Good Times in Michigan

Last night in Holland, MI at Amy's house. Great time playing for lots of Brian's good friends. Some good conversations afterward too about honesty and expectations in relationships. The past few days in Holland have been great in general. We were able to get lots of great visits in with lots of folks. Thanks Marybeth for dinner! And Josh and Kim fed us tonight so well too. Kurt took us out for dinner as well. We toured a cool recording studio thanks to Charles Driscoll (www.bigbinstudios.com)

Sharing the stories with the songs was especially sweet last night. It led to lots of conversations. It's always great to connect and discuss what's going on. Everybody always feels like they're the only ones dealing with the things on their hearts. It's freeing to find that you've got others around you who feel those things too. So good to find you're not alone.

We forgot to take a picture till a good many people had left! So if you're looking up pictures, sorry if you got left out! Thanks to everyone who was there and thanks to Amy and her folks for hosting us... we got a great night's rest that was needed.

Brian hanging out with some of his youth group kids.

One of the highlights of this week was playing for Park Church in Holland. Our friend Kurt set everything up for us to play for his youth group. In addition, most of Brian's old youth group from the past three years showed up. It was so beautiful to see those kids with Brian. They absolutely love him. It was also a unique chance to speak some good ole Gospel Love into listening ears. And it was just great fun, so fun I almost ate a bean bag.

In Midland, MI we stopped through at Brian's Parent's house. It was a special weekend since all of Brian's siblings and their children came home to see Brian and attend the concert (and to meet the newest member of the Mulder clan- little Luke Mulder- Brian's older brother Dave's latest child). The Mulder Fam was beautiful! I felt right at home, we ate big family meals like so many other places we've stayed, played games (Guess Who?, and I watched them play Euchre) Brian's younger brother Rob is a singer as well and he joined us on one of Brian's tunes at the house show. Good job Rob.

The Midland show was a blast! Lots of Brian's church family showed up, our hosts had a great room for us to play in, and Brian got to share many of his songs and stories with his family for the first time. We had a great time. And I found out that the guy who built my guitar lived only about 20 minutes away in Bay City. So I got in touch with him and he and he wife showed up for the house concert! The next morning we went to visit them at their home, toured the guitar building workshop, and just had a nice visit. Such good folks. Their kids have a band together and are just finishing a CD. His name is Bill Wise and makes Charis Guitars www.charisacoustic.com

Now we're heading to Columbia, MO to see some old Service Over Self Camp friends from Memphis who've been in India for a couple of years, the Pinkstaffs. We'll see Arvel Wilson and Eric Papp hopefully and who knows who else. That will be a good way to end up our traveling.

Then we'll head back to Oxford on Saturday and on Sunday morning I'll see good friends in church again at home. Actually, there are still a few more concerts, one in South Bend, IN with Abbye and Jeff Pates (dear friends, great music makers) and a couple more near Jackson, MS. We're about done. I am certainly done with this post, I need to get some sleep.

Goodnight friends, matthew

ps. Adam and Jenna Weiler hosted us one night too... they are running an amazing art and youth mentoring collective in Holland called "Ambrose". We got to see them in action today making screen prints with youth from around town. Part of Ambrose is a full graphic design and screen printing facility. They made my tour T-shirts. Check them out, support them... www.joyandrevolution.com