Blessings and Other...

This weekend was SEEDS weekend, as I stated in an earlier blog. Over 300 people attended, from all over the place (farthest I've heard were people from Idaho and Ohio, not to mention the North American Division head honchos from Washington DC). So yeah, it was pretty much a big success, everyone loved it.

During this weekend, I was the drummer for the praise team. Now, let me just remind you, playing drums in church is INCREDIBLY controversial for SDAs. I mean, seriously, apparently they took away the drums in the youth tent during Camp Hope because they were too whatever, and that was only a few years ago! Needless to say, we in the worship team were a little apprehensive to hear the opinions of the more conservative churchgoers... especially the ("ultra-")conservative pastors/conference-presidents/etc...

To the surprise of many of us, we had TONS of compliments of the worship team, especially with regards to drumming! Everyone was complimenting on how we were able to have the drums as just another component of a full-sounding ensemble, and not have it take over the music; in other words, the music was still for God, and not about the instruments (i.e., drums) or players or whatever. And as for the ultra-conservatives, even though the drumming was a little outside of their comfort level, they appreciated how tastefully we handled the drums. The biggest example of this would be the comments of the North American Conference president of promotions guy (don't know his name, oops), the head honcho of guidelining what the SDA church should be doing etc. He told Joey that he loves what we're doing with the praise team, and he's amazed that this is what we do on a weekly basis. He even loved how the drums were incorporated with the music! I mean, the fact that he actually enjoyed the drums, and even wanted them LOUDER??....WOW. Seriously, WOW. Never would have guessed it...

I'm sure I'm not explaining it half as well as I should be, but I feel blessed that I was able to do God's will this weekend, and not have my drumming overtake the message... personally I was scared that I would mess up and overplay the drums, then have people giving me the eye, and say things like the drumming ruined the music and drums should be banned, etc etc, but to have people come up and compliment, about the DRUMS of all things, my goodness... I feel blessed...

After rereading what I wrote, yeah. Definately didn't capture just how amazingly positive the reactions from the drumming were. But, believe me, astounding...

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On a sad note, Jason Powar died on friday, in a motorcycle accident... this guy was my classmate in Sidaway, in Charissa (and Irfan's) grade... he was one of the nicest guys around. Tragedy... I'm still in disbelieve that this happened... too surreal...

On another sad note, my Aunt, my Tita Sally, started having heart problems, went to the hospital, needs a pacemaker. Today was her birthday, had to cancel plans to go to Country Meadows. I'll pray that she'll be alright...

I don't know what it is, but the past couple months have been fairly tragic, not just within my family, but for many others that I know as well...

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I have other things to write about, such as school, and moving out, and other non-seeds events this weekend, but really, this was all I really wanted to say. Everything else compared to the above would just be useless rantings.

Until next time, I guess...