RF: It seems pretty rare to find an independent band that has had as much success as you have.

Mike: We get a lot of bands asking us “How come you guys play so much?” We work really hard. It’s all God, definitely! But we had our part on working really hard. When we started, we just played wherever we could: money, no money.

Chad: We’ve had a passion to see lives affected and transformed by the gospel. So in doing, and as a service to the Lord, (the music was great), we could perhaps share our hearts and the power of the gospel with people.

RF: You both (Chad and Mike) are married, how is touring having a family at home?

Chad: It’s definitely a hard thing because our wives are part of the group but it’s really our group. I’m sure it’s hard for them to go to the same place, hear the same set or the testimonies five nights a week and be excited about it for the next week. The Lord’s good, man, He’s gracious.

Mike: We have our priorities very straight. We’re not gonna put the band in front of families.

RF: And they (your wives) are here with you now, correct?

Chad: Yeah. My wife’s pregnant. She’ll be due on March 15th, so that’s a whole new ball game.

Mike: My wife will be pregnant in like 5 years and 3 months and two days.

RF: Is it hard going around touring knowing that you’re wife is pregnant? Is that on your mind a lot?

Chad: As long as she’s comfortable. It’s my responsibility to try to make sure she’s comfortable and feels good. She’s following my dream. It’s not necessarily her passion to play music. She loves Jesus. Its not so bad. If I were just self employed I’d be gone a whole bunch anyway. There’s struggles and hardships and wonderful things in every marriage, and all that good stuff.

RF: Your website is called “itwasyou.com” What does that mean?

Chad: Go ahead Jon.

Jon: It was probably, what, about 5 years ago you [Chad] wrote that song called “It was You”

Chad: Probably like 7 years ago.

Jon: 7 years ago? It basically talks about how “it was You,” “You” obviously being God not you or you (indicating around the table). I don’t’ know. Chad wrote the song so. . .

Chad: We tried to get Unspoken.com but it wasn’t happening for us and then we couldn’t get anything that we really liked…Basically it was out of necessity we had to take itwasyou.com because the one we really wanted was taken.

Mike: We wish we had a really cool story behind it but we don’t.

RF: Besides Soulfest, any big plans for the summer?

Mike: Yeah, the summer is gonna be packed.
We might be taking a trip down to Mississippi, which is pretty exciting because we’ve never been there. We have a couple concerts—one of them with Jeff Deyo who is a very sweet worship artist who I like a lot. It’s gonna be cool to be able to hang out.

RF: When you were playing with Casting Crowns, Toby Mac, Third Day, what were some of the most encouraging things that they said to you?

Chad: I really can’t say anything about many of the bands except for Casting Crowns. They were just wonderful brothers and sisters in the Lord. Really sweet, just taking the time to invest and just hang out with us for a few minutes and talk to us.

Mike: It would be sweet to go on tour with one of these guys because we’d get to meet a lot of people and that’s our ministry. But we’re happy. Tonight we’re gonna play before 25-30 people in this college. That makes my night! We can get to know, personally, some of those people and hear from them too.

RF: Was “Unspoken” the first name you came up with for the band or were there others?

Chad: There was this name that we had it was like “Hashem.” It’s a Hebrew word that means “The Name” and its basically how Jews refer to God.

Jon: I first came on and you guys had the whole thing about “We’re basically there to speak what goes ‘unspoken’ about God.” I don’t know if you guys remember the quote from St. Francis of Assisi where he says “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.”

RF: Is it hard when you’re on stage to make the performance about the Gospel and God then about yourselves?

Mike: Not at all. A guitar doesn’t make me a minister. I’m a minister of the Gospel with or without a guitar. We’re not just ministering when we’re on stage. I can be here in this restaurant and I can easily strike a conversation with somebody and just tell them about Jesus.
It’s just a daily thing for us. It comes really natural actually. We just keep praying that God will give us something fresh. We go back to the same places but the message seems to be unchanging.

Chad: We were in a bar one time and we didn’t even. . . (to Mike) do you remember that? They told us “Look, don’t preach” so we were like “Okay, we won’t preach” and I think I shared just like a few things about the songs. It was just about a hope that I had or whatever. And they got all huffy and puffy and the room cleared out as we were singing our songs.
But the cool thing was even there, there was a girl, one of the girls that invited us to come. She actually ended up getting saved right after that.

