Welcome to 2010

What a year we had. We started off with the MusicFlorida Conference and our first trip to Dino Cafe in Downtown Disney. We always enjoy seeing friends in the music ministry and we are looking forward to the trip again in just a few days. Another big event in 2009 was my first ever sabbatical. My church gives each minister a one month sabbatical every three years. I was able to reunite with many seminary friends during my sabbatical as I studied multimedia ministries in four states. We also met some new friends who have been great assets to my ministry.

During my sabbatical, I was also able to attend my parent's 50th Anniversary celebration. It was great to see so many family members in one place. We also spent some time in Tupelo, MS, where we spent several days meeting up with various friends. We were sad that we could not meet with one of our family friends because he had just returned to Grand Cayman the previous week. We ended the sabbatical by visiting Branson, MO, where we got to stay with Wendy's parents and I was able to see some behind-the-scene action at some professional musicals.

We came back from our sabbatical to some major problems. Our cat decided that, even though we had a house sitter, he was extremely mad at us for living him for one month. He quit using his litter box and ruined several items in the house, including two of our comfortable recliners. Wendy was able to salvage one, but the other made a trip to the dump. We also noticed a dark stain on our wood floor and realized that we had a leak. We ended up with a completely new floor in our living room and dining room as well as new paint in about half of the house, but the leak is fixed.

The summer was as busy as usual with one big difference...Zachary entered the youth. Scary, I know. Ashton was a great big brother and helped Zachary get his footing and continues to give him advice. Being a youth today is much harder than when I was a youth. I am just glad that we homeschool the boys so that they do not have to deal with too much socialization (which is one thing schools consistently mention when they try to convince you not to homeschool your children). I think Cal Thomas put it best when he said that the non-socialized homeschoolers that he meets do very unsocial things like actually talk civilly to him instead of shrugging their shoulders and saying, "I dunno."

The fall was extremely busy for me. I was offered the opportunity to sing on stage with Michael W. Smith. OK, there was a whole choir of us, but I am sticking to the part about me and Smitty together on the same stage. The next week I served as stage manager for Keith and Kristyn Getty at our annual convention. They are truly great people and I hope to see them back this way again soon. The next week I was asked to sing a duet in a Gospel concert at a local church. That story is funny to me now, but at the time I was not laughing.

I had been asked to sing the duet "I've Just Seen Jesus" months in advance. I had a track of the song and spent an adequate amount of time learning the song. When I got to the rehearsal on a Thursday night, I discovered that my track was not the right song. And to make matters worse, the right song was the Larnelle Harris/Sandi Patti version that is incredibly difficult. I spent all day on Friday and most of Saturday relearning the song to sing that evening. Next time, I will check to make sure I am learning the correct song.

The next week we recorded the CD for our Living Christmas Tree and then started the long month of eleven performances. Only the final two performances were cancelled due to almost two feet of snow. Zachary sang from the Tree for the first time this year. Ashton on the other hand, did not make it through the first night before he realized that his voice has changed and he could no longer sing the soprano parts. Wendy volunteered at nearly the last minute to sing in a duet when the scheduled person disappeared. I ended up singing at almost every performance this year. Thankfully we have talented people at our church and I was able to utilize one as the assistant conductor for those songs.

Looking back, I did a lot of singing in November and December for somebody with uncontrolled asthma. I think it must be getting better. I have not played my trumpet in almost a year because of the asthma. However, Zachary plans to start taking trumpet lessons from me this year, so guess I better get back in the habit. I got an acoustic/electric guitar for Christmas and am now teaching myself to play. It is something I have always wanted to do, but never seemed to have the extra cash to buy one.

One of the last things in 2009 was the retirement of our church pianist who had been playing for the church for 45 years. Wendy agreed to play piano while they collected a love offering for this wonderful servant of God. One problem, she did not have the song I requested she play, "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." So she ordered it online (of course it only came in a collection of piano pieces by Mark Hayes). By the time it arrived, she only had five days to learn it. She did a wonderful job playing it. By the way, Wendy is going to be the church pianist and choral accompanist now. She is happy that she will finally be using her master's degree in piano performance for something other than teaching piano lessons (which she totally enjoys doing).

Guess that is all. I hope that everyone has a wonderful and Happy 2010.