Rise & Shine

Andy's been writing songs for a new record (which should be out in about 6 months) and he introduced one to our church yesterday: Rise & Shine. Each fall, our church goes through a Vision Series to get everybody on the same page about our call to live on mission in the CITY & for the NATIONS. This Sunday, Matt kicked off the vision series with a challenge to us from Acts 1:8. He asked: What did a 1st century Christian look like? And do we, today, look anything like that? It was convicting and powerful.

Andy thought the message was a good fit to roll out the new song because the idea of it is-- it's time for us Christians to step up and be the hands and feet of Christ. To download a free copy of the song, click here. I am so proud of Andy. This song really resonates with my spirit and where God has me lately. But I also believe it will speak to a whole generation of Christians out there who are feeling the itch to rise & shine! I also recommend you listen to Matt's sermon: Powerful Witness of the Resurrection (click here)-- you will be stirred.

Here's the lyrics to the new song too...

Rise & Shine (by Andy Melvin)
We were once Your enemy
Now displayers of Your mercy
Called from darkness into light
To be the very hands and feet of Christ
So in the Name that saves
Let Your love ignite a flame in us

We've got rise and shine
We've got to rise and shine
The light of the world alive in us
The hope of the world alive in us
We've got to rise and shine

To you repairers of the breach
To you restorers of these broken streets
For every hungry tongue
For all injustice done beneath the sun

We've got to rise and shine
The light of the world alive in us
The hope of the world alive in us
We've got to rise and shine

For the hopeless and the weary
For the broken and the needy
For Your glory, send Your Spirit
And let it rise

Andy's "Nothing Compares" Video

I am so proud of my sweet husband, Andy Melvin... He has given his life to the service of the Church by using his talents as a musician & songwriter to lead believers in worship through song! This is a video of one of the church services at Austin Stone Community Church this summer. The song is one of Andy's originals off his most recent album, The Human Engine Waits (available on itunes). This video captures our church body in praise as we corporately sing "Nothing Compares."

Here are the lyrics...

Forgive me Lord when I rely
On anything else but Your life in mine
All the vain things I held so high
I count it as loss

Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing You
Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing You
And it keeps drawing me in
And it's stirring my soul to know You more

Forgetting what lies behind
I'm reaching for the prize
The upward call of Christ
I'm reaching for You

Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing You
Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing You
And it keeps drawing me in
And it's stirring my soul to know You more

Cause You're my hope, You're my goal
You're all I'm striving for
You're my strength and my peace
You're everything I need
Nothing compares to You

Feel free to put the video up on your blog, or Facebook, etc... you can get the embed-code off youtube.com or vimeo.com.

Turkey T-shirts For Sale!

Andy & the band are going to Turkey in September... and to help raise money to cover costs, we are selling T-SHIRTS! The text says "God loves Türkiye" (which is the Turkish spelling of Turkey) and the crescent & star above the wording is from their flag. The design is printed on American Apparel shirts. Cost is $20 each.
If you are interested in buying a T-shirt, shoot me an email a t x a n n a @ g m a i l . c o m with the following info:

QUANTITY:
COLOR: (red or black)
SIZE:

Orders need to be received by MONDAY, August 10th.

Update on JOE

For those of you wondering about an update on JOE, Andy's guitar player who was in the wreck 2 days before we were scheduled to leave for Turkey, here's the latest:

Joe had surgery on Oct 28th to reconstruct his busted up arm/wrist combo. Just yesterday he got his cast off and stitches removed! YEAH! This is the aftermath...
(FYI, that is Lucky in the background running away from the "scary" bionic arm-- he's such a wimp!) They gave him a pretty, flesh-colored brace to keep his little arm safe while it is still healing. I took a short video of him demonstrating how far he can move and manipulate his wrist so far, but stupid Blogger won't let me upload it! But the short of it is: not very much. Certainly can't move it enough yet to play guitar. However, Joe's determined to wiggle and stretch that sucker as hard as he can to get back into playing mode.

Underneath that tape is lots of metal! Permanent fixtures in Joe's new bionic arm. He has several screws and plates intalled while under the knife.

For those of you who would like to help Joe by pitching in to pay for his medical costs and car loan (the insurance isn't covering it and he had a loan out on his car), you can send any contributions to "AUSTIN STONE" (put nothing in the memo line), care of Andy & I. Just shoot me an email (a t x a n n a @ g m a i l DOT c o m) and I will send you our address. We will be collecting funds to help him cover his costs and will turn them in to the church in one big pot. So far, we're looking at around $15,000 (ouch!!!!).

