Sunburns, Sore Muscles, and Snowy Woods: a recap

Well... a lot has happened is the past few days. As the last post indicated, we were/are on tour, a VERY busy tour. So now, I'm sitting here in a lodge in the mountains of northern Virginia with a cup of Earl Grey tea and I thought I would just quickly recap where we were and what we have done.

We headed out a little over a week ago on Friday from Liberty, drove to Georgia, spent the night, continued on down to Haines City, Florida, and set up.  I was very excited to find a Meyer sound system, my personal favorite. that night the guys went bowling with our new friends Mark, Maleah, etc. while the girls decided not to answer their phones :). The next day we played at the church (which was awesome) and then scrambled to drive 4 hours down to Miami for a concert that night which also went very well.  

The next day (Monday) we played at 2 schools and then traveled to Coco Beach, Florida where we spent the night, but not before going to the beach late at night and then hitting up a 24 hour Ron Jon surf shop.  Tuesday we played at a school and then we had the rest of the day off so we hit the beach (hence the sunburn part of the title), and then drove up to Orlando for the night and were treated to an awesome dinner at Red Lobster by the Department of Ministry teams.  

Wednesday (another busy day) we played at a school in Orlando and then drove up to Savannah, GA to Kevin's church.  We did a super fun concert there and afterwards went out for my personal favorite, SUSHI!  Thursday we played at a big school there, went to lunch with some people from the church, and then headed back to Lynchburg, VA for the night. We all really loved our time in Savannah.  -Side note: a girl from that church got saved after having a text message conversation with the youth pastor after the concert.  Who says God doesn't adopt his ways to new technology.-

It's time for another concert so more to come in a little bit...

We Comin' Miami!

Hang tight, readers. I'm sure a lot of mishaps and great stories are on the way (as well as a little bit of sunburn..) 'cuz we're heading down to MIAMI, FLORIDA.. Here are all of the places we're heading to:

• 3/8 North Ridge Church [Gaines City, FL]
• 3/9 Dade Christian School [Miami, FL]
• 3/9 Summit Christian School [West Palm Beach, FL]
• 3/10 Merritt Island Christian School [Merritt Island, FL]
• 3/11 First Baptist Church of the Island [Savannah, GA]
• 3/11 Central Florida Christian Academy [Orlando, FL]
• 3/12 Calvary Day School [Savannah, GA]
• 3/13-3/15 Mount Vernon Baptist Church [Glen Alen, VA]

Yeah, I know that 3/11 doesn't make too much sense.. But that's what is down on the schedule.. Ha-ha, I guess we'll go back to FL after a huge drive. Okay, so correction will probably be made there. We're excited! Mount Vernon, it'll be good to see you again.. 

Get-Cha-Bite!

I speak on behalf of the team.. We are WORN OUT from the road! But first thing's first, "Get-Cha-Bite!" Thank you, First Baptist Church of Whitesville, Kentucky! You guys made us feel so incredibly welcomed in your church. The Youth there was a lot of fun! They taught us how they talked ("taw-lked") up there in the mountains. I don't think I've met such 'at-home' folks in all my life.. It kind of made me want to stick around.. But hey, rumor is that they'll try to have us back in their church this up-and-coming Fall. So, look out, First Baptist!

The boys of LIGHT always get excited when we are all in the same house for housing.. We stayed with the Waddles. They were such an awesome family.. We enjoyed trying to figure out Jack's puzzles at the Soda Bar.. Ha-ha, Matt was determined to conquer all of them! Marshall played Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on the Nintendo Wii while I fell asleep on a very comfortable lazy boy.. Sam was out from the get-go! We had a very good time, and Jack (the father) actually stayed up until 2:30 AM with all of us!

Luckily, we got to sleep in a little (being that we didn't need to be at the church until about 10:00 AM). Altogether, the fellowship at First Baptist Whitesville was incredible.. Thank you to all that made us feel at home.

NOW.. For the ride home, the 'Gypsy' (what we have named our GPS after numerous misleadings..) told us to take a LEFT on a particularly narrow road. This 'road' turned into a driveway that was too narrow to turn around on. We decided to follow it to it's end.. A dead end..