Mike: It was awesome.

Chad: And she’s still walking with Jesus today.

RF: How did you two [Chad and Mike] both come to know the Lord? Your basic testimony?

Mike: One day I was tired of people telling me who Jesus was so I bought a Bible and I read the whole New Testament by myself without even stepping into a Christian Church or anything.
So I went one day to church in this house, and all these people were worshiping God—no worship team or anything like here in the States, you know? It’s just my friend with a guitar and everybody just singing.
And it was very, very awesome. I’m like “Wow, God is real” and then I invited Him to come and my life changed completely (not that I was a druggie or anything).

Chad: My testimony is I basically grew up in Jon’s Dad’s church there and knew all about the gospel and really couldn’t care less about the Lord.
One guy kinda put it as basically “he gave the finger to God.” I really could care less… just giving Him the middle finger in his heart that was kinda me but I definitely believed in Jesus….
I got into a huge mess with no way out and came to the realization. I needed to delight myself in God and give everything over to him.
I figured the only way I could do that I really felt God was calling me to go somewhere and just get out of wherever I was and just read the Bible and pray. That’s it.
My brother gave me this card. He said, “Hey! Maybe you should go here. These guys came to our church a while ago.” Give them a call. So I did, and somehow they said “Yeah, come on down (to the DR) you can help us for a couple months.” So I just went down. I started reading the Bible and the Lord changed my life.

Jon: Well, I grew up, my whole life in the church. My dad was the pastor so… heh heh.
I kinda—as they say— “grew up into my salvation.” Probably as a teenager, I really realized just because my parents believed this doesn’t mean that it’s my own. I gotta make it my own. I gotta decide.
So probably around age 12 or 13 I decided I’m gonna serve God for myself (not just because my parents say, or church says, but because I wanted to find out who God is.
Through that relationship with Him, I ended up going off to college, studying music there. Of course I had known Chad from before. He was the druggie so we never really hung out.

Chad: The bad kid!

Jon: The bad kid.

RF: So, you went to school for music?

Jon: Yeah.

RF: We wanted to ask you guys: any other degrees?

Mike: I have an associate’s in hotel administration and tourism.

Chad: Heh heh. Yeah.

Mike: That’s it. I’ve never used it. It’s in my house. Something I did for my
Mom pretty much.

RF: What about you, Chad?

Chad: Not me

Mike: But our drummer is an architect.

RF: Do you have any phobias?

Chad:
I hate bugs and spiders. I’m not kidding you… snakes.
When I got married to my wife, I told her, “Look, I love you, but if there’s bugs or mice or spiders or anything in the house, you’re getting them.”

Mike: I sincerely fear the immigration patrol.
Nah, I’m just kidding… (I don’t wanna be deported).
I don’t really have any phobias… I’m sure I have some, but I can’t really think of it right now.

Chad: Jon?

Jon: Nothin’ I’ve experienced yet.

Chad: You’re a better man than I.

RF: Are you related to Mark Lowry?

Jon: No! But I actually met him. I was down in Nashville for the GMA Awards. I went down there a couple years ago with our old record label and I went to a seminar that he and Gloria Gaither were teaching about song-writing. And I went up and I was like “Hey, my name is Jon Lowry.”

Chad: Is that the “Mary-Did-you-Know” guy?

Jon: Yeah.

RF: What is one activity that you cannot stand to be interrupted while doing?

Chad: Probably watching TV.

Mike: I don’t like to be interrupted while I’m responding to emails

Chad: I don’t know. I’m interrupted so much with the lifestyle we have that I don’t think there’s much..

Jon: When I’m sitting down reading a book when I’m really zoned in on it

RF: Have you read any good books since you brought that up?

Mike: Yeeeahh. I read this book, When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson… amazing… Also, that Blue like Jazz book was pretty sweet by Donald Miller.. that’s about it.. That’s the latest I read.
Although I was reading one at Chad’s house How Wal+mart is Destroying America.. oh, that was good, I couldn’t even put it down.

Chad: I’ve got a thousand books in my house and I’ve never read one of them. They’re all my wife’s… I know I should read. It would help my lyrics It would help my writing and all of that, but I don’t… I’m too A.D.D. for that.

