Angels In Voice

We're excited to share with you that our dad went for his bladder scope on Monday and he received a good clean report.  Praise God!  It's definitely a great way to start off another year.  I believe the Lord is doing a miracle in both his and Candice's lives.  

We had a beautiful rainy weekend.  I don't think I've ever seen it rain so much here in the Valley of the sun.  We are suppose to have another storm come in some time later today.  Any time it rains in Arizona, we can appreciate it, we live in the desert so it's always refreshing to get a storm or two.  On Friday evening we had a concert at our church featuring Julie York.  Pastor Adrian asked Candice and I to sing a couple of songs at the concert.  The Thomas Road Quartet also sang. The Yorks come to our church every year.  Kent York is an evangelist, he usually comes and preaches a three day revival.  This year they were only here for Friday's concert and for Sunday's services.  Julie has such a beautiful contralto voice, she sings with a lot of dynamics and expression.  We enjoy hearing her sing.  During the concert Pastor held an invitation and there were 4 teenagers that came forward and received Christ as their Savior.  What a blessing it is to see souls being saved.  I thought on Sunday Kent York preached a powerful message in both morning and evening services.  One of the messages was on Romans 6:23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The four main words he preached on were Sin, death, gift and life.  Many more people came forward accepting Christ.  It is definitely wonderful seeing the Lord at work in peoples lives.

We had another recording session on Monday.  We recorded an acapella arrangement of the Lord's Prayer.  This was our first time recording acapella and I was surprised that it really didn't take us very long to record.  We wanted to give it a fuller sound so our dad suggested to the engineers that we double our voices.  So that is what we did, and it sounds really cool.  It gave it more of an enhanced sound as if we were singing in a cathedral.  Our friend Larry Root came to sit in on the session as well.  He was able to get a behind the scenes look on the whole recording process.  We also met with a man that evening named Tony, he is the studio's lead pianist.  Jeff the owner of the studio brought Tony in to help compose a piano arrangement for the song that Candice wrote "Thank You Jesus."  We wanted to start from scratch with an arrangement that we could record to.  So, I wrote out the words for Tony, while Candice explained to him a little about the song and why she wrote it.  Those of you who have heard the song know it is a personal testimony song for Candice.  We sang the song about five times through for Tony and it didn't take very long before he had a piano arrangement created.  It's really amazing, we could tell he has had many years of experience.  After we got the piano arrangement completed, Danny one of the engineer's went in and added the drums to it.  Ryan, the other engineer made a recording of Danny on the drums, Tony on the piano and Candice and I standing in front of the mic singing so that they would have someone to follow.  Next week we will go in and record our vocals for the song.  Candice said while she was standing there singing, that it brought tears to her eyes.  How the Lord has allowed this to happen in our lives is so amazing.  It was truly a moment neither one of us will ever forget.  What an opportunity it is for us to work with so many talented people.  We are so excited about it and can't wait for you to hear what the song is going to sound like.  It'll have piano, drums as well as acoustic guitar.  Candice and I came home and expressed our happiness to our mom.  We are just so grateful the Lord has opened the door for us to record another CD.  We have been praying about this for such a long time.  We only have 4 more songs to record.  Its getting closer to being done. YEAH!!

Yesterday we had long time friends Bob and Judy Gandy over for dinner and game night.  Judy was one of the first people to meet and hold us at the airport when we came here from India 26 years ago.  Mom made chicken rice burritos, and a cottage cheese orange jello salad.  After dinner our aunt Judy and our cousin Barry came over as well as our brother Sanjay and his fiance Becca to play the Wii.  Bob and Judy had never played the Wii so we played three bowling tournaments.  It was Candice, Barry, our brother Jody and I playing against each other.  Candice won our game with a score of 163.  She didn't do as well as she usually does and I was right behind her with 155.  Then mom, aunt Judy, Becca and Judy played against each other and Judy did very well for her first time.  She came in second place right behind Becca.  Then it was the guys turn. Dad, Bob, Sanjay and Barry.  Dad beat them  with his five strikes in a row.  Boy was he proud of himself.  We were all trying to get him to mess up.

After bowling Bob and Judy taught us how to play Mexican train with dominos.  We've never played it before and it was so much fun.  They also taught us a card game called Golf.  That was a little more of a challenge but once we all got the hang of it it went very quickly.  We had a wonderful time of fellowship, we're so thankful for friends.

We wanted to update last night but we were all so exhausted after a long day at the Mayo Clinic, we decided to wait until today to update.  I went for my CT scan and I am excited to share with you that I got a good clean report.  Praise the Lord!! Dr Mulligan is such a caring doctor he was so thrilled about my results.  The little 4 mm spot that was on my lung in the last CT scan from October is no longer there.  Dr Mulligan wasn't sure but he said it could have been inflammation from the viral infection I had just gotten over right before I went for the CT scan.  He really couldn't say for sure.  I am supposed to go back for another follow up in April.  Dr Mulligan says if the next CT is all clear that I can move to every four months.  That would be wonderful!!  Right now our family is just thankful for a good report, the Lord is definitely at work in my life.  He is opening so many doors for Crystal and I, we just received two more bookings last week.  How awesome it is to be staying busy serving the Lord! We thank all of you for your continued prayers, your love and support means the world to us.  Please pray for our dad as he goes next week for his three month bladder scope.  He is doing very well and we pray he has a great report as well.  We'll keep you posted.

