Hello friends,

I hope this note finds you well, and warm. It's been a crazy week in a crazy month. It's been the kind of month that sparks numerous songs. We bought a house! Aimee and I are no longer officially homeless! Our new place is in the northwest corner of Minneapolis, MN. It was a house that had landlords who let it fall into disrepair. We got a very good deal, but it needs a lot of work. We spent the last couple days of October and the first week of November winterizing the outside and cleaning the inside. My Mom came up and helped clean the cabinets and wash windows. In the middle of our cleaning spree we drove to Aberdeen, SD for a Wednesday evening performance. We met some wonderful folks. After the concert we had a great late night conversation with the peer ministers sitting on the kitchen countertops at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of the Conga Line... we suggested the name change.

We started our journey west on November 8th. Our destination was Post Falls, ID and the Eastern Washington / Idaho Synod Lutheran youth gathering. This was the first high school event that this synod had hosted in five years, and they did an exceptional job. This was our first opportunity to work with Steve Bond, a pastor and speaker from Pennsylvania, and the gathering also let us reunite with a new friend, Gordon Fitch. After the weekend we had the opportunity to share some time and space with the Kashork family in Spokane and the Huesby family on their ranch in eastern Washington. The Huesby's run an all organic ranch that been getting a lot of local press in the northwest, and they are really nice folks. You can read more about their ranch at thunderinghooves.net. While with our friends I set up the recording computer and continued work on the Advent CD. Seven songs are now finished! On November 15th. we turned east for a drive that would take us to Omaha... it took a little longer than planned.

At around 11pm on the 15th. our trusty VW broke down in the only major town between Salt Lake City and Laramie; we were stuck in Rock Springs, WY. While driving east on I-80 all of the warning lights on the dash start popping on... even that oh, so subtle (thank you, German engineering) light for the air bags that blinks in blaze orange "you are about to die!" After a call to a tow truck and a Google search that included words like "VW, van, mechanic, Rock Springs, Wyoming" and "up a creek without a paddle" we located Steve's Auto Shop. Thankfully, Rock Springs has the area airport and an Enterprise Rental Car franchise. Unfortunately, we were not able to get a larger vehicle until late morning. It was afternoon by the time we crammed the Jeep Commander with as much gear as would it would fit (a Eurovan, it is not) and continued our journey east. Our late start meant that we had to cancel our performance on Friday in Omaha. In 287,000 miles this is the first time we've had to cancel because of a break down. We were really depressed and pretty stressed out. Our hosts in Omaha could not have been more accommodating. Father Jason moved our concert to Sunday evening and created a fill in band for Friday evening called "Back Pocket" that included himself and a our new friend, Lara Shine. We finally arrived in Omaha just before midnight on the 16th. and led the music for a late night eucharist service for the youth of our host congregation, All Saints Episcopal Church.

Looking back on last weekend I feel like I should be more stressed about our situation. I've come to the conclusion that without the care of Jason, Jodie, Lara and the community at All Saints I may well have gone off the deep end. They were the right people, at the right place, and the right time. Coincidence? No, a real Godsend. We packed up the Jeep on Monday morning and started our return to Rock Springs. Mechanic Steve expected to receive the new alternator (the source of our break down) on Wednesday morning which would allow us to make it to Chicago for Thanksgiving with Aimee's family, but snow and ice fell on Tuesday evening. The UPS delivery didn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon and revealed that the wrong alternator had arrived. After a couple hours of frantic phone calling by both Steve and I to every mechanic we knew it became clear that there wasn't a single alternator that fit our van anywhere in the U.S. I am actually not over exaggerating this! We literally called coast to coast. Off the top of my head, the cities that received our 11th hour pleas were Fort Collins, St. Paul, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, some place in Jersey, and every place in California... The best we could find was to have one rebuilt and shipped out this upcoming Monday. Thank you VW for all of the support!? ...now that is me over exaggerating!

After contacting our families to let them know we would be stranded in Rock Springs for Thanksgiving, I made a call to the folks at Enterprise and found out that all of their larger vehicles were rented. They had one economy car left; we took it. After numerous web searches and schemes that included towing our van back to Minnesota with a 26 foot uHaul (the only size available in the area) we decided that the best and (shockingly) most economical solution would be to drive our economy rental west (opposite of our destination!) to Salt Lake City to pick up a mini-van. Thanksgiving turned out to be a pretty relaxing day that included a good bottle of wine shared in the newly unwrapped plastic cups from our hotel room, a really good salad (considering that the ingredients were purchased from the Walmart across the street), left over Chinese food, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Last night while driving through the moonlit mountain passes of Wyoming we listened to one of our favorite recordings, Glen Phillips - "Winter Pays For Summer". Even after all that we've experienced this month, his poetic lyrics still ring true and reminded us that "we've both got a lot to be thankful for" and that "I don't need anything that I don't have".

As I write this we are driving a Caravan across the length of Nebraska (for the third time in seven days). We will sleep in our very own house tonight, the first time since the evening of November 7th. We perform tomorrow in St. Peter, MN. This next week will see me setting up the recording gear in our basement and continuing the Advent CD work while Aimee gears up to go on a room painting spree. If all goes well, we will return to Wyoming (then Salt Lake City) to pick up the VW and return the rental next Friday. If you happen to live along the I-80, I-90, or I-35 corridors in Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, or Minnesota, we are looking for a place to host us on our return home. Let us know if your congregation has an opening for some special music on Sunday morning and/or if you would like to host a morning or evening performance in your town. Since this is very short notice we are simply looking to receive a free-will offering. Having a place to share our music and sell a few CDs this next weekend will certainly help us recover some of the rental vehicle expenses from the past weeks. We also have some concert openings east of the Mississippi in early 2008. Details are below. Thanks for reading and being part of our community. I look forward to the next time we can raise a plastic cup together and recall all we are thankful for.

Under the Mercy,
Joel

Upcoming Performances and Openings:
December 1-2 : OPEN in WY, NE, SD, IA and MN
December 5-19 : OPEN in MN
January 4-6 : Lower Susquehanna Synod youth gathering in PA
January 7-31 : OPEN in the east and midwest
February 1-3 : youth gathering in Wichita, KS
February 4-7 : OPEN in KS
February 8-10 : youth gathering in Wichita, KS
February 11-14 : OPEN in the midwest
February 15-16 : performances in Fort Wayne, IN
February 17 : performance in Columbus, OH
February 18-21 : OPEN in the southeast
February 22-24 : North Carolina Synod youth gathering
February 27 : performance in Weddington, NC
March 1-31 : OPEN in the southeast, east and midwest

PS- we have a new T-shirt design. I will be uploading it to tangledblue.com this afternoon. Happy post-thanksgiving!