The Road to Turkey (A Journey Delayed)

Today was our departure for Turkey. But here I sit in Dominican Joe’s sipping my favorite vanilla latte and checking emails. I haven’t written much about our trip to Turkey on this blog because, well, there’s not a whole lot I can say (so excuse me if even this post seems incomplete in explanation). Bottom line, Andy & the band (Rufus McGovern) were going over to play some concerts in clubs (or as a Turk would call ‘em, “Rock Bars”) and we made the decision to post-pone our trip after Joe (the guitar player) was in an accident Sunday that left him with a broken arm.

We’ve been working with our Turkish friends, planning this trip since spring. So today is bittersweet, knowing that the plane we were to be on is now flying en route to the land that we have been longing for. The verse I have been clinging to from the Bible is Proverbs 16:9—“In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

There has been a lot of turmoil surrounding this trip for the last 6 weeks and I feel I have inappropriately questioned God through it. I repeatedly wondered, “Is this God trying tell us to delay our trip for our own good, or is this the enemy trying to prevent us from going?” However, that mindset negates that God is ALWAYS in control. Today, I can tell God I am sorry for questioning Him, and ask Him to refuel my trust in His plans for my life.

If we had just been experiencing these trials in general daily life (without a trip on the horizon), I wonder if I would have been filtering them the same way? I think the fact that we had a decision to make—“to go or to not go?”—really muddied my interpretation of the attacks we were experiencing. Because I kept wondering, “should THIS affect our decision?” or “is THIS supposed to change our plans?” etc, I was forgetting to FIRST apply the truth that I believe as a follower of Christ, which is: God is the author of all things.

As Michelle gently reminded me on Sunday, “it would be ‘mystical’ to wonder who was causing these things to happen, and followers of Jesus are not mystics—we believe He is always, sovereignly, in control.” Her comment helped to redirect my affections to God. Instead of wondering, “By what hand are these afflictions?” and having that influence our choices, our doubt, and even our joy, I should have grounded myself in who I know God to be.

I went to the Desiring God Regional Conference this weekend, on the subject of JOB: When the Righteous Suffer. A few things that stood out to me, and NOW feel I could apply to these current circumstances, are this:

1) Even if God allows Satan to test us, the enemy is ultimately only the middle man (for lack of a better description). I had always read the book of Job thinking it was the enemy afflicting Job with God’s permission. But even JOB, himself, viewed GOD as the author of his trials.

2) Suffering: the devil uses it to accomplish his goal of ruining your faith, and God uses it to accomplish His goal of strengthening your faith.

3) “Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive adversity?” (from Job 2:10)

4) Spoken from God’s perspective: I don’t use my power capriciously—I have a purpose in all that I do.

5) God is doing 10,000+ things in your life at one time—not just one or two. Even though you may only see one or two or ten at a time, He’s still doing 10,000+. When you are suffering, consider that you only have a glimpse of God’s big picture for you.

My friend, Fabs, also sent me an encouraging email reminding me of good truths in the midst of things that are hard to understand: “I’m sure you feel like all your plans are slipping away… but no plan has been lost. God is on His throne and all plans are just being executed by a hand too mighty to be seen and too kind to let us make our own plans… God has prepared good works for us to do, and He will be faithful to see that we do them to the best of our ability…” I can only add: IN HIS TIMING He will work in us to accomplish the plans He’s set aside for us to accomplish. Not my timing.

For now, we are left to increase our affections for Turkey from right here in Austin.

Turkey in Pictures

I thought posting some of my favorite pictures from our trip would be a cool way to share our trip with you. Turkey is beautiful and we loved spending time with old friends while we were there... and making lots of new friends too! The rumors are so true-- Turks are the most hospitable people on the planet! Enjoy the snapshots...

This is the view out the window of our hotel in Izmir.

This is the sunset view over the Bosphorus from the rooftop resturant in our hotel in Istanbul.

Andy walking into the church of our good friends in Izmir for a Sunday service.

Andy and Umut hitting the music stores to check out gear that we could maybe rent in Izmir.

A tile mural of Izmir's coastline at the ferry station.

The Turkish flag is EVERYWHERE in Turkey. This one is hanging off the back of the ferry boat in Izmir.

Anna with Umut's mom when she had us over for afternoon tea and looking through Umut's baby pictures! (Izmir)

Andy and Anna with our new friends from Izmir, Ugur and Bahar! They joined us for several nights of hitting the rock bars looking for live Turkish music and also had us over one afternoon for lunch in their home.

Andy leaving the underground office of a rock bar in Izmir where he was meeting with the club owner. It was a tiny gnome door beneath the club itself. You couldn't even stand up straight in the little room.