So, Kevin and Sam agreed that I would be the man for the backing up job.. I have to be honest, we had encountered some pretty tight turning in the Baltimore area, but this was going to be a 1st place prize if we made it out of this frying pan. The picture above will explain the hardship! The road was very narrow and took a lot of patience. Imagine a football field and a half of this road, BACKING UP ONLY! Yeah, a bit frustrating..! There were several obstacles (one that includes an over-heated engine from pushing the 2 tons on our backs), and overall, this ordeal added 2 hours to our trip.

I know you'll never read this blog, but THANK YOU, CLIFF for the antifreeze and the t0w-job. Man, you saved us. Here's to no-more dirt roads!

Thank You, Drivers

And hey, since I am up at 1:04 AM and can't really sleep.. Thank you, Kevin K. and Matt S. for sharing the driving responsibility with me. I had the best 3 hours of sleep on the bus today that I've ever had on a bus.

Drivers:

Matt Steeper

Kevin Klingmeyer

Jamie Joyce

Over the River and Through the Woods..

What a drive! We left Liberty around 8:00 AM yesterday and drove N on 501. It definitely pegs our 'windiest road traveled.. We were soon to approach a bridge that passed over the James River, and as Sam so often does, he suggested that we took a stroll out of the bridge so for a photo op. We agreed, here's a picture from the bridge.

From there, we continued into West Virginia. They claim it's "Wild and Wonderful", at least, that's what all the signs say. I'll agree with the roads being wild..! There was snow everywhere and the roads were still very curvy. We had a few near-deaths, but no fear, Light's still alive. : D

We stopped at a gas station, and I introduced the team to 'potted meat' and crackers. They had never heard of such a thing! Sam liked, Erin liked, but Amanda..? Not so much!

After a solid 2 hours of driving through slush and snow (very slowly), we stopped for lunch at KFC, Wendy's, and Taco Bell. This is what the van looked like!

We're in Westerville, Ohio this weekend at Genoa Baptist Church. So far, it's been great for all of us as we've set up our gear for tomorrow morning's concert and we are all now hanging out at the host homes. Again, what a blessing it is to meet such incredible people that open their homes to us repeatedly.. Dave, Kevin, and myself are staying at a house together, and we have been dominated by a 3 year old and a 6 year old in Wii Tennis. We've had an awesome time with the family so far.. Sometimes, you don't want to leave! The people are just too good and hospitable. Mia, their adopted Asian 3 year old said, "I want you boys to stay with us for 5 days." Ha-ha, and she's too cute for words.. How cool is it that we cannot even compare the things that we love and admire so much in this life to the way that God feels towards us!? If you could take all of the fuzzy-feelings in the world and combine them into a perfect love and adoration, then God has captured it all and has lavished it on us. WOW. And as we adore the beauty of people and of life, God adores us even greater.

We're looking forward to an awesome time of worship with Genoa Baptist Church tomorrow morning. We also look forward to meeting and hanging out with the Youth Group.. (And me personally, I'm looking forward to rushing back to Lynchburg to watch the Steelers stomp the Cardinals in the Superbowl.. Go Pittsburgh!)

Audition Time

Jamie, Dave, Erin, myself, and various members of other groups are spending our evening listening to roughly 10 hours of instrumental auditions for students here on campus to fill next years openings on the school's 5 teams.  Why am I posting a blog entry on this you may ask... It is because I have been here for 9 hours already and am getting a little bored. :)

-Sam

Massages and Milkshakes

We were treated as princes and princesses this past weekend!

At least.. I was, ha-ha! Sam touched a little on what day one was like, and I am going to touch on day two. You'll have to excuse Sam.. He misses some blissful moments sometimes (ha, kidding, bud).

So, filling some holes.. Last night, I was blown away when Gary dropped me off at the wrong host home. I say, "Hey, Gary.. Am I staying with you, or what?" His plan was to drop me off at the house of the Massage Therapist - - who was housing Sam. It circulated that my back was out of commission for the whole evening (even though.. we didn't do ANY work that night). It must've been that brutal 2 1/2 hours of driving that I had to endure. So, Gary insisted that I let her work out the kinks in my back.. So I did.

