So, where was I...?


When we first decided to go on this tour, in answer to what we felt was God's call, we did some searching on the internet, trying to see what we might encounter between Brunswick and Chicago.  And we discovered that the National Quartet Convention would be held in Louisville, KY, during the exact time we were supposed to be passing through that area.  We felt this was a God wink, one of those little heavenly nods of inspiration, directed at us.  I mean, an entire convention dedicated to Christian music, happening directly in our path!  It seemed like a little divine encouragement, and we welcomed it. 

FYI, the NQC is a week long convention, all about southern gospel music.  It's filled with the gospel greats, near greats, and hope-to-be-greats.  Now, we're not southern gospel, but we hoped this would offer us an opportunity to learn how we could move our music ministry forward, and perhaps make some music business connections. 

We bought tickets to the concert on Friday night.  These tickets would also give us access to the convention hall on Friday, so we could check out the exhibits of the many performers and the businesses that support them (agents, record labels, etc.). 

Our day there was a long one.  We wandered up and down what seemed like a million aisles, collected pounds of paperwork, and sat through the first half (nearly 4 hours!) of the evening's concert.  I'll just cut to the chase: although we are definitely NOT southern gospel (I believe I mentioned that earlier...), we did learn tons and it was a terrific - and exhausting - experience.  If we can afford it, we may be exhibitors next year, because even though we are positively NOT southern gospel (I seem to have heard that before), this convention would be a good place for us to reach a wider audience. We think the folks there would really love this music, even though it's not what they're used to hearing. 

The day after the concert we relaxed at our campsite at the General Butler State Resort Park in Carrollton, KY., and gave the folks a short Sunday morning concert (a little original Christian music to pack up your pop up to).  Then we enjoyed a free community wide fair offered by the local mega-church (where we, of course, dropped off our CD.  We hope to play that fair next year - last year they hosted over 10,000 people!).  Rachel loved the horse barrel racing, Scotty loved the bounce houses, and Tim and I loved that it was a relaxing afternoon of free food and entertainment.  Then we headed up the scenic route to Indianapolis, where we have been for the last couple of days.    

Since we've been here we've booked some more gigs.  Just today we added the Faith Presby church here in Indy to our schedule, and are hoping to connect with another local church.  Plus we booked a return engagement at the South Cherokee Baptist Church in Woodstock (just outside of Atlanta) and have a couple more on the line in the Atlanta area for our return trip (thank you, Terry!).  And our Cincinnati home concert is good to go as well.  We're so grateful for every opportunity we can find to perform. 

And for the icing on the cake, we wrote a new song today!  It's based on the Apostle's Creed.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we'd write a song for that, but then again, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd be doing this music in the first place.  God has a wacky sense of humor.  He has His plans, and sometimes I feel like I'm just hanging on for the ride. Lemme just say, never a dull moment... 

Tomorrow we head to my hometown, sweet home Chicago.  Looking forward to making music, seeing old friends, and enjoying some fabulous Chicago pizza!  Yum!!!