A Few Updates

Preached in my home church last weekend. It went just fine and I got a lot of good comments. Like always, I sweat buckets since it was summertime, and since most of the home congregation doesn't see me do a lot of my speaking, they became concerned afterwards. I tried to assure them all it was normal.

This past recent weekend, I met up with Troy and Dawn and various other sundry Happy the Dog folk at the Lifelight Music Festival in Sioux Falls, SD to help man the Happy the Dog booth.

It was fantastic. The weather was beautiful. I got nice and pink. We had a lot of laughs and got a lot of donations for shirts. We made some contacts with folks about coming out to their events.

One of the coolest things was getting to see a few folks from the Sunshine Bible Academy where I spoke with worship band and Happy friend's David and Danny Fergen.

Come to think of it, the Fergen brothers were also at Lifelight, playing the coffee house stage. I didn't get up there in time to hear it, but word was that they rocked out.

I got to hear just about any and every big name Christian band around - albeit from several hundred yards away with the booths for two radio stations between us.

We had theblastfm.com right next to our booth, and we got to groove out to their edgy hard rock all weekend. Those guys are a little nuts, and seemed to attract a lot of young folk to their booth.

Saw Jonah's Wale geetar and bass man Matt Groen, along with Happy the Dog friend Jacklyn who's always a treat to see.

What else . . . what else . . .

Have I mentioned lately how fantastic Happy the Dog board member and Jonah's Wale piano gal Dawn Ryswyk is? Man is she great. She was at the booth with us all weekend to discuss bizness, have fun, and buy us a couple pork sandwiches. She makes everyday better for me.

Tons of other Happy the Dog friends showed up. Saw lots of old friends from Rock Valley.

I think my favorite moment came with the water truck. The festival is held on this big pasture outside Sioux Falls, and several times a day this big tanker truck would drive by with a guy on a water cannon on the back. He'd spray the ground down with water to keep the dust at bay.

Well, by day two, the water truck had a good number of kids following behind it even though it truly was a water cannon. That thing had all the pressure of a fireman's hose, but these kids weren't deterred.

As they went past our booth, the water cannon man was having fun playing cat and mouse with the kids behind him. Once, when the kids ran away to escape the blast, they happened to run right past two high school girls who looked all prim and proper, decked out in their best for the festival.

Well, the water cannon guy blasted them with his stream before realizing they weren't part of the fun. The looks on their faces were priceless to say the least.

I'm sure Troy or Dawn might have some more updates on happythedog.com eventually. As always, you can check out that site for the same blogs you see here, or you check out blog posts from my other ministry partners and see where I'll be traveling next.

Till next time,

Jason