Awesome vid!

Here is some footage of us playing at Festival Cassoria! Our awesome friend Dave put this together. He is soooo rad....

Here are two videos that our friend and fellow evangelist made about festival! You can see a few
shots of us working and playing in these!

Home Safe and Sound...

We thank God for protecting us on our journey and our time spent there!

We are home, and amazingly have all our persons and all our luggage. Promo spot, Air Canada is awesome! If you have been following our trip, thank you so much for your support, your interest, and your prayers. As long as we are aligned with God, He is able to use us. That was our purpose-statement for the time we spent in Italy building relationships, performing, and doing our part in expanding the Kingdom of God. Thanks!

-Derek

A few more pics from the final night!

The Konz boys with our good friends from the sound crew! Such cool guys, we'll miss em!



A view from stage on the final night.



A great view of most of Festival Casoria on the grounds of Palacasoria.

A shot of the large sunday crowed during the early evening.

Sunday September 13th, 2009

September 13th, 2009 Sunday: Final Day of Festival!
Today, like the other Sundays was nearly the same. Previous weeks we have simply gone downstairs to the sanctuary of the church we have been staying in Casoria for the service. Today we went to the sister church located in Arzano, which is the next suburb over. Drew, David, and I jammed along with their worship team and then played Come Thou Fount for the congregation. After the service we separated into three groups and met up with our host families for pranzo. Pranzo at our host family was wonderful and we had a great time communicating and translating over the 3-hour meal. We left a few minutes early to get back to the church and began preparing for our final performance of the tour. We worked out another rocking set-list, loaded up, and headed to Festival. We were privileged to have Franco Altieri open for us. We did a input check, and got into it straightaway. About 4 songs into our set, we were informed we could only play one more tune. We just as quickly adapted, and played two more songs to finish strong. The crowed tonight was the largest of the whole festival and although it was short, it was truly a blast to play for and it also seemed to have the most people come forward during the invitation for salvation. Afterwards we all helped tear down, and pack stuff in preparation for the following day. At roughly 11pm we headed out with 30 or so from our team for pizza (a typical meal time for us here).

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

September 12th, 2009 Saturday: 2nd to last night!
Yesterday some of the bands left to head back to the states, and tonight is our last night to share the stage with the amazing Brandon Bee band. Sound check was rushed and we were not very happy with the sound, but it was yet another opportunity to have an eternal perspective on our work. The longer we are here the more we have learned that, what is important is not the immediate effect of our work, but the overall effect which takes much longer and is often not visible to us. It has been said many times while we have been here, that our entire purpose for being over here could have been to influence just one person if that is what God wanted to have happen. Just think of the person that lead C.S. Lewis to salvation, or Billy Graham for that matter! What matters the most in this, is having an eternal perspective about the little frustrations, the upsets, and the way things never seem to go as planned. In the end, these irritations will be forgotten. Its difficult to give a clear picture of all of our experiences, because I typically just want to talk about the fun stuff and the good stuff that happens, but that is not an accurate representation of our full experience over here. I want it to be clear neither I nor any of the band is complaining, just letting you know that this is like any other mission trip where there are good and negative experiences. Let me end this day by saying this has been an incredible experience in all the different aspects and we are all very glad and grateful to have been able to be a part of what is happening here in Italy.

Friday September 11, 2009

September 11, 2009

First off, although we are in a foreign country surrounded by a foreign culture, and foreign people, our hearts and minds are remembering those lost on September 11th, 2001. We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all those in the US military protecting our individual freedoms, and for sacrificing so much, we truly appreciate all of you!!! No cliché little patriotic phrases, you have our utmost respect and gratitude! Thank you for serving.

Friday
The boys along with our good friend Trevor have been dreaming of climbing Mt. Vesuvius ever since we got to Naples. This morning was our only available opportunity to attempt this great adventure. We five brothers, plus Trevor, loaded into a van and head towards the famed mountain ready for a great adventure. We had some trouble finding the right trail, but soon stumbled upon it and made it to the top just in time. The amount of energy required to erupt and eject that much material is beyond belief. All that remains are sheer cliffs that make up the walls of the very deep crater. When we hurriedly left in the morning I had grabbed the only food available from the church, which turned out to be a breakfast pie thing, which we all devoured at the summit. We headed back to the church just in time for another great chapel service. Afterwards we all met for pranzo, which lasted several hours of great food and fellowship with the team.
Festival
Tonight we were the first band up, so we got right into setting up and sound checking. We enjoyed playing for some new friends we have met that attend the church we are staying at. After festival ended we met a some of our good friends on the mission team to do some swing dancing and play some games back at the church.