After Day 40

For worship in Mankato, we took a survey about our worship.  Overall, the responses were very positive.  The most often seen negative feedback was about our volume, which could be related to us using our own sound system for the first time in Mankato.  Also, St. Mark's is the smallest sanctuary that we will lead worship in this summer, so we may have been victims of expecting our amps to be as loud as they had been.  Either way, we learned some things that we can improve on and were refocused on why we lead worship in the first place, to facilitate the worship of the people in the pews.

We spent another week in Lannon.  The work load was less than last time we were there, but more work had to be done musically than normal, so the extra time was nice.  We added two members of St. John's grade school who had approached us last time we were around to our arrangements.  Hattie sang and Maria played xylophone.  We appreciated their work.

We also worked on the school building preparing it to be wax and carpet cleaned.  We also spent some time with St. John's youth group, Wildfire.

We also had to prepare for and lead worship in West Bend, WI for Rev. Bob Hein's 25th anniverssary of being a pastor.  The service was very nice and the congregation was very kind to us also.  We got asked about recordings and about future visits to West Bend.

On Monday, we prepared for three events in three days.  We have worship in Pewaukee on Saturday night, Wisconsin Rapids on Sunday morning, and a concert in Ridgeway, MN on Monday night.  The services are pretty basic for us, but preparing for our first concert of the summer is really exciting.  We all enjoyed working on some really well-known Christmas hymns.  We are really proud of the arrangements we are playing for the concert, and we are also hoping that we prepared our concert well enough that it will show people the life of Jesus and his work.

We are on a week off right now and will come back together on Saturday for worship.  Keep praying for us.

"Speak, Oh Savior, I am listen as a servant to his Lord."