Jon: I’ve been reading this old book called, The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall. It’s an old book (like 17 or 18 hundreds) but they rewrote it with modern English so we can understand it.
It’s not all “yea and they” and “thee and thou”

Chad: Oh yes, that’s the holy language You know what book that has ministered to me? It’s a little devotional—

RF: —can I guess what it is?

Chad: Yep

RF: My Utmost for His Highest

Chad: That’s exactly what it is. It really has ministered to me in certain seasons of my life. I don’t read it every day.
It doesn’t matter, it definitely is such a challenging book personally and that guy is sweet. I’m not trying to be cliché….

RF: What ways do you think you guys can grow?

Mike: Physically, we’ve grown a lot

Chad: Yeah, I’ve put on 40 pounds since I started… food on the road you know? It’s like “hey we got pizza again!” “We got pasta, wanna go out to Mick-e-dees?”

RF: But is there anything you’re still learning?

Mike: Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of areas we can grow: in fellowship amongst ourselves. It’s so hard to be our own little church unit. We hang out together all the time. And when we go home everybody does their own thing and we disconnect until the next weekend or practice. That’s one area we can grow

RF: We have one question that we want to get in if we don’t talk to you later, it’s kind of a rap-up question: What advice would you give to yourself in fifty years?

Jon: I dunno if we’ll be around!

Mike: I think I’d be 89.

Chad: That’d be awesome, Mike’s still rockin’ out

Mike: Ohhhh, what was the question again?

RF: What advice would you give to your future self in fifty years?

Mike: Keep loving people, keep loving Jesus, keep reading the word and praying

Chad: Yeah, pray more!

Mike: Spend more time in the Word.

RF: Is yours any different?

Chad: No, That’s really the only thing that would make your life more full… allow you to love people more. Just pray more. Spend more time with the Lord.

Jon: That’s really our whole message, “Read the Word and pray.”

Chad: Right, that’s it.

Jon: Fifty years from now, it’ll still be the message.

Chad: Because it’s such an important message.
The transformation of our hearts and minds occurs supernaturally through the Word and spending time with Jesus through relationship.
If we can do that more and more and more, (not that we’re earning God’s love or anything it’s just something that supernaturally happens as we hang out with the Lord) that’s the best thing…. Get involved. Serve others. Love others.
You can’t love others unless your loving Jesus and spending time with him.
It’s just impossible.

by Peter McDowell
Anthony Raneri is not a born-again Christian, but we talked and hung out with him for nearly two hours before his solo acoustic show at the Webster Theatre in Hartford CT May 22. Amongst graffiti-ridden walls of a greenroom, we talked about the weather and musical inspiration and of course their new album, The Walking Wounded.
We were thrilled to find him willing to open up when we asked him about having a relationship with Jesus. He shared genuine questions about faith and God during our time with him. He displayed a great attitude and performed an engaging set of a dozen songs including acoustic versions of “Landing Feet First” and “Duality” along with some covers. In our conversation and in his music, he explores faith and hope, not as fickle emotions that pale in comparison to the strife of relationships but as realities that can be almost inhabited.
“I am more interested than people who have been calling themselves Christians their entire life because I’m looking from the outside. I don’t take it for granted. I think that whatever it is that everyone else is seeing that everyone else is feeling is incredible and I want that feeling.”
At 24, he seems wise beyond his years. Raneri has matriculated from selling merch for Brand New at the age of 15 to singing for an internationally successful band. He is even taking a stab at managing a new band “The Status” from the midwest.

Anthony Raneri Interview May 22, 2007 @ the Webster Theatre, Hartford CT
RF: So, you are here in Hartford without your band. What’s it like playing alone?

Anthony: It’s awesome I’m having a really good time. This is the fourth show that we’ve done. I’m having a really good time. I love playing with my band and all…

It’s keeping me on my toes I’m onstage for the first time and I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how to act. It’s a lot of fun.

RF: Are you usually the front man?

Anthony: I’m usually the front man when we play as a full band. There is just something easier about those shows.

RF: We’ve seen a new wave of post-hardcore bands with Christian band members. Have any of those bands affected you?

