And...we're off!

Welcome to the 2025 Youth Music Mission official blog!

The blog started as proof of life for parents so they'd know we are ok, but I found that folks enjoyed seeing pictures and reading about all we did...enjoy!

I'll post about today in the morning, but Hanna took a great picture of us starting out.

Hanna's in the picture too...that's her elbow.

This morning we loaded up the bus and then spent a minute at the 8:30 service. We had a prayer and then walked out the door singing: "Have courage, my soul, and let us journey on though the night is dark, and I am far from home. Thanks be God, the morning light appears! The storm is passing over..."

The courage to step into an unknown journey. That's what this week is all about. We're about to make our first stop, so I'll paste in here the blurb from our concert program. See you tomorrow!

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In the book of Revelation, when John begins describing the new heaven and new earth, he writes, “...the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” This has always struck me as odd. My family vacations at the beach every year. I love the beach and boats and the sea. Honestly there have been times under an umbrella in a chair with my family that I wondered if this was as close to heaven as I could get on earth! Even in Biblical times, the sea provided for people. Food. Livelihood. What did John have against the sea that the very first thing he said about the new heaven and earth was that there was no more sea? As is often true in the Bible, the sea is a symbol. It represents chaos. It represents evil. It represents the unknown. The absence of the sea, then, is the absence of those things. It is the absence of the unknown.

Why is that so appealing? The unknown is deeply unsettling for us. Our brains amplify fears of what might be lurking just out of our knowledge. Fear freezes us in place. When we do summon the courage to push into the unknown, sometimes we pay a heavy price for it. And yet “a grain of wheat may be knocked to the ground and suffer through the winter’s cold only to rise right up again and bear its seed a thousand fold.” We have the courage to wade into the unknown not because we believe nothing bad will happen, but rather because when bad things happen we believe the Spirit empowers us to overcome them. Overcoming adversity makes us stronger.

This is why we sing. We aren’t selling anything. We aren’t here to argue or convince anyone of this truth or that. We don’t need to agree or even agree to disagree. As we travel, we toss grains of love and peace to the wind and let them fall where they may. And maybe, hopefully, they will bear their seed.

Thank you for listening today, and sharing your stories with us. It is a joy and pleasure to be with you!