Our friend Fikret getting mad at Andy for putting on a Galatasary hat at dinner. (see post on "Andy Found Himself in the Middle of a War").

Hakan and Nemruze were some friends we made while in Izmir. They had just gotten married 3 days ago! Here, I captured them flirting with each other in young love. They joined us one night to go hear live music.

The view from our hotel balcony in Izmir provided us a bird's eye view of a Turkish wedding one night on the roof of the parking garage across the street. The service area was on the floor beneath. The reception lasted well into the night. We were so glad to get to at least see this from afar.

A busy street scene in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul. This was Monday night at 10:30pm and it was bustling with people and life!

The view out of our hotel room in Istanbul. You can see the famous Bosphorus in the background.

Candid capture of Umut during a meeting with a rock bar owner in Istanbul. He was SUCH A HELP to us while we were there!

A cityview of the Bazaar Quarter area of Istanbul as seen from our hotel restaurant. Pictured in the foreground is the "Suleymaniye Mosque".

On our ferry ride to the "Asian Side" of Istanbul (from the "European Side" where we stayed).

Andy and I in front of the Galata Tower just in front of our hotel in Istanbul. This is the famed Tower where the first man who attached wings to his arms to test out flying jumped from in the 1700s.

Galata Tower lit at night through the glass roof of the resturant in our hotel. (Istanbul)

Andy and Umut EXHAUSTED and waiting for our flight in the Istanbul airport. This is the day before our return to the states and we had worn ourselves out!

Even in Turkey, Some Things Stay the Same

** Andy can be “just a music dude” in any country… He finds music stores like they have a honing beacon, he quickly befriends musicians walking on the street, he bonds instantly in conversations with artists, and he walks right up to the coolest looking instrument in a store and picks it up to start playing. Below, he is playing the Turkish Saz.

** Anna can feel equally as uncool around artists in Turkey as she does back home… being married to Andy definitely sets me up to be the lesser “hip” in the relationship. But because he’s married to me, Andy fondly overlooks the nerd within me. However, when we hang around with his other artist friends, they are not obligated to like me and therefore provide a great deal of intimidation to me. I know I don’t dress as cool or understand much of what the conversations are about, but I can smile and nod and pretend I am not feeling like the biggest tool on the planet. For example, one of the club promoters we met in Turkey was a girl: She had dyed purple hair, tattoos all over, cool ear peircings, wore cool clothes, smoked Marlboro Reds, wore green eye shadow, and was a size zero… juxtapose me: wearing black Old Navy Capri pants with a short sleeve button down shirt with puffy sleeves (it was my cool day), no tats, no piercings, plain brown hair, drinking bottled water, and feeling very uninteresting. Oh well. One club promoter asked me if I was a Mormon because he’d never seen such a laughably boring outfit on a club goer. I felt cool!

** Mini-bars prices are just as expensive as in America… after our first hotel stay in Izmir, we found that ONE (mini) Toblerone candy bar and one Turkish beer costs $30. Good to know (sadly, after the fact)!

** Racial profiling exists in Turkey too... on our first night in Turkey our friend took us to a mall for dinner. At the entrance they had a security checkpoint set up like you see at the airport. You put your bag/items on the conveyor belt to be Xray'd then you walk through a metal detector to get in. All three of us (1 Turk and 2 Americans, plus the people after us) sent the detector a'buzzing, but our Turkish friend just kept walking into the mall. Andy and I stopped to get wanded, but nobody official even looked in our direction. Then our friend explains "they do racial profiling here too, they'll only stop you if you look Arab." That made me sad.

** Boys, in today’s high-tech times, will email and chat each other from laptops in the same room… I have seen Andy do this before in our house. His best friend Shawn came to visit one time and we spent the night watching YouTube videos and them chatting online while sitting on opposite couches. I thought this was random, and perhaps just reserved for their relationship. But I’ve now seen Andy and his Turkish friend Umut “facebook chat” each other while in neighboring rooms. Guys—you are just a few short steps away, why with the computer already?!

On the flip side, here are just a few things that are quite DIFFERENT in Turkey: 1) McDonald’s delivers. Yep, you heard me. Even milkshakes. 2) Andy, who normally would punch a boy for snuggling him or tickling him or messing with his body, actually lets Turks touch him. I watched him get tickled on the stomach, hugged on, snuggled up against, even tapped on the back… all of which is very out of the ordinary for Andy (but American boys would probably still get punched, so be warned). He says he’s just embracing a cultural difference of male affection in Turkey. Finally, 3) Turkey is a walking culture, Austin is not… which resulted in me getting ELEVEN blisters and one ripped toenail. Just for the record.