Anthony: As far as being fans of them? Musically?

RF: Musically.

Anthony: Switchfoot is one of my favorite bands of all time probably… Further Seems Forvever… definitely one of my favorite.

RF: What’s your next tour?

Anthony: Warped Tour. We went out with Anberlin, Jonsetta, and Meg and Dia for seven weeks.

RF: How was that?

Anthony Raneri

Anthony: It was amazing. Probably the best tour I’ve ever been on. We’ve been friends with all those bands for a long time. Especially Anberlin, we’ve known for four years now. We were on tour with our friends. It was cool.

RF: We read in your bio and on your purevolume account with the new album (Walking Wounded). It seems like you guys have felt the need to verify that the album doesn’t reflect a negative outlook on life.

Anthony: We definitely didn’t want it to. Like anything, people are going to take what they want from it. However people can relate to it, that’s how they will. And I am fine with that. Whether or not it’s what I intended. Really, we wanted to show hope and how, through a tragedy there can be strength.

RF: Do you have a favorite wildlife show?

Anthony: Hmm. Not really. I’m not really that big on animals. I love dogs, but that’s about it.

RF: The learning channel and the discovery channel are getting popular. You never watch any of that?

Anthony: Oh I definitely do! Not so much wildlife though. Cooking shows, I’m down with…. the history channel. I’m really into all the behind the scenes stuff. A&E does the biography thing.

RF: Favorite muppet?

Anthony: Gonzo is my favorite muppet. I’m actually a big muppet fan. I watch the muppet show pretty religiously and I have all the DVD’s and stuff…. Gonzo is definitely my favorite cuz he’s the funniest by far.

RF: We like to ask people if they have a favorite Bible verse. Now, the people we interview tend to be Christians, but we thought we could ask you that anyway to see if you might….

Anthony: I wouldn’t be able to pick one. I have no idea.

RF: We also like to ask people: If you could write a letter right now to be read by yourself in fifty years, what would it say?

Anthony: I think I would ask myself if everything was worth it. I feel like I’ve chosen a path in my life and gone really gung-ho with it. At a really young age, I decided that I wanted to play music and decided that I was going to dedicate my entire life to it. And anything that I had to give up, anything that I had to compromise was going to be done so I could play music and I never looked back. Maybe fifty years from now, I’ll know if that was the right choice.

RF: What have you given up?

Anthony's acoustic guitar

Anthony: Relationships. Not just with girls, but with family, friends….. an education pursuing anything else.

RF: Where does your family live?

Anthony: My dad lives in Vegas and my mother and brother and most of my family are in New York.

RF: Do you want to talk about the Conan O’Brien experience?

Anthony: If you want to ask about it!

RF: How was it? Was it hard to make that happen?

Anthony: It was awesome. We’d been a band for seven years. We’re on our fourth album now. We’ve been trying to get anything like that for years.
It was cool man, the only thing that was different than I expected was I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I was going to be. You show up really early in the morning and there’s rehearsals and sound checks. By the time we actually tape the show, we’ve played the song like ten times on that day on that set in front of those people with Conan right there. The nerves went away by then.

RF: Our mission statement Bible verse is Philippians 4:8:

“Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”

Do you see any truth in that or has that ever been something that has gotten you through something difficult?

Anthony: Definitely. A big part of what our new album is about is…. I don’t think a better life is going to fall onto anybody’s lap. It’s all about positive mental attitude. You have to want things to get better. You have to want a better life and you have to pursue it and I think a big part of pursuing it is picking out the good in a situation or knowing that there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel as long as you stick with it.

So I definitely agree with that 100%.

RF: Do you have time to take any photos?

So what did Don LaFontaine do?

In 1969, he filled in for an absent voice actor and started on his way to success.  Since that time, Don morphed into the rich, throaty voice of cinema.  It’s hard seeing a movie trailer made in the last 30 years without Don starting it off with “In a world…” or “One man…” With a in house recording studio in his Hollywood home, the man was unstoppable.  Flixster.com says:

Aside from his continuing work in the trailer industry, he has also been the voice of NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and UPN, in addition to TNT, TBS and the Cartoon Network. By conservative estimates, he has voiced hundreds of thousands of television and radio spots, including commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonalds, Coke, and many other corporate sponsors. At last count, he has worked on nearly 5000 films, including appearances as the in-show announcer for the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards. Based on contracts signed, he has the distinction of being perhaps the single busiest actor in the history of SAG.

