the echoes of the saints lingering in my thoughts...

So 2 Fridays ago was bittersweet. I had gotten some great news in terms of my CTI trip (team and overseas tour destination was told) and got some pretty hard news about a friend of mine, Victor Paek. Victor was a 16-year old, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, who had been attending our church for about 9 months. Victor passed away last Friday during a multi-organ transplant and I was getting only bits and pieces of what happened as I was driving to Atlanta.

So. Sunday. The atmosphere at church was unexplainable. We were all mourning the loss of Victor. Yet, we were glad that he went to be with our Lord. "No weeping, no hurt or pain, no suffering, You hold me now..." One of the things DL spoke about was the impact Victor had made in all our lives. How everyday was lived as if it was his last. I know that's cliche and whatnot but it really spoke to me.

I realized a few things. One of the big things is this; I keep saying "I have xyz number of days until I'm in Willmar for CTI and have this worship opportunity." how sad is it that i have to depend on a missions opportunity to get super excited to lead worship? don't get me wrong... serving on harvest_PT is great. i enjoy it. but i can't remember the last time i said "zomgzzzzz 27 hours until I get to lead a friday night worship service!!!"

i wanna live to make His name high. Today is the day! Keep praying for me y'all. 8 days left in Orlando.

Some small updates on my trip.

I found out my team. They're all pretty awesome people. I'm not sure what to expect. And I realized that I made a huge boo-boo. I'm on an 8-person team... I miscounted the number of vocalists on the team. eek! So pray for all 8 of us.

I'm only at 2% of my support right now. Oops.

I also got my music. There's some songs on there that I know but a lot of it's new to me or hard for me to pick the parts out. Anyone know how to play the song "Never going back to OK" by The Afters on electric?

For those of you guys who wanna come see me off at the airport, I leave on August 14th, which is a Friday. I'm flying Southwest Airlines. Flight's at 9:35AM but i'll be there at around 7AM or so to get all my gear and luggage checked in and such. So 7AM next friday! come one, come all.

That's it for now. Much love. oooh! Keep praying for the Harvest Ecuador team.

Cheers,
Jon