Scared to lead, not committed to discipleship...

I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "What does an old kareoke machine have to do with discipleship? Just wait a minute and I'll get to that. Before I get there, I want to tell you all a little story from my teenage-hood.

I've been playing on worship teams since shortly after I learned to play guitar. It started in a small group that my dad led at his house in Houston when I was about 14 or 15, but long before that I hung around the worship team members, trying to learn all that I could from them at my church in North Carolina.

When my family moved to Houston, we started going to a big church on the west side of town. The youth leadership one day asked if anyone was interested in playing on the worship team. They said to attend a practice later that week. My parents had just purchased me an brand-new electric guitar. It was an Ibanez 165. I still have it, and I still love that guitar. I didn't have an amp, pedals, or much skill with an electric, but I still SO wanted to play electric in the church band.

When I came to the practice, they decided to make two different worship teams, or, at least, that's what it seemed to me that they were doing. Most of the musicians stayed in the main hall for the senior-high worship team, and they set me up in a separate room with my electric guitar and a kareoke machine for my guitar amp.

I stayed there, waiting for the rest of the musicians that would make up the jr. high worship team, and no one came. I played my guitar for a little while, entertaining myself, still waiting, and still no one came.

I finally went back into the main room and asked one of the youth leaders what had happened, and he said, "Oh... I thought we got you all set up in the other room." In other words, I'm pretty sure they were just trying to keep me occupied in that room while they practiced.

I really hope I don't sound angry - I don't fault them at all. That's a really hard situation to be in. I've been in that place a few times, trying not to hurt someone's feelings while knowing *for sure* that they weren't ready for the position they wanted on the worship team.

Since then, I've been a worship leader in four different churches, and two of my guitar students have gone on to be worship leaders in their churches; however, I've had a lot of trials-by-fire, made many mistakes, and no one has mentored me in the "art of worship leading."

If God's plan for the future includes me being a worship leader again, I really hope that I'll have the patience to take "little Davids with electric guitars" under my wing, see their future, and direct them towards their potential. That is *really* hard to see, though, without spending time with someone.

Wedding Registry Didn't Work?

Hey, there, everyone!  A couple of you wrote to me to say that our wedding registry links didn't work.  If that was the case, here is the info again:

If you would like to get us something from our wedding registry, and you're not in Ukraine, we've made it very easy for you to do that. Because shipping costs so much from America, and because several of the things we need can already be purchased here in Ukraine or Poland, we've set up and "example list" on Amazon.com. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE THEM ONLINE AS THEY MAY NOT GET TO US!!! :D Instead, you can add money to our PayPal account, and we will purchase them here.  (Of course, you can also partially pay for an item.)

As a side note, in addition to helping us with furniture, appliances, and other things on that list, you can also help us by simply donating to our next trip to America. To do that, click here.

Here's what TO do for the gift list:

1. Click on this link to go to our registry on Amazon.com and pick something from the list that you would like to buy for us or help us pay for, but please don't buy it.
2. Take note of the price and click on the "Buying this gift elsewhere?" link next to the item so that we know it's being paid for.  (Please skip this step if you're partially paying for the item - just e-mail us in that case.)
3. Click on the button below to add that amount to our PayPal account, so that we can purchase the items here.

Our paypal account:

Also, the gifts through PayPay are not tax-deductable like your regular donations to our account.  If you would like to know more about how to support us regularly through our church, please click here.

Just a few weeks left...

Wow...  I have less than 7 weeks left as a single, young man.

God, please help me to use this time honoring You with all that I do, especially in preparation for wedding my beautiful bride, Katya.

We got our rings in the mail yesterday!  Here's a shot of them:

We went with titanium rings with a little silver stripe through the lower edge.  They're REALLY comfortable, light, and extremely strong.  I'm excited that I'm not worried about rock climbing, going camping, swimming, etc. with them, 'cause they're basically indestructible.

Please be praying for the rest of the preparation, as Katya and I are still working out the details of my wardrobe (it's kinda hard to find western wear in Western Ukraine... who knew? haha), and we are getting other little details nailed down.  I'm still working on our honeymoon dates, etc.