Mid-terms!

Today, Josh and I are having to take FIVE Mid-terms! We had to take three of them this morning, and we will have two more tonight!
Fortunately, most of them turned out to be pretty easy for both of us. After we get done with them this week, we still have to take one for Algebra that was moved to next Tuesday!
Right now, I'm sitting in our student lounge, with pretty much nothing to do while my brother sits here trying to charm the socks off of his special new lady friend! He met a new freshmen this year, and they have hit it off quite well!
Meanwhile, I have nothing to do right now except write a blog and study for two more tests tonight!

-Stephen

Recap from last week

So, it seems like we are never bored. Last weekend, We sang for that ladies conference four times on Saturday, and spent the night at the youth pastor's house to rest up for two more meetings the next day. It was a tremendous blessing to not have to drive nearly three hours home on Saturday night, then get up waaaaaay to early Sunday morning to drive over two hours back in that direction for two meetings that day!
All three meetings went very well, and God really seemed to bless!
This Saturday, we are singing up by Houghton Lake for a church's dinner concert. The pastor is trying this as an experimental "dinner theater"-type concert. Sounds like a lot of fun to us, and we can't wait!
Next week is mid-terms for college, so it may actually prove to be a relief to have a little span of time after this weekend where we won't be singing. Probably not though, because I'm never as happy off-stage as I am on-stage!
WE are also excited about the fact that we will soon have our concert posters available for download on our website once again! Our original poster was down-loadable on our old website, but when our website was rebuilt, we never got our posters (old ones or new ones) up there. We are hoping to have our our awesome, full-color posters up for download sometime next week. I'll be sure to post an update when we do!

-Stephen

Crazy busy this weekend!

Well, things are looking better for our proposed trip to Florida. I checked my e-mail this morning, and was delighted to see that another campground had invited us to come to sing for them next March! I love how God always seems to bring these things along just at the times when it can be the most encouraging.
This weekend is going to be nuts! Josh and I will be at college all day on Thursday for classes, and then the party begins Friday morning! I will be preaching in chapel in the morning, then we head out for an activity with the college, followed by immediately leaving for a trip to the western side of the state. We will be setting up our equipment that evening for a laddies conference the next morning. We'll stay the night, sing most of the day, then go to bed and get up early to sing at two different churches the next Sunday morning!

Busy, Busy, Busy......but singing like this is the kind of busy that I love!

-Stephen

College.... And Algebra

Well, we've been back to school for about six weeks now, and things are going pretty well....well, mostly anyway. This semester, the instrument of torture is algebra. Did you know that people in the Middle Ages used algebra as a torture to the death? I can picture a dark, wet dungeon with a man stretched out on a rack while Quasimodo tutors him in advanced algebra. That poor, poor man. It's not so much that I'm having trouble with the subject, it's just that I don't like math without any numbers! It's like they're trying to teach me the alphabet and make me speak Spanish at the same time. Now I have no idea what the sequence of letters is supposed to be. I think it's something like "A, B, C, D, a+b= 4/5 - x (-7 + y)". I could be a little off, but that sounds more and more accurate every time I go to class. Oh well, it's not like algebra or the alphabet will ever get me anywhere in life.

-Joshua

Ministry News: Last week, This Week, & Florida

So, anyway, it took me a little longer to get back to this than I thought it would (two days, but....whatever!) So Josh and I had an awesome meeting last week. We went back to Riverwalk Baptist Church for their annual kid/family carnival event. They had many people this year despite the rotten temperature and blowing rain. The put most everything under a couple of tents this year, and our services were held indoors like before. I did not get a count this year, but I know that we had a bucket full of new people get saved this year, including several adults!We did four kid shows, and then gave the gospel, and the Holy Spirit did the rest!
We also drove up to Standish, Mi. for their outdoor "Depot Days" festival the next day. It was a small fair, and the weather was cold enough to keep a lot of people away,but it wasn't freezing, and we were able to get the gospel out again.
This Saturday, we will be singing up in Whitemore for an evening concert, then staying over to sing for their sister church the next morning.
Josh and I are still working on finishing up our degrees. If all goes well, we'll be done and off to Florida! We're both struggling a little bit for one class, but hopefully the Lord will help us get through it!
Speaking of Florida, things are starting to look better for booking down there. I've got several places that I think will probably book us anytime now. I'm starting to get antsy, though, so if they don't call me back soon for confirmation, I'll be calling them again!

Stephen

Yay! Internet!

Hurray, my college finally has Internet again! We have moved this year from Pontiac, Mi. to Orion, Mi. The college is meeting in our churches building while the college works to build new facilities. The church has WI-FI, but that only works for those of us who have laptops! The only laptop that I have right now is either my old one that I use to run my soundtracks in concert, or my mother's laptop that I'm pretty sure is three days older that Jonah! She got a new one for her birthday, but won't let me take it to school!
Anyway, they finally got all of the new connections in for the desktop, so I'm back into the blogging from school business!
Check back soon! I have to go to class right now, but I'll have a new update on recent ministry events later today!
-Stephen

Singing last Friday, plus jr. church surprise!

This past weekend, Josh and I were busy in very different ways than normal.
On Friday, Josh and I sang for a multi-group concert that we were added to at the last minute. I met the lady that hosted the event at Mark & Andrea Forester's Homecoming concert two weeks ago. She sat next to me, and before the night was over, we had been added to the upcoming event.
Back to this weekend. The place was absolutely packed, and the event featured 11 different current groups, as well as reunions of a couple of great Michigan groups from the past!
This Sunday, we did not have any bookings, so Josh and I went to our home church at Dixie Baptist, and had a very unusual morning service. Mom teaches jr. church, and since we have both been gone a lot lately, she asked us to come into her class to help out. The kids had been clamoring for me to do another magic show for weeks, so I went to fulfill that request.
But just as Mom was starting the class, several of her kids burst through the door singing "Happy Birthday Mrs. Forester" at the top of their lungs! Mom's birthday was this past Thursday, and some of the kids got their mother and one of the other jr. church workers to make a huge batch of cupcakes for a birthday surprise! Most of the other kids brought her homemade cards and special presents too, and we found ourselves in the middle of a party!
I went ahead with the magic, and it was great. We have a girl in Mom's class that has been struggling with some hard health problems, and she has been waiting to see me do magic again for a while. She's being promoted to the teen group, so today may have been the last show that she will see me do, and I felt honored to do it for her, as well as the other kids.
I started thinking about how Jesus loved children and always encouraged "the little children to come unto me", and days like this make me see why. It was also one of those days that reminded us why the Bible calls children "an heritage of the Lord".
Usually, when my family goes to church, we go there with the hope of ministering to other people and trying to be a blessing and encouragement to others. This time, however, the tables were turned, and the kids and workers at Dixie Baptist Church were a wonderful blessing to us!

-Stephen