HOLY SMOKES it was legit. We're talking oils and a heated message bed. I was down in silence for a good 30 minutes, partly guilt-stricken for accepting, and partly basking in the gifts of God. : )

That's the thing about a lot of Christians. There's a tendency to feel bad about any receiving.. Sometimes, life becomes about giving, giving, giving. And although we give (and should never stop it), we must learn to accept giving as well. Imagine if you felt the urge of the Lord to slip a $20 into the hand of a college student and that person refused your offer..? Wouldn't that rob you of your blessing of giving? I'll never forget the words of my Youth Pastor. I told him that I felt guilty because my Grandmother often bought me suits and I felt that I had nothing that I could return to her. His response was very neat.. He said, "Some people are teachers, some are encouragers, some are givers.. We all have different ways of blessing people." In part, he told me that my Grandmother's way of blessing me was to give me things that I couldn't afford. He compared it to my sacrifice of time to lead others in song and worship.

That was the neat thing about Fort Lee. The people there bent over backwards and went way out of their ways to make us feel comfortable and welcome! They recognized that we had come to bless them, and in return, they wanted to bless us in any way they could. Whether it was massages, or last-second milkshakes.. They wanted us to be blessed.

Thank you, Fort Lee! We'll miss you.

We're in the Army now

This weekend we are here hanging out at the Fort Lee Army base in Virginia.  As Jamie said earlier we kinda expected to show up and be put to work army style, but it is quite the contrary.  We almost feel lazy!  We arrived this afternoon and went to our host's house, then went to the base to see the two chapels we will be in tomorrow, and then had a great dinner. (Note the lack of setting up our gear!) Tomorrow we will do two acoustic services in the morning, and then a full concert in the afternoon.

There is something very different about church at a military base like this one.  The people here sit in church just like anyone else on Sunday, but the difference is that many of these people know that at any minute they could receive a call saying that their spouse or parent or friend won't be coming home.  In light of this it is extremely humbling to be here to worship with these people who either directly or indirectly sacrifice more than most of us will ever have to in order to protect the freedom we often take for granted.

Anyways, all that to say, lets remember to support our troops, and especially pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who sacrifice for the rest of us everyday.

-Sam

Oh yeah, pictures!

Here's a few from our last tour...

Downtime...

Well after a nice long tour, and before we resume our weekly concert schedule, you may be wondering what Light does with a rare weekend off.  Well so am I.  It seems very strange to not be on the road.  I have been having miniature panic attacks the past two days thinking that I am supposed to be somewhere or that I am late for a call time.  It is nice to be able to catch our breath for a little bit though.  Most of us even get to attend our local churches tomorrow which is something we have all missed (not that we don't love being at everyone else's churches all the time :)  ). 

Anyways, next weekend we are off to Prince George, VA followed by somewhere in Ohio and that's about as far in advance as I can plan my life.  Next week we will put in some rehearsal time and there are rumors of working on some new songs or something like that... (I don't really know, I just run sound).  Well, that's all I've got for now, until next time...

-Sam

HOME!

Let me just speak on behalf of the entire team by saying two things..

#1, Thank you all for making our January Tour such an incredible blessing and ministry (on both ends, really!).

#2, It feels SO GOOD to be home.

We landed at Liberty University at about 7:45 PM. We had a major flat tire occur during an extreme braking incident.. But hey, we made it off of the road safely and we were only delayed about 2 hours. Not a biggie..

As Mr. Klingmeyer drove the van onto the first strip of pavement on the campus, silence erupted into screaming and laughter. I guess the madness of the road finally took over..

Once again, to all of you who are reading this, those of you who have attended our concert and housed us and prayed for us, we are ENTIRELY grateful for the body of Christ and look forward to seeing some of you all in the near future.

