Sorry we haven't written a blog in a while. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get off a life sentence? No, I wasn't in prison....the zoo. They finally found me! Those people aren't exactly the FBI. Although I have to admit I will miss the food... Me and the gorilla made an alliance and we escaped together.....I'm not sure exactly where he went, but he probably went where all monkeys go: public office!
Anyway, enough monkeying around. I'd like to give you all a piece of news......if only I had some! Oh, well, I guess I'll just make something up. "In other news, three chimpanzees broke into a hardware store late last night and took only one thing: a monkey wrench." Okay, so I like monkeys. I'm not really sure why; humans are nothing like monkeys. Have you ever noticed the biggest difference between monkeys and human males? Monkeys have hair everywhere on their bodies EXCEPT their chests! If we evolved, I'd say something got a little messed up. I guess monkeys always sleep on their stomachs in the winter; otherwise they'd wake up with frozen belly-button lint. I know, I know, monkeys aren't from where it's cold. They don't come from Michigan; I know quite well that they come from Scotland.
Anyway, if you're done with all the monkey business, you can go to our website at http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see our CDs and schedule. (Not that you'd really care after reading this blog, but oh well.)
-Joshua
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Ministry News
Well, It's been a little while since we've put up any new blog posts, and I apologize for that. But that doesn't mean that things have been slow in our ministry, because the exact opposite has been true.
We were at Colonville Bible Church on Aug.23, and it turned out to be a pretty good meeting. They were without a pastor, but the spirit in the church was still good despite that void. They were bringing in a man to candidate a week or so later, so I hope for their sakes that that meeting went well. After the service they had an outdoor lunch time (YEAH!), and then we packed up our stuff and headed for Rochester Hills, Mi. to sing with our college quartet for a special tent revival.
The next Sunday night we went to Clifford Baptist Church in Clifford, Mi. There was only about 32-34 people there, but they were a great bunch of folks to sing for. My family has known Pastor Brad Potter for years, but this the first time that I remember meeting him. He was very gracious to us and was contemplating having us come for Vacation Bible School next year to do our kid stuff.
This past Saturday we went to the Missionary Campground in Brown City, Mi for a special all-day concert event with many different groups. It turned out great, and we got another booking for Oct.25th while we were there (see our schedule page)!
This past Sunday we went to Schnable Lake Campground in Martin, Mi for a morning service that was held outdoors on a Basketball court, with the attendees sitting around us in their golf-carts. This was interesting day, because when we got just under twenty miles from the camp our traveling coach bus (er, OK, Venture Mini-van!) broke down on the way there! I had to call someone from the camp to come and pick us up, and we loaded our equipment up into his pick-up and raced out to the camp just in time to set a new world record for fastest sound system set-up and start only about five minutes late. We did the morning service and it went pretty well, but we wound up having to call a tow-truck to get us home! Luckily, we did not have an evening meeting scheduled, because we did not get home 'till about 8:00pm that night.
It seems that our mini-van's head gasket is shot, so that's going to cost us some good change to get it fixed. It's kind of funny how last year, when we were getting started things were perfectly smooth and easy, but this year we've had several problems including our Dad suffering from some health ailments and now the mini-van breaking down. It's like what Josh said at Schnable Lake on Sunday morning: "It's like our ministry has just hit Puberty!"
Until next time,
Stephen Forester
We were at Colonville Bible Church on Aug.23, and it turned out to be a pretty good meeting. They were without a pastor, but the spirit in the church was still good despite that void. They were bringing in a man to candidate a week or so later, so I hope for their sakes that that meeting went well. After the service they had an outdoor lunch time (YEAH!), and then we packed up our stuff and headed for Rochester Hills, Mi. to sing with our college quartet for a special tent revival.
The next Sunday night we went to Clifford Baptist Church in Clifford, Mi. There was only about 32-34 people there, but they were a great bunch of folks to sing for. My family has known Pastor Brad Potter for years, but this the first time that I remember meeting him. He was very gracious to us and was contemplating having us come for Vacation Bible School next year to do our kid stuff.
This past Saturday we went to the Missionary Campground in Brown City, Mi for a special all-day concert event with many different groups. It turned out great, and we got another booking for Oct.25th while we were there (see our schedule page)!
This past Sunday we went to Schnable Lake Campground in Martin, Mi for a morning service that was held outdoors on a Basketball court, with the attendees sitting around us in their golf-carts. This was interesting day, because when we got just under twenty miles from the camp our traveling coach bus (er, OK, Venture Mini-van!) broke down on the way there! I had to call someone from the camp to come and pick us up, and we loaded our equipment up into his pick-up and raced out to the camp just in time to set a new world record for fastest sound system set-up and start only about five minutes late. We did the morning service and it went pretty well, but we wound up having to call a tow-truck to get us home! Luckily, we did not have an evening meeting scheduled, because we did not get home 'till about 8:00pm that night.
