a gallon, checked the transmission fluid and added a little, added a gallon of gear oil to the rear end (that was fun...*sarcasm*), checked the coolant, took the bus and filled the diesel fuel tank and the generator gas tank. We then went to the store and bought breakfast foods, bags of chips, a couple cases of water and a few 12 packs of various sodas to accommodate the tastes of the various bus riders. Casey then stayed the night on the bus, polished the wood inside, washed the windows and vacuumed.

First thing Saturday morning, I drove down early, and Casey and I loaded my clothes and music equipment into the bus, then washed the bus from top to bottom. Once everyone who was meeting us there arrived, we drove out and picked up Butch and Ruth, then headed on up to Taft, CA. It was (thankfully) uneventful, and we arrived, set up, did a sound check, then found out they made dinner for us! So we ate delicious tri-tip and fried chicken. The ones who had hotel rooms went thereto, and we met in the morning at Jo's for breakfast.

The service that morning was AWESOME!! God moved mightily. I was having throat problems, trying to get over a cold, but I sang fairly well. Now remember, we don't charge a fee for coming, we just ask for a love offering, and we set up our merchandise table in the back. The church took up an offering for us, and it was the largest they'd ever taken up. Now remember back to my previous post, we owed these pastors a sizable amount of money because of our agreement for the bus. We gave them back the money from the offering to put toward the debt, as was our agreement before going there. They then forgave our debt to them!! God is so good!!

From there, after we broke down all of our equipment and packed it away, we drove to Bakersfield, and on to Hodel's. Yuuummmmyyyyyy!!!!! After eating, we got ahold of Pastor Troy Morris of New Beginnings Church, and went and saw his new church. It was absolutely amazing... One of these days I'll blog about that as well, it's a story all it's own!

We then moved on to the church where we'd be for the evening service, Grace Christian Church in Bakersfield. We set up, did a sound check, and sang and preached yet again. It was another great service! My voice was nearly gone with the cold I had, but I pushed hard and was able to sing. But when I went up for the altar service, I opened my mouth to sing...and a horrible noise came out. My voice was completely gone. As of today, it's even worse!!

Afterward we packed up the bus and said goodbye to Pastor Roger Sadbury. When we tried to start the bus...nothing. It had power, but it seemed to me that it wasn't really in neutral, even though the gear selector said so. Wayne got into the side compartment, and saw the gear selector actuator wasn't completely connected to the gear selector anymore. So he manually moved it through it's gears and back to neutral, and fixed the actuator arm. The bus of course started instantly! But then Dean couldn't get the maxi's to disengage...not until we had full air pressure.

We left, following Pastor Troy Morris to In&Out Burger, where he bought all of us a burger for the road (Thanks!!!!). We left there and drove home, dropping Butch and Ruth back off at their house. Once all the stuff was off the bus, I parked it out back, and Casey and I plugged it in. I then took Casey home, and went home myself.

I know, I know, it's a long post for such an uneventful weekend, but I wanted to show you a little of what goes into one short, fairly local trip. There's more usually, bus maintenance, call after call to get bookings, calling around to get rates for hotels, coordination with pastors, band practices, etc etc. It really is a lot of work. No, that's not a complaint, we do it happily, knowing it's what God called us to do.

Check out our new album when it's out, "Just Until Jesus Comes." The title track is our testimony!!

Until next time, I'm signing off...goodnight!!