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Baby Steps of Trust
God doesn't hide from us.
This is something that I have been reminded of today. I love the Bible verse Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." It reminds me that when circumstances change in our own lives, there is one consistency. Jesus.
When we found out that we were pregnant last August, our journey took an immediate shift. We were in the middle of planning 2017 to have 7 months of on-the-road touring. It was incredibly exciting! Then seeing those 2 strong lines on the test changed everything. It was immediate. So rather than planning a tour that started in January, our plans went into a little bit of a tail spin that resulted in what we like to call, tour postponement. Throughout this whole time the thought never crossed either of our minds that we should stop full-time music ministry. We had and have a peace that this is still where God is leading us. We're not exactly sure how, but we know that God is still guiding in this direction and put this unexpected little blessing into our lives. And we're excited to see what it's like to tour with the little man later in the year.
Now, this isn't to say that at times it hasn't been tough to trust that God has all of this figured out. I believe it's important to be honest. And sometimes it's been scary.
We absolutely love music ministry touring! We love meeting people, hearing their stories, sharing Jesus through music & word, and travelling! And knowing that we would have been on a tour right now if we weren't pregnant may have brought out a tear or two a few weeks ago.
We feel incredibly blessed to live in a country where the majority of all our doctors, midwives and hospital care is for free through Medicare and that the government gives maternity leave payments even if a person is self-employed. This is a blessing and it's allowing us to be able to plan to have some time getting used to baby boy Johnson before getting back into touring. Praise God! But not having a big music ministry tour at the beginning of the year has been a little difficult to trust in God financially with all the extra costs that are coming out of nowhere it seems. Here's the thing, we don't have a tangible reason to not trust in Him, but sometimes the heart and the emotions run off on little tangents leaving our minds trailing behind with the faith flag. We have seen in the past that God is always present. He doesn't hide from us. He has put us in this new journey, one that is sometimes uncertain, but we know that He isn't going to abandon us in it. He's here and He's already got it all figured out. I've decided that rather than stress, worry and get all tense, I can thank Him for His providence that hasn't arrived yet, but that will. I can ask for His will to be done in our lives. And I can trust in Him, the God who never hides from us. He is always here and He's the same yesterday, today and forever.
- Monique
What's in a Day
East Camberwell Baptist Church
We're back at it! It's amazing how exciting it can be after a small break to anticipate the first music event of the year. We visited East Camberwell Baptist Church and Glen Huntly SDA Church over the last week and it was amazing to get back into it. God really blessed on both occasions and helped us to once again experience the joy of sharing Him through word & song.
Glen Huntly SDA Church
Touring, for us, comes usually in three different ways. Each are vastly different. The long stretch; On-the-road touring for between 2 weeks to 3 months! The short weekender; On-the-road for just a weekend and a couple of events. The home tour; staying at home, but doing events around the local city and state. At the moment we are in the middle of a home tour of morning events. To show you guys what a typical morning looks like I'll outline below what happened for us. Each day is a little different, depending on the church's denomination, start time and drive time.
- Day before - Pack the car with our music and sound gear.
- 5:30am - Wake up & get ready.
- 6:30am - Leave to drive into Melbourne.
- 8am - Arrive at the church of the day. Get to know the wonderful person who opened the church up for our set up and sound check.
- 8:10am - Unpack the car. Set up the sound equipment. Soundcheck. Set up information and CD interest table.
- 9:15am - Chat with the church's audio-visual team. Organise PowerPoint.
- 9:40am - Attend the church's Bible study time.
- 10:45am - Talk to the service co-ordinator about last minute details.
- 10:50am - Quick toilet break (Let's be real).
- 10:55am - Prayer.
- 11am - Church service starts with the preliminaries organised by the church.
- 11:25am - Get up and present the Message through word & song.
- 12:05pm - Church announces and collects love offering. Final Prayer.
- 12:10pm - Get to know people. Awesome conversations. Hot drinks and snacks. Church treasurer gives us a packet with the love offering.
- 1pm - Begin to pack up our music and sound equipment while chatting with new friends. Pack the car.
- 1:30pm - Begin the drive home eating the snacks we prepared earlier for lunch. Veggie sticks, corn chips and Hummus! Chatting heaps about the different conversations we had and people we met.
- 3pm - Arrive home. Decide to unpack the car later and to take nap!
So that's a little bit of a look into a home tour event day. As I said before, it differs slightly with different denominations, drive times and start times. but we love each and every one!
2016 - A Season of Surprises
Hello everyone,
I guess we'll start off with the most exciting news of 2016. We're expecting our first baby early April 2017. Oh and it's a boy! If you follow us on social media or are on our email list then this may be old news. We wanted to let you know about this massive change that's happening in our lives. We are growing in excitement about this baby boy as we get closer to April and especially now that he's actually kicking around at 28 weeks.
We'll be honest, the timing of the baby news was a surprise as we were in the middle of planning a massive music ministry tour to Europe and USA for the first half of 2017. It was going to be an epic tour and we had been asked to come to Norway for a conference. Let's just say it was all just very exciting! We had dreams of going all around USA and Europe and then we found out we were pregnant... A flux of emotions followed... we like to joke that we went through the 5 stages of grief, yet at the same time having a little smile on our faces. With this big change in our lives we have faith that, as with other unexpected changes in life (like having to move to a new rental home last week), this also is in God's plan. And we are happy to rest in His plan and postpone our tour to Europe and USA until after we've adjusted to our little third wheel hehe.
One of the big questions and challenges we'll face is: "What will it be like touring with a baby?" Perhaps we will hire a nanny or a babysitter in different towns. Perhaps a lucky person will come on the road with us and get the bonus of travel with the catch of looking after our baby during concerts and sound checks. Maybe the baby will be strapped to Monique during a concert in one of those Baby Bjorn thingys or we may even ask a nice little old lady to hold the baby in the front row. The point is, this is something we'll figure out. But you know what? The cool thing with having a job like we do is that we'll get to spend heaps of time with our baby. Concerts and setup only go for 2-4 hours and the rest of the time we will have free for our kid. One thing is for sure we've decided to wait until the baby's here and figure out what type of personality he has before making those types of decisions. We feel called to continue doing music ministry and many people have said to us that doing the baby thing with ministry is easier than it seems. This has come from those that have been doing music ministry for years with kids. That being said we're not super keen to create a family band though. If the kids want to sing with us eventually than sure, but we're not going to encourage it.
So 2016 has been a season of changes. After the craziness that was 2015 with the Everlasting album production, release and 6 month tour in Australia, UK and Europe, we decided to take a bit more of a 'rest year' for 2016. We enjoyed touring throughout Australia to take 32 concerts and Messages through word & song. For 2017 we are planning to be touring locally around where we live near Melbourne through January to March. We feel blessed to live in Australia where the Government gives parental leave payments, which will help when our baby boy comes along. With this we will be taking a short period of maternity leave to adjust and in the second half of 2017 our dream is to do a big tour somewhere... we'll keep you posted. If you are interested in booking us for a concert, church service or conference for 2017, please give us an email to start chatting about possibilities.
We hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a beautiful beginning to 2017. Thank you again everyone for your warm support, friendship and prayers. We know that we couldn't do this without you all and we appreciate the continual support.
Love and blessings,
Eric & Monique
2016 Tour Vlogs