It seems that our mini-van's head gasket is shot, so that's going to cost us some good change to get it fixed. It's kind of funny how last year, when we were getting started things were perfectly smooth and easy, but this year we've had several problems including our Dad suffering from some health ailments and now the mini-van breaking down. It's like what Josh said at Schnable Lake on Sunday morning: "It's like our ministry has just hit Puberty!"
Until next time,
Stephen Forester
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Blood, Sweat, and Tears...(Minus The Blood..And The Sweat)
Peaches and butter! Again, that has nothing to do with what I'm gonna say. Just thought you'd all like to hurt along with me. Anyway, I and my brother were messing around today and I tried to kick him. He blocked with his elbow and the top of my foot slammed into his bony elbow. I went down like my legs were made of water. I lay on the floor and just started laughing (through the tears, of course). That was a couple of hours ago, and my foot still hurts. Guess what: I have to play paintball in a few hours! I'll be out there wanting to gnaw my own foot off if it'll take away the pain. Hey, I have the attention span and intelligence of a rodent, why not the behavior of one too?
Be sure to check out www.foresterministries.com to see our latest schedule and pics!
-Joshua
Be sure to check out www.foresterministries.com to see our latest schedule and pics!
-Joshua
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Booking concerts
I've have really been at it this week trying to get new concert dates, and it's not always an easy thing to do. I have a couple of different methods of locating new churches for us to contact. After concentrating on an area and compiling a new list of churches that we've not sung at yet, I mail out demo packets with information about us and soundbites of our material.
This is a very time-consuming process. I usually list about 35-50 at a time. After that, we have to stuff our envelopes with all of our info and then address them to these new churches. I feel sorry for our U.S. mail lady who has to pick them up from our mail box...... just the other day I watched as she fork-lifted our mailbox off of the ground and carried it off to the post office!
The next part involves calling the churches. I had pretty much exhausted our old lists of churches that I had sent demos to and had been calling, so I knew it was definitely time to get busy with the mailings again. I'll still send out some more demos this week, and then sometime next week I'll start calling and shamelessly begging these churches to let us sing for them!
I'm hoping for a bunch of bites, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Check the schedule page of our website for all new postings soon.
-Stephen
This is a very time-consuming process. I usually list about 35-50 at a time. After that, we have to stuff our envelopes with all of our info and then address them to these new churches. I feel sorry for our U.S. mail lady who has to pick them up from our mail box...... just the other day I watched as she fork-lifted our mailbox off of the ground and carried it off to the post office!
The next part involves calling the churches. I had pretty much exhausted our old lists of churches that I had sent demos to and had been calling, so I knew it was definitely time to get busy with the mailings again. I'll still send out some more demos this week, and then sometime next week I'll start calling and shamelessly begging these churches to let us sing for them!
I'm hoping for a bunch of bites, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Check the schedule page of our website for all new postings soon.
-Stephen
Friday, August 14, 2009
News.... And Food
Banana fudge waffles!... That has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm gonna say; I was just trying to figure out if those would be amazing or horrifically gross. Ask me after my stomach stops turning like a combine.
In other news, my brother and I did a program last Saturday at Chapel in the Pines Mucus Barn.... wait... make that MUSIC Barn. I wasn't hookd on fonics. Anyway, we were actually taped to be on local TV! There were three cameras, so I always tried to keep my best side facing them...weird...first concert I've ever done with my back to the audience.
After that we went to Bloomingdale Christian Church that Sunday evening. We had a lot of fun there, but one thing would have made it better...pizza. Pizza with chicken on top; and extra cheese; and sausage, and loads of ice cream, pistachios, oh..oh..oh...taste-bud cramp!
Then we went to Mulliken to do an ice cream social. We were doing our last song and I was goofing off (if you've seen us before, you know what I mean!) and I started rummaging through a garbage can. I found a doggie box that felt heavy, so I was going to pull it out for a laugh. Unfortunately, my gerbil-sized brain didn't think that it would be melted ice cream, and that stuff ran all over my hand. At least I THINK it was ice cream; I'm still not sure exactly what it was. It tasted good, though.
Check out our website, http://www.foresterministries.com/, to see our pics, news, and schedule. As Tigger would say, TTFB: Ta ta for...wait... I'll get back to you on that....
-Joshua
In other news, my brother and I did a program last Saturday at Chapel in the Pines Mucus Barn.... wait... make that MUSIC Barn. I wasn't hookd on fonics. Anyway, we were actually taped to be on local TV! There were three cameras, so I always tried to keep my best side facing them...weird...first concert I've ever done with my back to the audience.