In the world of entertainment it’s unheard of that one person can monopolize such an important aspect of media.  No man was as popular in his own field than Don.  That is the reason I find his life and career so fascinating.  Don Lafontaine was a pro in every sense of the word.  He was excellent.  Don’s status and legacy is  something for all artists to not only aim for, but also to admire.

“…Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

-Don LaFontaine (1940-2008)

“What would it take for a boy about my age to hear cheers in his head upon that stage, and the cheers that would drown out the tears from my brown eyes?”

His journey to that stage was helped along when K’naan landed a speaking gig at the United Nations.  In 1999 K’naan, in a spoken word poetry piece, addressed the failures of the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees pertaining to aid missions to Somalia.  Singer Youssou N’Dour caught the performance and invited K’naan to work with him, thus leading to K’naan’s opportunity to tour the world.

Other artistic collaborations reveal K’naan’s eclecticism. From Mos Def and Damien Marley, to Maroon 5 and Metallica, Somali’s biggest hip-hop artist has worked himself into the American music scene with seemingly little effort.  That’s not to say he’s not a thinker.

It’s obvious to anyone who listens to K’naan’s music that deep sentiment and life
experience drives his art.  While rapping very articulately and thoughtfully, his lyrics can make you think, chuckle, tear up and Caucasian or not, you will bob your head.

But, let’s let K’naan to speak for himself. Here’s some selected lyrics off of Troubadour:

I was so worried, and hurt to see you bleed,
But as soon as you came out the hospital you gave me sweets.
Yeah, they try to take you from me
But you still only gave ‘em some prayers and sympathy.
Dear mama, you helped me write this by showing me to give is priceless.
Take A Minute

Is it true when they say all you need is just love?
What about those who have loved only to find that it’s taken away?
Why do they say that the children have rights to be free?
What about those who I’ve known whose memory still lives inside of me?
Fatima

No magic from David Blane. No painter to paint this pain. No Morgan Freeman to narrate this shame. So, she took refuge in prayer kind of like finding God in a phonebook. It came to her sounding something like a song hook.
People Like Me

A track I’d be remiss to neglect is the clever ending of the album “Does it Really Matter?” K’naan ironically points out typical Hip-Hop trends such as auto-tuning, pitch shifting (known as “the drop”), and writing hooks instead of songs. All this while occasionally imitating other rapper’s style and diction.

Hey, you need a single. Single to make a mingle, something that’s kinda simple. I would hate to call it jingle. A single is a missile; takes you right to the middle of 106&Park and maybe Jimmy Kimmel.
Does it Really Matter

Please check out K’naan’s work at knaanmusic.com.

One of my favorite things to do it to find musicians on youtube, myspace and purevolume who have yet to really make it big, but are amazing musicians.  Today I came across Garrett Gue, who is originally from Bozeman, MT but now lives in Seattle, WA.  Below is some information that I pulled off of his Myspace page.

Garrett Gue, hailing from Bozeman, MT, has been passionately exploring music ever since his uncle gave him a beat-up guitar when he was eight years old. Since then, he has found himself in the shoes of a jazz composer, the bassist of a traveling R&B band, a lounge musician, and in the last year, a singer/songwriter whose diverse influence and refined ear are truly evident.
Garrett shares a moment of honesty regarding faith, relationships, and daydreams in his debut release, ‘Tall Drink o’ Water’. The title of his album is drawn from the lyrics of one of its songs, ‘Sunny Days’, and refers to his tendency to be an inattentive dreamer of sorts.

Garrett currently resides in Seattle, where he continues to write music, perform, work, and eat Than Bros Pho. Performances are often accompanied by vocalist and melodica extraordinaire, Tazlyn Fischer.

You have a close friend who is doing things and making mistakes, but you’re not sure whether to confront them… whether it’s your place to say something… What do you do?

Unfortunately I often pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, wondering who I can call to get some encouragement, support, and just someone to listen. I don’t want this to come across as condemning community and close relationships with people for support. However, should that really be our first reaction?

