Well, not a ton of stuff to report, but Happy New Year! I have spent a good portion of my break here in Chicago with my family. God provided me with a job at the Office Depot and I have had full time work while I have been here. Can't say I have had much chance to play or write for awhile, but I am still doing a bit here and there. I hope that this next semester will allow me more time to focus on getting a half-decent recording finished, but whatever is cool. As I look back on this last year I am seeing how God has used so many hard experiences to prepare me for things that may just be happening now or have recently taken place. I suppose that 1 Peter 1:6-7 has really been my theme in the last year. It says:

"In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ..."

And what a comfort that has been! These hard times may be, well, hard for awhile, but they will never last forever. I suppose that I am at a point of thankfulness for all that has happened even though it has not been easy. There are so many things that I have learned and it has all been worth the pain. Although I wish so many times that I learned easier. I suppose that is all for now. Next week I will be heading back to school to enjoy another semester in beautiful Arkansas. The Lord has truly been blessing me in such new and exciting ways. I am so undeserving of His grace and blessings, so it makes absolutely no sense to me why a perfect God would choose to. So as usual this next year keep pressing on into the Lord. Make Him your pursuit, as there is NOTHING better. His greatest blessings are still only a tiny part of the fullness of God.

Well, I suppose the title tells all. Today was the first day of finals, and this is the second all-nighter I have pulled in a row. The first one was for work, the second was to study with a buddy of mine for a final today. Anyways, wanted to post a few little updateses.

I have been spending some time on the recording project, and should have some stuff up soon. My new microphone came in a couple of weeks ago, and it is a lot of fun. Of course with finals I have not had all that much time to play with it, so I still need to spend more time on it. Anyways, that is all as far as music goes I s'pose.

I have been reminded so much lately of God's faithfulness to us. It amazes me how He uses things we may have learned or done in our times of disobedience to ultimately bless us. Not only does He use the good times but He uses the bad. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, "He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and juse is He." Why would a perfect God not only love but be faithful to me, someone who so often and usually falls short? Especially when I have not been faithful, He responds in love and His faithfulness is never ending.

Here at John Brown, we have this thing called Candle Light we do every year, where the choirs come together and do what I guess is called a "worship service". We sang Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, and it all went pretty well thanks to the One we are in pursuit of giving praise and glory. God promised His only son, Jesus, thousands of years in advance to atone for our sins, was faithful in sending Him here, and Christ was faithful in keeping with the Father's will to atone for our sins. It simply blows my mind that an almighty God would keep Himself entertained with people so broken and so lost, and take pleasure in saving and loving them. So I guess you could say a bit theme in my life lately has been His faithfulness.

On that note, I wish all one or two of you that may look at this site from time to time a Merry Christmas. And oh yeah. Finals can eat my:

Well, one victory is won... Tonight was the first night of basketball and we smoked the Evangels 92 to 57. Think they were from Oklahoma City.
Anyways, apparently we have this tradition of throwing toilet paper rolls on our first score of the first game of the year. Of course this resulted in a technical foul, but it was sure awesome. So, that was pretty exciting. But on another topic, here is a little story...

So like at the beginning of the year we played this wonderful game called bigger and better. My group ended up getting a treadmill. Well, we started out with a paper clip and traded it for a chocolate chip cookie. Wanting to welcome the new college president, Dr. Pollard, we went to their house and traded this cooke for some building blocks. Those blocks were traded for a broken chair that could be fixed which we then traded for a couch. So we are carrying this couch across a graveyard and had it about a thirs of the way to the building we had to take it on campus, when James saw one of his teachers. She called out asking if we needed some help, saying that she had a Chevy Suburban. We quickly accepted. In a move that almost made me tell James to shut up, he asked her if she had anything "bigger and/or better than this couch." She gave us a really sweet treadmill! So we were pretty excited. At some point I will put a video of this up on the website when I feel not quite so lazy. Anyways, in case you did not know, bigger and better is a game in which you start out with something small and go door to door with each item you get. If you did not figure this out by what I said, then, well, yeah. So my roomate got this shirt that said, "Charles Pollard University". It was made by error for his son. Not sure what it was supposed to say, but we decided that I should try it on. So I leave you with a very awesome picture of me fitting into a child's small size shirt. Woot!

I have been working on few updates for the site. I just added a video of what we did to our RD on his birthday in the media section. Also, I have added a couple of audio files to the music section. I have been doing a lot of work "behind the scenes" to get the site ready, so that is the reason for the lack of content. Hopefully I can continue to work on both in this coming week. Thanks for stopping by!

Well it looks like I got bored of the original design and hacked this one out. The links will someday be functional, and hopefully I will provide more consistent updates. The coffee shop went really well on Saturday, thank you everyone for showing up, it meant a lot and I had a great time. Hope you did too. I missed a Cardinals game that I cannot say I missed, as it was such a loss. And tonight was no better. Oh well. As always, stay strong in Him and keep pressing on towards the ultimate goal!

Well, not much to say. I will be playing in St. Charles this coming Saturday, October 23rd. It will be at CuppaJo. Their site is here:
http://www.icuppajo.com
Will be playing from 8-11PM or so. Check their site for directions and stuff. Thanks!