What's next?

We're on tour with the band for the summer. Read about it on "A Cold Pint of Canadian Adventure" (working title) at pleisenhauertour.blogspot.com!

Cheers.

Appeal

Have you ever observed the phenomenon that occurs when one owns a digital camera for some years? Namely, this is that one goes back after a while, and—hopefully—gets to go through thousands upon thousands of pictures from recent… months, and one finds that, in a thousand pictures, one has maybe a hundred good ones, and none of them have their friends in them! I just got around to organizing our 8-month archive of digital photographs from Ireland, and this was true for me. So, I just want to say that, if you happen to be from Ireland, and you know us, and if you took any pictures of, say, anything that might have vaguely involved us, or that we might appreciate to look at, such as yourselves, then we would be most obliged and ecstatic and all that if you would maybe put some of those pictures on a CD and just pop them in the mail for us! We would be so thankful. Cheerio.

Memo

To all our readers, including the lurkers, the active contributors, our family, our friends, those who still occasionally check our blog with the smallest hope of an update, and those who have fallen away.

Thank you, our supporters and friends, for the most incredible eight months of our lives to date. We left Ireland--Swords, the church, Tim, Eric & Donna, and all the youth that we have come to love--with much sorrow, much hope, and much anticipation for what is to come this summer and beyond. We felt like there was so much more to be done, like we were just getting started, like we were finally getting to know people, and like God was finally using us in others' lives; but at the same time, we felt so privileged to have simply known the Irish, to have spoken into their lives and to have them speak into our lives, to see the way the Spirit moves around the world, and to experience that the God of Ireland is the God of our own church and our lives as well--the fellowship that we shared with these folks was the best part of our eight months in Ireland. Please, if you talk with the Lord regularly, do remember the youth in Swords--whose names are many--the youth pastor, Tim, and those who sacrifice their time every week for this work: Eric & Donna, Nev & Hazel, Liz, Alice, and perhaps others by now. Pray that they will continue to grow in their knowledge of God and their commitment to Him, and that, through them, His name will be known in Ireland.

In other matters, our four-week vacation in France, Spain and Italy was a much-needed getaway, a blessing from God, and not at all funded by missions money. Don't ask for pictures though! We have little more than our memories, and several hours of video footage (thank you Eric & Donna, again!).

During the month of April, we visited our beloved niece & nephew (and their parents too) in Beaverton, ON, as well as the family in Manitoba. Good times and many laughs were shared, Canasta and provocative word games were played, lost pounds were regained, overweight bags were packed and re-packed, and disaster in Heathrow was averted! We are now in Gold River with Ashleigh's parents for two weeks. I am relishing the fresh, rainy, mountain air and the overwhelming green-ness.

Speaking of Ness, three months of our summer (constituting nearly the whole) will be spent in a camper van on the roads of Canada with my wife and my bandmates, Jeremy Eisenhauer, Sheree Eisenhauer (Plett), Jordan Ness, and Jeremy Penner. We are coming to a church or coffee shop near you! Visit Wallow Records for dates, links, and further details. Our first show is at the History Maker Festival in Chilliwack, BC, on May 19th at 12:00 PM. If you're in the area, come and say hi! We may or may not be setting up a tour blog; if so, we will of course link to it from this page in the next two weeks.

Cheerio for now! God bless!

Jordan Dueck

Europe Train Travel March Madness!

Hi all. It's been a long month, and I just can't get into it all now. Let's just say, it's been good, God has really blessed us, and we'll write something really substantial when we're back from our awesome holiday. That way we get loads to time to let everything sink in. Thank you everyone for reading. Don't expect anything until after 27 March, please. God bless you all! Good bye for now!

Calendar our travel plans for March.

End days.

So... it really has been a month, hasn't it? I suppose we got a little less than enthusiastic about blogging during these end days, for many reasons. Busyness is the big one, and it's everywhere, in every little corner of our lives, coming through every door and spilling out of every cupboard. We don't get much time to open the windows, which is sad because we have had some gorgeous weather lately. Some days, it is incredibly springy, other days feel like autumn... and then there was February 8th, the day we went to Dublin to get our visas renewed (it worked!), and it snowed all day. It was a day of mess and slush and wind and cold in the midst of an otherwise tropical February. Figures. So, since we have Irish visas until the beginning of April, we really do get to go to Europe. Until then, we were kind of thinking that this dream was going to go all Heathrow on us--let the reader understand--like every other plan does. So, it's happening, and now we actually have to get everything planned out. Yes, of course we started that a long time ago! Why would we be finished yet? There's far too much else to do besides!

A few highlights and lowlights from the past weeks: Last Sunday was a special "Youth Sunday." We have around three, maybe four, times a year, so they're meant to be unique, special, and very youth oriented. What happened last Youth Sunday? Nothing special really, except that the youth pastor preached--nothing wrong with that, but not terribly different. So Tim and I decided that this one would be different. It was quite amazing to see how it came together from its conception to its realization. The most unorthodox bit of it was either the liturgy, the photo-acting, or the musical reflection pieces. There was a worship band, as usual, though it was unusually good. We read about 14 lines of "His love endures forever," as well as the entire story of Jonah. Tim came through in the early hours of the morning to deliver a fine sermon, which just tied the whole service together beautifully around the theme of God's great compassion. There was some spontaneous open worship from the congregation, which was quite a blessing to be a part of, and then Foy Vance sang "An Indiscriminate Act of Kindness" to cap off the morning, accompanied by an artistic slideshow of Swords put together by Dave Wiley which, I'll admit, brought a tear to my eye.

As for the lowlights: Ash fell ill this last weekend and had a sudden craving for Tater Tots. Fortunately I found a suitable substitute, or Ireland's dynamic equivalent: Croquettes. It sounds French, but it really isn't. Also, we're going to miss our cat. Finally, last Saturday night's Impact was very nearly a big, worrying disaster. The idea was that everyone is too busy to arrange a Bible study, so let's just watch a good ol' film, something clean, and rated for 12 year-olds, just to be sure. Like Adam Sandler's Click. We really thought it would get better, but 25 minutes into it, we were all blushing and cringing and exchanging meaningful glances, and finally Eric said, "Well, I think that's enough of that." So we played a game. But it was the saddest thing, to find that a film that was rated for 12 year-olds wouldn't pass our very reasonable filters!

That's all I've got to say right now, because I need to get back to other work. By the way, does anybody else still have a shelf full of leftover Christmas sweets?