We have been pretty busy around here.  On Saturday our family attended our friend Marie's wedding.  Crystal and I met Marie in college, we have been good friends for several years now.  She is such a sweet heart, its been a blessing for us to have her in our lives.  Her wedding was very nice, it was at a Catholic church.  Marie looked stunning in the wedding dress her mother made for her.  Her mom also made the brides maids dresses, they were a beautiful light pink.  I can imagine the time and effort her mom put into making 7 dresses.  That would be a lot of work.  I remember when our brother Jason got married many years ago, our sister Rhonda made all the brides maids dresses and she and mom made all the slips they said "Never Again." Also our mom and aunt Judy made the wedding cake.  That was a very busy time.  It"s always special wearing something your mom made.  Our mom as well as the two of us thoroughly enjoyed the music.  Marie put together an ensemble of people that she knew and our former voice teacher from college, Tracy Peterson and her husband Mr. Peterson our former college choir director performed in it.  The classical song selections they sang were just beautiful.  It added so much to the wedding.  We were glad we were able to go and we wish Marie and Matt all the best.  May God bless you with many wonderful years of love and happiness. 

We had our student voice recital on Saturday evening.  We have worked so hard on these pieces for the past couple months.  The recital was at St Thomas Aquinas, its a beautiful facility.  The church provided an accompanist for our performance.  We were able to get two rehearsals in with Sue last week so that we could get used to the acoustics in the church.  We also had a dress rehearsal on Friday evening so we could run through our pieces one last time and meet the other students performing.  There were five other students performing and our voice teacher Karen performed two pieces as well.  The recital went very well and there were a lot more people there than we all anticipated.  Crystal and I performed our two solos very well.  Sue accompanied Crystal on the organ on one of her solos Mozart's "Alleluia."   I know it took some time for her to get used to singing with the organ, but it sounded really awesome with the organ.   Neither one of us seemed to be very nervous and we sang with great confidence.  We were disappointed that the duet didn't go as well as we had practiced, we pretty much flubbed it up.  I started struggling with my voice and we each missed a few notes and had to find our way back into the piece.  You would think because we sing duets all the time that it would have been the easiest, but it wasn't.  Handel's pieces are very difficult.  Our friends Larry and Lora came to support us as well as our church choir director Paul.  They said they couldn't tell that we messed up, so that was encouraging.  Of coarse our mom knew because she had heard us practice the song a few times.  Everyone did so well, and it was a wonderful night.  We enjoy taking from Karen, she is a positive, uplifting person and we could not ask for a better teacher.  We both have learned so much from her and she has really helped us grow over the past two and a half years we have been taking lessons.   We are relieved that it is all over now so that we can focus on working on the music for the CD and getting that finished.

I can't believe we're coming up on the end of January.  We're so thankful this year has started off on a good note.  God is good!!  Thank you all again for your love and prayers.

Here are two recital pictures of Candice and Crystal, and Candice, Karen and Crystal.  Click on image to enlarge.

The new year has been a very busy one so far.  We had our third recording session Monday evening and it went very well.  We were able to record Jerusalem and Power in the Blood.  Jerusalem took the longest to record.  It's a very difficult song because of the rhythm and in a few places we sing unison, so trying to get our voices to blend was a little bit of a challenge.  We ended up recording the whole song in sections and that seemed to make it much easier.  We haven't performed either of these songs yet, so we're not as comfortable with them like we are some of the others.  We recorded Power in the Blood in sections as well and it went very quickly.  We are excited about the new CD and can't wait for it to be completed.  We are also rehearsing for our student voice recital on January 19th.  We met with the accompanist yesterday to rehearse our solo pieces and we have another rehearsal this Monday to rehearse our duet.  The recital is being held at a Catholic church.  We rehearsed in the church yesterday and the acoustics are amazing!!  We definitely have to get use to singing in there.  It almost feels like your voice is floating in the air, it sounds really awesome.  Candice and I don't usually perform solos very often, but we feel this helps us build confidence as well as work on our own voice.

Yesterday we saw our Pulmonologist, Dr. Radford.  She is so caring and sweet and always takes the time to talk to us.  We have both struggled with our asthma the past two weeks, thankfully it's been better this week.  We were both so pleased that our PFTs were consistent.  Mine were in the 67-69% range and Candice's went from being 59% last July to 63%.  So that was encouraging.  I believe all the singing and exercise really do help in strengthening the lungs.

For Christmas our parents got our family a Wii.  It has been more fun.  Bowling is our favorite and we have spend a lot of time playing and competing against each other.  One of our favorite bowling games is the one where the pins keep being added.  It starts with 10, then 15, then 21 etc. all the way up to 91.  Our mom has the highest score at 687.  No one has been able to beat her yet although our brother Jody is right behind her at 624.  He is very competitive and he is trying extremely hard to knock mom out of 1st place.  Candice and I have played the tennis and neither one of us are good at that.  Candice is really good at the regular bowling game, she got seven strikes in a row with a high score of 234.  I am starting to catch up with her though, I think I finally figured out her secret.