After that we went to Bloomingdale Christian Church that Sunday evening. We had a lot of fun there, but one thing would have made it better...pizza. Pizza with chicken on top; and extra cheese; and sausage, and loads of ice cream, pistachios, oh..oh..oh...taste-bud cramp!
Then we went to Mulliken to do an ice cream social. We were doing our last song and I was goofing off (if you've seen us before, you know what I mean!) and I started rummaging through a garbage can. I found a doggie box that felt heavy, so I was going to pull it out for a laugh. Unfortunately, my gerbil-sized brain didn't think that it would be melted ice cream, and that stuff ran all over my hand. At least I THINK it was ice cream; I'm still not sure exactly what it was. It tasted good, though.
Check out our website, http://www.foresterministries.com/, to see our pics, news, and schedule. As Tigger would say, TTFB: Ta ta for...wait... I'll get back to you on that....
-Joshua
Hey loyal readers, sorry that we've taken so long to get back to writing about our journeys here. We have been very busy lately, with some very exciting happenings along the way.
On Tues, July 20, we went to an interdenominational Christian ladies group to sing for them. They were an absolutely wonderful crowd! they loved everything that we did, and we got to meet some nice people and sold a great number of CDs. Two days later, we went to our home church to do a kid's show (magic, puppets, etc.) for the church daycare. A lot of people would consider a daycare show below their pay grade, but we had a good time and the kids had an even better time.
Two days later, we went to Evergreen Park Campground in Cass City, Mi. for a special all-day concert with nine other groups/soloists. We were the first group on after lunch, and we got an awesome reaction from the crowd. They were one of the best laughing bunches of people that Josh has performed for in a while.
I went to Devonshire Retirement Village to do a little mini-concert. It went relatively well, and I changed what I do a little bit and mostly played piano and sang to make it enjoyable for the age group there.
The following Sunday, We went to Trinity United Methodist Church in our own hometown of Lapeer for a special car show concert. It was a little unusual because I had a couple of co-workers from Dairy Queen who came with a couple of their siblings to watch us perform. Not that that would create any pressure, but I knew that what happened there would soon reach back to my workplace!
We have had some other things happen as well. I have finished recording my new CD. It should be out hopefully in time for our concert at Missionary campground on Sep.5. I'm very pleased and excited about how it turned out.
I'll let Josh write about our other bookings that we've done recently. Check the blog above for the latest scoop!
-Stephen Forester
On Tues, July 20, we went to an interdenominational Christian ladies group to sing for them. They were an absolutely wonderful crowd! they loved everything that we did, and we got to meet some nice people and sold a great number of CDs. Two days later, we went to our home church to do a kid's show (magic, puppets, etc.) for the church daycare. A lot of people would consider a daycare show below their pay grade, but we had a good time and the kids had an even better time.
Two days later, we went to Evergreen Park Campground in Cass City, Mi. for a special all-day concert with nine other groups/soloists. We were the first group on after lunch, and we got an awesome reaction from the crowd. They were one of the best laughing bunches of people that Josh has performed for in a while.
I went to Devonshire Retirement Village to do a little mini-concert. It went relatively well, and I changed what I do a little bit and mostly played piano and sang to make it enjoyable for the age group there.
The following Sunday, We went to Trinity United Methodist Church in our own hometown of Lapeer for a special car show concert. It was a little unusual because I had a couple of co-workers from Dairy Queen who came with a couple of their siblings to watch us perform. Not that that would create any pressure, but I knew that what happened there would soon reach back to my workplace!
We have had some other things happen as well. I have finished recording my new CD. It should be out hopefully in time for our concert at Missionary campground on Sep.5. I'm very pleased and excited about how it turned out.
I'll let Josh write about our other bookings that we've done recently. Check the blog above for the latest scoop!
-Stephen Forester
Monday, July 20, 2009
I Have Dignity!....Yeah, Right
Last night my brother and I went to a church and sang with the college quartet. Afterward there was a party at somebody's house (whose name I do not know), but they had food, so we went. They had a volleyball court out back, covered in sand and lined in wood. The problem: my brother and I had no change of clothes whatsoever. So, Stephen took off his boots and socks, rolled up his dress-pant legs and played some volleyball. Meanwhile, I stood back, looking at him and thinking, "What a dork..." as I tried to kill mosquitoes buzzing my head by slapping myself in the face repeatedly. To make matters worse, they started spraying mosquito fogger around the edge of the volleyball court. I think that was their way of saying, "DEATH TO THE ASTHMATIC COMEDIAN!!!" I don't have real bad asthma, just enough to not want to put a straw on mosquito fogger (although I hear it's actuality quite exhilarating!)
Take a look at our schedule page at http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see where we'll be next!
-Joshua
Take a look at our schedule page at http://www.foresterministries.com/ to see where we'll be next!
-Joshua
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