I have spent a lot of time recently trying to step back and to objectively look at my actions, my thoughts, and my emotions. The hope is to uncover areas in my life that can be improved, worked on, etc. Often times I fail to turn first to God, and then to others. It’s something I am working on. I have always known in my head that we are to rely on Christ, but turning that into our first reaction takes practice and hard work.

If I can boil down what I am trying to say into a few short lines, it would be this. We often seek out Godly counsel when we have questions, concerns, fears, and uncertainties. And although this isn’t necessarily wrong, I do believe that it’s dangerous and inappropriate for this to be our first reaction. Any Godly man or woman whose counsel we trust will speak into our situation from scripture. If that is so, then why not first go to scripture ourselves? The answers are in there, and once you have poured through scripture, and have spent time on your knees in worship and prayer, I believe it is appropriate to go to someone you trust and confide in them what’s going on in your heart, and how you have sought Christ fully (scripture, prayer, praise/worship and now community).

It’s not going to be easy at first, especially if you don’t feel like you have a solid familiarity with scripture and where to find things within it. Here are a few tips to help you.

Many bibles have a concordance in the back. What are your wrestling with? Fear? Uncertainty? Anger? Think about words that may relate to these issues and look them up in the concordance. Are you struggling with fear? Look up peace, hope, and rest. There are also online tools where you can easily search the bible for topics. Again, be careful that you’re not just looking at commentaries, but really try to make an effort to pour through unadulterated scripture with a heart of prayer.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I will probably tell you to start with scripture, but I will always listen.

Mark Driscoll Preaching Pastor at Mars Hill Church

I’ve recently come to the realization that the churches in my area who are the most unorthodox in their theology, the most “liberal”, and who hold the most distorted interpretations of Scripture, happen to care more about the people in our area than other more theologically conservative (evangelical) churches in our town. While the Churches with decent doctrine try ever so hard to draw the lost, white, middle class families into their buildings, the apostate “liberal” churches are out feeding the homeless, providing shelter for downtrodden families, running after school programs and providing counseling for drug and alcohol addicts. What happened? What an odd paradox this might be at the judgment seat. Is it the “circle the wagons” mentality that killed our passion for our community? Were we so worried about getting the doctrine correct and defending it, that we forgot to go and live out the love of Christ that we received through grace? Did we just get too comfortable? Or worse, did we just stop caring? If we’ve stopped caring about the broken souls in our community, then I suspect and fear the worst… that although we hold closer to 2000 years of Church orthodoxy, we’ve abandoned and stopped caring about Christ in the process. If we’ve stopped caring about Christ, our precious doctrine and theology is nothing but the food of swine. It is only by grace that it might once again, not only proclaim Christ within the walls that it is preached and taught, but lived outside of the walls in the same manner that our Lord himself lived, loved, and brought hope.

I was sitting around a fire last night with a local family from town who are deeply involved in an evangelical church right down the street from us. We were roasting marshmallows and talking about Christ, Church, culture, and how all these things affect or should affect the town and community we live in. We also discussed highly probable existence of Sasquatch (one of my favorite topics of discussion) and alien abductions… but we’ll leave these two topics for another day. I was lamenting on the issue of how the churches that have tended to stray from orthodoxy the most, ironically do the most to serve our town. My friend then asked a very wise question that I think every Church needs to ask… “If we closed our doors, or simply ceased to exist, how much would the surrounding community miss our presence and support?” The real kicker is this, “Would they even notice our absence at all?” It’s a wise question to be asked, and sadly, he admitted that his church would probably fall into the category of not being missed, whereas the other apostate church down the street would be dearly missed for all it’s hard work and dedication to the everyday people that live in Beverly. Would your Church be missed? Are the people of your Church community living the love of Christ alongside of people (especially the broken people) of your local community?

I leave you with the parable of the Sheep and the Goats found in chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew.

