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

New Year! New Prayer Letter!

Thanks for continuing this journey with us! Here is the link to our latest prayer letter: January Update

Also, an added treat for checking out our blog. [We haven't emailed this news out yet.] Keynote has a new website. It has been totally redone and is loaded with info, videos, quotes, and more! Check it out! Click here!

Thank you for continuing to pray for Tony's job situation. We should hopefully hear something this week about both of last week's interviews!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for continuing to journey and pray with us about Tony's job situation. We are really looking forward to him finding a part-time job so that he can spend more time with support raising and ministry partner development. We are so excited to move out to Indy and work with Keynote full-time!

He had a few interviews this week, and the different places said that they were going to be making their decisions within this next coming week. We're trusting God that He opens and closes the right doors for us with this job situation!

A Time For Reflection.

We hope that your Christmas time was relaxing! We returned home to Dayton last night after spending time with family & friends. We have been thinking and thanking God for all that He has provided for us this past year. We have been putting our trust in Him, and He has provided for us in awesome ways! At church this weekend, it was said that "when we're younger, we anticipate Christmas...but as we become older, Christmas is a time for reflection." That thought has been so true for us this year!

Oh, and if you aren't ready to put away the Christmas music & decorations....

Some friends from our house church during our Christmas party.

Tony and our nephew, Connor.

Jonelle got to take her sister to take her driver's license test - she passed! :)

Merry Christmas from Keynote!

We'd love to share a short note and Christmas video from Keynote's director, Chris...

We want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your partnership with us! Whether you’ve served as a prayer supporter or a financial partner, your involvement with Keynote has blessed us and allowed us to move forward in ministry.

Here are a few highlights:

• International outreaches: Mexico, Egypt, Israel and New Zealand (35 events, 4600 people in attendance)

• Global training: Panama (several Central American countries represented) and our own International Leadership Summit where we hosted creative outreach leaders from 13 countries representing all six populated continents

• Eight Summer Project Bands; our first ever film team during a summer project

• Continued partnership with the Impact movement (reaching out to African American students) and a new partnership with Destino (Campus Crusade’s outreach to Latino students)

• More than 400 concerts; nearly 70,000 lives touched and almost 3,000 decisions for Christ!

As we close 2008 and look to 2009, we wanted to leave you with a video greeting from our house to yours!

Have a very Merry Christmas! We look forward to more ministry highlights in 2009!

Merry Christmas from the Utts!

[click on the picture to see the full-sized card]