Our parents also got us the Dance Dance Revolution game.  We each have a dance mat and your feet have to fallow the arrows.  Talk about a workout!!  It requires a lot of coordination, and we haven't become pros at it yet.  

This week we received three new bookings for the spring.  We are excited to have so many opportunities to minister.  We thank the Lord for continuing to open the doors for our ministry.  We pray we can bring many more souls to HIM through our music and testimony.  

Candice goes for her follow up CT scan at the Mayo clinic on January 21st.  Please keep her in prayer for a good report.  She is doing really well and her weight is staying consistent.  Our dad also goes for his bladder scope follow up on January 28th. Please remember him in prayer as well.  He is doing very well. The Lord gave us an awesome 2007 so we are praying that 2008 will be a year of good health too.  Thank you for all your love, support and for your prayers.  They are much appreciated. 

Happy New Year to you all.  I can't believe it's 2008 and the start of a new year.  The Lord gave us an amazing 2007 and we are praying that 2008 will be another wonderful year.  On New Year's Eve our family went to Pastor Thomas and Suchetta's home for a gathering.  They live less than ten minutes away from us.  We had pizza and pasta salads, and a good time of fellowship.  There were several people we recognized from the Logos Mission Anniversary celebrations.  After dinner Pastor Thomas had us each share what we were thankful for in 2007 and what blessings we look forward to in 2008.  We had a nice time of praise and worship together and Crystal and I sang a few songs from our repuitar.  Pastor Thomas gave us a two paper quiz.  The first one was a Christmas story quiz that was multiple choice.  The second one was 21 scrambled names of women of the Bible.  What a fun idea!   It was really hard to figure out the womens names, we needed our "Women of the Bible" book that our parents got us for Christmas.  Overall we had a wonderful time and it was a nice way to finish off 2007. 

Last night our family went to a gathering at Dr. Jain and Celeste's home.  They are an Eastern Indian couple whom we met at Pastor Thomas and Suchetta's church.  We've been to their home once before for dinner and we've enjoyed getting to know the two of them over the past few months. They are a sweet couple and they invited our family over along with a few other families for dinner and fellowship.  Celeste's niece and nephew are visiting from India, her niece cooked a vegetarian meal and Celeste cooked a chicken dish as well as a rice and bean dish for the two of us.  We explained to her that we are unable to eat spicy food, we definitely wouldn't have survived in India.  We ate so much, we had pizza, rice, veggies as well as a piece of carrot cake.    After dinner we sat around in a circle and Celeste asked each of us to share a Christmas memory.  Crystal and I have many wonderful Christmas memories but we shared the story about our Grandma Polly who went home to be with the Lord on Christmas day back in 2002.  She was a special woman and she loved to hear us sing.  She was very sick and in hospice care when we went to visit her.  Our mom and our aunt Judy thought it would be good for us to sing a few Christmas songs because they knew she wouldn't live much longer.  One of the songs we sang was "O Holy Night."  It was difficult for us to see our grandma in a comatose state and then have to sing as well.  I remember crying, and our aunt telling us to sing now and cry later.  We sang through our tears and we noticed after we finished singing that grandma's eyes were open and she knew we were there.  It felt good to know that she heard us and that she was ready to meet Jesus.  It wasn't very long after we left that we got a call saying she had passed away.  As our niece Danielle put it  "Grandma went home for Christmas." That story is one of the most memorable ones because our Grandma went to be with Jesus on his birthday.  She was the only grandma we had left and we miss her very much, but know we will see her again one day.  So that was the story we shared.  It was a joy to listen to everyone's stories.  Its wonderful to know the Lord gives each of us special family moments.  Crystal and I sang the two songs that we are going to be recording soon.  Jerusalem and There is Power in the Blood.  Jerusalem is a really awesome song, it's a new song.  We heard it performed by a men's quartet at our church and we all loved it.  There is Power in the Blood is an old one, but the arrangement we have is upbeat and has more of a black gospel feel.  It's such a fun song and it has a powerful message.  We enjoyed singing those songs last night.  It also helped us to know that we are ready to go into the studio and record them.  Again we had a wonderful evening of fellowship and we didn't get home until after ten-thirty.  Today we cleaned through our closet, did some vacuuming, got caught up on emails and made some phone calls confirming our doctors appointments for next week.  We have a Pulmonologist appointment scheduled for next Thursday.  We both have been having chest tightness the past few days and have been using our Albuteral inhaler more frequently.  We're also working on our classical pieces for our student voice recital coming up January 19th.  Crystal is working on Alleluia from Exsultate Jubilate by Mozart and The Trees on the Mountain from Susannah by Carlisle Floyd.  I am singing An die Musik which is a Germen piece by Schubert and a French piece called Audieu, Notre Petite Table from Manon.  This is my first French piece so I'm excited about performing it.  It's going to be a busy month, but we are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us this year.  

We had a nice Christmas which we will write about in a future post and we'll attach some pictures with it as well.  God Bless!!