Painting A Birmingham

Yeah, so we listened to Tracy Lawrence's "Paint Me A Birmingham" as we pulled into the well-known city in Alabama. The people here in Alabama are very sweet and live up to their expectations - - that is, making beautiful sweet tea, saying "I'm fixing to..", and making every building smell like biscuits.

Seriously though, it was a great experience leading the Tuscaloosa Christian Academy students in worship to the Lord. There are moments on the road where we can feel that God is at work in lives.. We felt it at Tuscaloosa, absolutely.

Our meals have been various. For fun, here are the restaurants we've eaten at on the road so far..

McDonald's

Taco Bell

Subway (12 times)

Burger King

The Commissary (Barbeque)

Wendy's

Pizza Hut

Chic-Fil-A

Quizno's

Ta Molly's Mexican Restaurant

Waffle House (4 times)

The Preston'world' Buffet

Western Sizzlin'

Popeyes

Little Caesars

Ruby Tuesdays

Jason's Deli

An Unnamed Mexican Restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas

That's all. I want the treadmill fast.. Thanks for feeding us, everyone! Here's to more meals.

Late Night In Tuscaloosa

Well, tonight we have found our way to Tuscaloosa Alabama.  It is late and we have a concert in the morning so here's the facts.  After battling a leaking tire and actually setting up half our rig in the wrong church (yeah seriously) we made it to the right church in time for an awesome concert with an awesome youth group.  God definitely showed up tonight.

Lets do a quick recap of the tour so far:

Thursday 1-1-09: after 2 days of rehearsal we get on the road

Friday 1-2: Driving, end up in Arkadelphia, AR, the men go to Waffle House

Saturday 1-3: Drive like crazy to Plano, TX and play at Prestonwood (HUGE church)

Sunday 1-4: More Prestonworld (the Repentagon) then to a church in Fort Worth

Monday 1-5: Play at a school in Fort Worth then drive to Altus, OK (which is the middle of nowhere but has some of the best people anywhere) and do a concert

Tuesday 1-6: Pack up, make a radio appearance in Altus, then drive to Fort Smith, AR.  Another Waffle House trip was in order so we went and met a great new friend/sister in Christ, Cherri.

Wednesday 1-7: "Crunch time"  Play at a school in Fort Smith, drive 5 hours to Memphis, do a youth concert at an awesome church in Memphis, TN, eat at "The Commissary" which has amazing Memphis barbecue

Thursday 1-8: Wake up, Visit the site where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, drive to current location

The Beginning

Well, it's the dawn of a new year, and the dawn of some new opportunities for Light (a contemporary Christian band from Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA).  We want to keep our friends and family updated on the things we do and the places we go, hence the blog.  But first we need to catch everyone up on what has been going on, so here it goes:

The Description:

In a musical style similar to that of Dove Award winning Casting Crowns, this team delivers a strong message of surrender and obedience to God, and challenges every believer to discover his/her role in World Evangelism.

How it happened:

In August 2008, this group assembled for the first time.  The members were chosen through an audition process conducted by Liberty University's Department of Ministry Teams.

What we have been doing:

LOTS of stuff. :)  Light hit the road in September of 2008 and has been going strong ever since.  We spent the first few months traveling on the weekends, between classes (we are still all full-time students), and being blessed with the opportunity to minister in some of the best churches around to some amazing people.  Now as we begin a new year we are in the middle of a tour that will take us from Virginia to Texas, back to Georgia, and home again with plenty of stops in between.  Things have never been busier, but never been better.

Who We Are:

Dave Roberts: Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar

Amanda Eldreth: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar

Erin Wilson: Vocals, Keys

Jamie Joyce: The fearless leader, Electric Guitar

Matt Steeper: Keys

Kevin Klingmeyer: Drums

Marshall Packard: Bass

Sam McGovern: Sound technician

Well, its very late and everyone is sleeping here at our hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas except for me and Marshall (he doesn't sleep).  I gotta finish up and get some rest for a super busy day tomorrow (technically today) so that's all for now.  Thank you for visiting our blog and we hope it will sere as a resource for you to stay connected to our ministry.

-Sam