A Humbling Week

We arrived to St. Joseph last Saturday and our host family took us to a free jazz & blues concert. It was awesome! This whole week has been filled with blessings and humbling experiences.

Us with a family from the church who bought
some of our tshirts!

On Sunday we played at First Lutheran church and they took an offering for us. We were in awe of how supportive this church was to the ministry we're doing through our music.

Later that evening we played a concert at the church.  We are so encouraged by this church's outreach to the homeless in the community.  The pastor has a huge heart for the homeless and has great connections with the local men's shelter, food kitchen, and salvation army. They took a van around picking up people and families at those stops around town.  We had a BBQ dinner before the concert and then they came upstairs to enjoy music. We were able to share our passion for Christ and encourage others in His Name through our music. We didn't really get to stick around and talk with them because the van took them back right after. However, we did hear how some of them said it had been a long time since they had heard good live music like that.

At the Men's Shelter

The next day we played at the men's shelter during their dinner time. This is a transitional housing facility for men from the streets who want to get their feet back on the ground. It reminded me a lot of People's City Mission, the homeless shelter I worked at a few summers ago. The men were really responsive and one of the guys who was at our concert on Sunday stayed and listened to us that night too. They were such a huge help carrying in the speakers and our equipment. Also there was a guy who spoke Spanish who I could speak with in Spanish and he understood my Es Por Ti song! It was awesome. He told me I should translate it and sing it in English. I don't think it sounds as good or cool in English though haha.

On Tuesday we had a full day. We led some camp songs in a couple chapels for St. Paul Lutheran School to children with the age range from 2 to 12 years old! It was great interacting with kids again.  After playing for some of them we were in a gym and so I played basketball with a bunch of 5th graders.  I love working with the kids! Then at noon we went over to the Open Door Food Kitchen where we played music for the homeless during their lunchtime.  Some of them we had already seen at the men's shelter and/or the concert at the church on Monday night.  They were very encouraging and enjoyed the music.  We were able to talk with a few of them after lunch and got to hear some of their stories and how they became Christians.

Leading Camp Songs to the kiddos!

One of my favorite times on this tour thus far has been our concert that we had last night at the salvation army chapel.  Again, we saw a few familiar faces but a lot of new ones as well. They were VERY interactive. We started singing "10,000 Reasons" and we didn't ask them to join along or anything and we didn't have words for them but a majority of them started singing along with us. It. Was. Awesome.  We were just worshiping the Lord with a bunch of homeless people and sharing with them the hope that we have in Christ.  That night it didn't matter what social or economic class you were from.  That's one thing I love so much about music. It brings people of all different ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles together!

We were talking about how we didn't have enough hands to play a lot of instruments since there's just two of us so we try and get creative using our feet.  This guy comes up and he played tambourine for one of our songs.  Then he asked if we could improvise and he wanted to sing so we got a handful of other people to join us and make our own band and improvised a song. It was SO awesome!! Their faces were beaming and we just threw it together haha.  You can watch our video by clicking here.

Our friends we met this week at the Salvation Army Concert

At the concert there was another guy who spoke spanish and was from Cuba.  I started singing Es Por Ti and his face lit up.  By the 4th time singing the chorus he was singing along with us in Spanish praising God!! It was so cool!!

After the concert we ended up speaking with the people and talked about faith and one guy even showed us his Christian rap song he made! I love getting to know people and hear their stories and encourage them in Christ. This my friends...this is what it's all about.

The most humbling part of the tour so far though happened at the salvation army concert last night.  The lady in charge of the salvation army came up and prayed for us and told the people she was going to put out an offering basket for anyone who wanted to contribute to our ministry.  We tried to tell her no but she insisted.  These people who are poor and barely have anything to give still gave. It reminded us of the story where the poor widow puts the coins in the basket even though it was all she had.  Beautiful.



Tonight we have a concert at St. Paul Lutheran Church at 5 pm!! Please pray that God would reign and the people who come are encouraged and experience the heart of Christ!

Here are some photos of Sarah and I on the high ropes course at camp carol joy holling before we left Nebraska! A huge thanks to Timothy Pawley for facilitating for us!

Timothy - our ridiculously awesome creepy friend!

Soli Deo Gloria