Friday, July 30, 2010

Recent ministry happenings

Well, Josh and I just finished a lot of hard work in a Vacation Bible School this week. Clifford Baptist Church started their VBS on Monday, and we came in later in the week to finish things out for them with a bang! It went pretty well, and we praise the Lord that we had several kids saved in the event.
Tomorrow we will be singing for a family reunion over in Ovid, Mi, just north of Lansing. We've never sung at a family reunion before, so it'll probably be a new kind of experience for us, but I'm sure that it will also be great.
Keep watching our website (http://www.foresterministries.com/) for updates. I've posted new dates recently, and hopefully will have more soon.
We are pleased and incredibly grateful for how wonderfully God has blessed our ministry this year. Last year, we sang for 52 different meetings. Between what we've already done this year and what we still have in the book, we are going to eclipse that!.....and some pastors still book meetings later in the year.
I'm really looking foreword to January 2011. The reason for this is because is because from the start of the year through about the first week in March is the prime time for booking new dates, when churches are still writing their yearly schedules. Since (by God's grace) I'll be finishing college this fall and not have to go back in the spring, I'll have much more free time to pursue mailing demos and calling churches.
One more thing, if you enjoy reading our blogs and would like to say something or comment about what we've said, there is a way that you can let your voice be heard (or rather...read!) For those of you who may not know, at the bottom of each blog is a line that says POST A COMMENT, which you can click on to write your own comment. It's very easy to do, and you can sign your name to it or post it anonymously, if you prefer. You can also click on the button near it that says COMMENTS to read what others have said. We love to hear from our readers!
-Stephen

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Boats And Music School

SO, my brother and I had a great time at CMC, learning that we are nowhere near as good as we thought (which isn't saying much). Now I kind of hate the way I play piano, but we have a new drive to perfect what we're doing! That's never a bad thing. Anyway, there's not much time left before school starts and we're hoping to be able to take our boat out before summer's over. However, the way dad and I have been slammed for work, who knows if we'll take it out before my dog graduates from art school.

-Joshua

Monday, July 26, 2010

A great weekend

This past weekend was awesome for us! On Saturday, we went to Cass City, Michigan for an all-day outdoor concert in Evergreen Park and sang with a bunch of other gospel groups, some of which have become friends of ours. The crowd seemed to enjoy us pretty well, and we had a good time.
We then drove up to Reed City to set up our equipment for the morning service the next day. We spent the night at the Pastor's house so that we wouldn't have to drive such a long way so early Sunday morning. It was a fantastic service. The people really loved us, the Lord blessed us, and the Pastor already invited us to come back for next year!
The only bummer was that during the morning service, our mixer basically died. Our eight-channel mixer already had one channel that did not work, and now another one quit on us, so now we only have six channels when we need at least seven. The pastor's wife from last Sunday let us take one home that she had, and we're looking at buying it from her. Funny how God has timing figured out all the time........

-Stephen

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Music school and concert dates

Well, Josh and I just back from our trip to Murray, KY for the Charles Novell School of Music, and it was AWESOME! We attended lots of great classes, took piano lessons from Dr. Novell himself, met a lot of great people, and performed in all of the evening concerts. We returned home late last Saturday night with a bucket full of new knowledge in our heads, as well as some great new motivation for practicing our craft.
The actual flying was kind of a pain, though, because our layover in Chicago on the way to KY was a lot longer than we expected. We were supposed to fly from Detroit to Chicago, wait a couple of hours, then catch a plane to Padukah, Ky with Dr. Novell picking us up at the airport. When Dr. Novell arrived at Padukah, he learned that our 2nd plane had been delayed due to MECHANICAL PROBLEMS!..........But they never said that in Chicago!

Be sure to check our schedule at www.foresterministries.com to see several new dates that I've just finished posting, and come out to see us if you get the chance!

-Stephen

Friday, July 9, 2010

Flying to CMC!

Well, Josh and I will be leaving for Christian Music Conference this Saturday, and we couldn't possibly be more excited! This is the school where we learned to perform this amazing craft that we call gospel music. If you've been to our website (http://www.foresterministries.com/), then you know what I'm talking about. We haven't been back to the school since summer of 2007, so we are eagerly looking foreword to taking every class that we can, soaking up the knowledge, get some professional critique on our work, and catching up with some of our musical friends that we have not seen for awhile. We will flying out from Detroit at 10:00am, changing planes in Chicago, and then Flying to a little place in the middle of a cornfield called Padukah, KY! The school is actually in Murray, but the closest airport is in Padukah. If you've never heard of it, I'm not surprised......the name fits right in with the other crazy KY names like Possum Trot and Monkey's Eyebrow! (Seriously, those really are town names down there!).

On a related note, I asked Josh today if he was afraid of the flying (we haven't flown since we were very little kids). Although he said that he was fine with it, I keep getting signals that he may be lying. He tends to chew on things when he gets nervous, but today he he's graduated from nail-biting to chewing through more shoes than our new Border Collie puppy! (I'm just kidding...sort of!)

-Stephen

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Dog Spit And Kung Fu

Okay, normally I'm a dog lover, but today I got kind of scared. My dad and I (in his refrigeration business) went to this lady's house to fix her A/C. I was getting tools out of the truck while dad made his way up to the door. Suddenly, a very large, very fast, very... doggish... German Shepherd came barrelling out of the doggie door... headed straight for yours truly. I wanted to drop the tool bag and do some tae kwon do on that dog... but then I remembered that I don't know tae kwon do. Fortunately the dog was just as friendly as it was big. It promptly decided that my face was not clean enough and decided to use it's tongue for a sponge, slobber for soap, and its tail as a shammy. Oh well, at leats I didn't drown...

Anyway, take a look at our website, www.foresterministries.com, to see our schedule updates and new pictures, including pictures of us at a Gaither Homecoming concert!

-Joshua