The Sheep and the Goats
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Jesse Browning is a student at Gordon Conwell Seminary.  He is an active leader at his church in Beverly, MA that focuses on showing God’s love through acts of service. He can also whip up a killer vanilla chai for you at Starbucks.

by Peter McDowell

It has been 16 months. Before that time, I would never have imagined that my day-to-day life would involve as many interactions with people from a far away land. A land full of grape vines and honeycomb. A land that somehow became irreversibly imbedded into the streets that I grew up on. It’s not what I had in mind a couple years ago, but this is the way it is.  I kind of like it

Let me start off by saying that I thought my good friend Dan had made up an imaginary group of people called Moldovans that somewhat unnoticeably inhabit a growing segment of Western Massachusetts. They drive fancy cars, sing a lot, play volley ball and eat lots of “harbus” (pronounced har-boose). I remember hearing that the best part was that they were all Christians! They had left Moldova as refugees due to religious persecution. Where else should they end up but Western Massachusetts!

Lee, Andrei, and Dan eating harbus

Last year Dan invited me to join a group of about 15 Moldovans on a missions trip back to Moldova. They planned to spend three sessions in a youth camp. I then became the unofficial photojournalist. Our friend Lee was the other American to join our mostly Moldovan team. The three of us had the rather incredible experience of being the Americans in a team that could already speak the language and had grown up in the same culture where we would minister. When the plane landed, the three of us were foreigners.

How has this affected the rest of my life? Just ask my friends. I am sort of a linguistic enthusiast so when I came back from Moldova last year I began to learn the Romanian language which is, as it sounds, one of the Romance languages. I earned a minor in Spanish while in college, perhaps it came a little easier for me than Lee or Dan.

I also returned with a fierce determination to go back next year. The effect of being an American in Moldova was pretty powerful because there is no clear draw for Americans to visit this very poor country landlocked between Ukraine and Romania. I sometimes had the feeling that my own arrival there could only be explained as the pre-mature effect of the growing sub-culture of Moldovans in America and the factors in my life that pressured me to do something different. Although I know it wasn’t true, it felt like I was the first American to grace Moldovan ground.

The experience of going once was so incredible,  I had to top it by going again. I spent the year doing what I could to ensure that I would have an opportunity to return 2009. As summer drew near again, my Romanian improved and my financial situation got  worse. Still, I stayed resolute in my desire to go and I prayed very fervently for favor in this.

The second trip, for me, was about fulfilling a commitment. Our team had more Americans this year and a refined purpose to work with children. There was much less I experienced for the first time. Instead, my old experiences were enhanced by new perspective. I rarely used an interpreter and I spent more time working directly with the children in the camp. I still took thousands of photos, but not because I needed them to remember, rather because I wanted to bring back more for others to see of my time away.

Hopefully you enjoy some of the pictures here, and maybe they will inspire you to do something out of the ordinary.

I took this picture in 2008 of what I thought was a young boy and girl. I found out later that the girl on the right, "Alexandria" had donated her hair.

Here is Alexandria this year with Zina. Last summer, Zina was one of the first people to speak to me in broken English. She made a commitment last year to change her life, to be more of a witness. This year she came back as one of the youngest leaders in camp at 16.

by Ian Bauer

Say HUUTAJAT ten times fast. Five times fast? Actually, just see if you can say it once.

For the last 22 years Mieskuoro Huutajat, has been a relatively well kept secret.  They’ve performed all over the world from Belgium to Estonia to Canada. From rock clubs, chamber music concerts, supermarkets and swamps. But, you’ve most likely never heard of them.  Finnish for “Mens Choir The Shouters” Mieskuoro Huutajat is a choir made up of 30 men with black suits and rubber ties.  Their style of performance is undefinable.  They don’t sing, they shout.

Sometimes they howl.

This well-rehearsed group of manpower led by conductor Petri Sirvio, typically performs national anthems and patriotic songs from around the world as well as giving their shout-out to Finland.Their website claims:

“When the choir find a song that pleases their temperament and warped sense of humour, the conductor starts dismantling it: the melody goes first and usually the text is also heavily trimmed. The remains are then cast into a completely new form; the complex rhytmic structure emphasises the essence of the text, or simply reflects the voices inside the human brain provoked by the language itself, music, urban or rural noise, or the blood circulation system.”

Their method is simple; twist and shout.

What may have started off as an activity for 20 or so Finnish men with nothing better to do has evolved into a truly unique form of art recognized globally.  With excellence and strain, Mieskuoro Huutajat has successfully screamed for attention and been able to hold it’s own in the world of music for a long time and a long time to come.