Giants of Silence Rocks Europe!

In May, Keynote's aggressive rock band, Giants of Silence, partnered with various ministries in Germany, Switzerland and France for an outreach tour. During the course of the tour, God used them in the lives of college students, high school students and military personnel. The band performed 10 concerts (two of them were worship events) in eight cities. Response cards were not used at each event, but we know that more than 60 people indicated significant spiritual decisions!

Misconceptions about God and Christianity as well as pressures of the culture around them, set the stage for these students to question a lot of things and become disillusioned with life. Jill's story about how God changed her life and helped her overcome depression really made an impact. The band's evanglelistic CD was a popular item as well as a photo postcard containing the gospel.

In Ferney, France the band had the opportunity to work with some "third culture" kids whose parents are diplomats or business men. While some of the students already have a relationship with God, others are searching for a place to belong as they move every couple of years. Many seeds were planted as the band members spent time with the students after the shows.

Band member, Bryan [left], talking after a show.

Keynote partner, Pepe Tolenen provided sound equipment and transportation as well as "moral support" throughout the tour. A recent email from Pepe gives a glimpse into the spiritual climate of Germany; "...I could not believe my eyes when I saw our listeners giving applause after the gospel presentations. I thought, this is NOT Germany when something like this happens!"

We can all relate to the tension between pleasing God and being accepted. "Adam", the teenage son of a concert host in Bamburg, Germany, was dealing with this same issue. He wrote on his comment card, "I want to please God but I also want to be cool around my friends".

Giants of Silence director, Ethan Ehrstine stayed with "Adam's" family. As they were leaving the next morning, Ethan remembered the comments and took time to talk with "Adam" about his struggle to please God and his friends. "Adam" was delighted that the band's guitar player not only took notice of his comment, but took time to talk to him and encourage him to take steps of faith.

Thank you for praying for Giants of Silence during their time overseas. The band members have been home for a couple of weeks and are now busy with helping to run Keynote's Summer Project. The band will tour again beginning in August.

Some of the band members in between shows.

One Thing After Another...

The last half of March seemed like a whirlwind month for us. First, Tony was sick and out of commission for a few days. Then, Jonelle sprained her knee and was on crutches for about a week. The latest is that Jonelle's allergies flared up and took her out for this past weekend. We'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment and pray for our physical health. It's been a crazy month, and we're praying that April brings more than shower....that it brings a season of renewed health for us!

blue sky nine talks about...blue sky nine

Keynote is constantly educating people about what exactly it is that we do and how different ministries can effectively use our artists to reach people for Christ. So, Keynote's Media Team and blue sky nine recently teamed up to produce a promotional video for concert hosts. Posting the video on youtube.com gives easy access and broader exposure. Enjoy!

Year In Review.

Here is a 4-minute video highlighting everywhere Keynote went in 2008. We are excited to be directly involved with this ministry, and pray that we can be there very soon!

Latest Press.

As our society continues to connect and explore over youtube.com, Keynote is realizing the potential to share more than just humor. With a passing suggestion and bit of editing, they took an already existing Gospel message from our ventriloquist, David Pendleton, and posted it to youtube.com. This link has seen over 3,400 hits in two months (with very little advertising)!





Keynote's full-time bands are spending a significant amount of time exploring how to further their impact using technology. They are not only developing Internet marketing; they are also creating online ministry opportunities. God is opening up doors for our communication training to potentially equip thousands of Campus Crusade staff to better reach millions of college students around the world....and our international influence has never been greater.

We are so excited about the vision of Keynote and cannot wait to report to Indy to begin working! Thank you for taking a jump and moving through this journey with us!

Brazil Music Ministry

Janie (Keynote's friend & partner in Brazil) just sent us this video link a few days ago. This is her 4th year to host a BMM (Brazil Music Ministry) Summer Project, and this song will give you a glimpse of how she’s doing as she is developing her ministry. This footage is from one of their summer project concerts.

It is so exciting to see what God is doing through music around the world! We love to see how other music ministries oversees are using their own music to share Jesus with their culture!

Could you pause for a moment and pray for Janie - that the Lord would provide resources for the ministry and real monthly support for her? Thanks!

BMM Summer Project Video

Making Sense out of Transition...

We are still in the midst of learning what life "should" look like now that Tony has a part-time job. This job is certainly way different from his previous job working with houses and appraisals, but that is okay! His co-workers at the branch are nice and they all work pretty well together, which is a plus! This week, he is going to "teller school". After this week is over, he will have a more concrete schedule, which will help us out so much as we continue to build our base of ministry partners and raise support. He'll be working 30-35 hours to start with. We are praying that the branch will be quick in their hiring of another teller so that Tony can drop his hours a little lower.

With all this transition, we are learning that God's timing is perfect. It's been one year since we've started this journey of building our team of ministry partners & raising support. In our minds, we would love to be closer to our goal than 30%, but we know that God's timing is perfect. When things happen that don't quite make sense or doubts creep into our mind about if this path is the path we should be taking....God "wows" us with provision that could only be from Him. He confirms that we are in His will, even though our concept of time is certainly not His!

On a side note, I wish to take a second and brag on my awesome husband who got me the most beautiful flowers for Valentine's Day! After working at a greenhouse for 10 or so years, I did not think that I "needed" flowers. I was wrong!

February Prayer Letter & More!

February prayer letter: click here

As you read [or will read soon] from this month's letter, we recently had the opportunity to help lead music and serve with friends for Target Dayton Ministries. We had a great time with the band, but we really enjoyed spending time with the people who we served dinner to afterwards. They had some interesting stories!

Below are clips of some of the songs we did that evening. Tony is back there on the drums, Jonelle is singing and playing her synthesizer keyboard, and the rest of the band is made up of good friends from our church! [We apologize for the loud buzzing you may hear - one of the joys of "live music". :)]



Mighty to Save



Lead me to the Cross



Here I am to Worship



From the Inside Out

Swagbucks.

Our latest love has been for Swagbucks. Swagbucks is a search engine that uses results found by Google & Ask.com. Through using the site as your search engine, you are awarded Swag Bucks just for searching. We haven't redeemed any of our Swag Bucks yet, but there are some neat things that you can get like gift cards, electronics, etc... It is just really fun to get a Swag Buck for doing a normal search. [For you fans of The Office...I feel that it ranks right up there with a "Schrute Buck"!]

Interested? Click on the picture at the top of this post to get started!

Our child...

This update is dedicated to my mom, because she faithfully checks our blog and told me I need to start updating it more than once a month. I said that we don't have kids that do crazy things that other people would find interesting.

So....you get a video of our dog! It's from this past Christmas. He's doing his trick, the only trick he knows.

-J