Please forgive me for more teasing, but I must share this. Last night I received the book proposal from our Ghost Writer and good friend. I read for an hour. I wept as my eyes moved over the words. I did not weep as a father alone. I cried at how humbling it is to read the words of one so young, and yet so mature. Reading BJ's writing in the format that it may ultimately come into print was an unbelievable experience. Seeing how our friend has outlined chapters, and poured herself into pulling all of this together is very moving. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

And since I am teasing already, we have received the finished version of the MercyMe song "Die for You." For those of you who have heard it, now the London Symphony Orchestra has been added. It is truly amazing to hear. How their music impacts the song is quite inspiring! It is almost 6 minutes and thirty seconds long. The cd comes out April 25th, but you can already pre-order it. Bart graciously asked me to write a letter which will be included on the cd jacket to help explain the connection. I'm sure it will be tiny, so have your glasses ready (I always struggle to read what's on cd jackets, but I do read them).

In case I haven't told you, 8 cents from each cd sold will fund a scholarship which will send others to take BJ's place on the mission field. Bart has asked us to partner with them in distributing those funds. What an incredible privilege, and significant task!

My friend (and BJ's) Eric who blogged yesterday, and a young lady from Mingo Valley Christian School are two of the most recent individuals who have signed up to take BJ's place. Eric shared that he is heading to Chile, Lord willing! The young lady? God called her directly to take BJ's place in Peru, so she is going! You guys are my hero's!!! They are both going with AweStar.

We want to hear from more of you whom God has called to take his place. It has a ginormous (or is it egantic?) impact on us, and is such encouragement! (Is that too selfish?)


I was recently visiting BJ's friend Jack's xanga site, and found the following posted. It is BJ's top 10 things he wished to do before he died:

1. Make sure that my friends that aren't Christians get saved
2. Get married to a wonderful Christian girl and have (preferably) 3 kids (at least one boy [gotta keep the family name goin! lol])
3. Go on at least 5 international mission trips
4. Make at least 1-2 CD's with my band Ice to Fire
5. Become a full-time Minister/Missionary alongside Taylor DeBaun
6. Write at least 2 impacting books
7. Get two dogs
8. Live on a big piece of land and have horses
9. See Highland Lakes (my dad's camp) become and AWESOME Christian retreat camp like InPursuit or Windermere
10. In everything I do GLORIFY GOD (I won't reach this goal because I'm human, but as Christians we're called to try anyway, so it is a goal of mine, even if I fall short)

We just never know how much time we have. Setting goals is important, but living for Christ in the moment is what we must learn to do. Lord God, I pray that we each bring you glory in this day!

dad

YOU CAN PRE-ORDER MERCYME'S NEW CD WITH "DIE FOR YOU" ON IT BY GOING TO mercyme.org