EveryMoment: a blog, a video blog, a photo blog and any other type of log of the life of tracy apps. every moment in life is a gift

goodbye milwaukee. i’ll see ya tomorrow night

it’s been an awesome time here in milwaukee… it was so refreshing to have this time, where i could be crazy with my crazy friends, and be refilled with God’s amazing love through them! God has blessed me tremendously with some of the most awesome friends and family in the world! (just ask me… i’ll prove it to ya :P) today we drive to blufton, indiana, and tomorrow we drive to spend the day in chicago. and again… to show how cool my friends are, amy and cari are driving down to chicago to pick me up and bring me back to milwaukee tomorrow night.

so anyways.. i should get going. i have to pack up the computer!

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my friends are cooler.
and God is even cooler still.

so it’s monday. last night we had a concert in mequon, and i didn’t find out until almost 4pm that it was an open concert. i made one or two calls…. and three hours later, all these crazy friends of mine show up at the concert. then after hanging out at the church, we went to amy’s house for a bonfire. it was so much fun! man i love all these people!

and now i am sitting on my bed… with two laptops up and running (well… actually i’m accessing both computers from one computer… man i love wireless networks!) -o- … and amy just called me… just to tell me that she’s walking in my door right now. heh. i love it. alright. i’m going now. :P

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nothing too big here.. just a quick post to tell you… I’M IN MILWAUKEE!!!

if you couldn’t tell.. i’m so excited… i could pee… tonight we played an outdoor concert at ucm, and then we went to krispy kreme, and then bowling. now it’s time to play with my good ole 17′ powerbook. *waves* YAY FOR MILWAUKEE!!

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yep. it worked. we are in iowa. our van, on the other hand, is still in michigan, but thanks to a rental SUV, we are now in waverly. we made it safely… had to change ANOTHER trailer tire… but this time we caught it BEFORE a blow-out.

but i’m exausted. i’m off to bed. just wanted to post a quick update!

(and ps…. notice up at the top.. right under the title graphic… yea. that text… it’s now random. hit ‘reload’ a couple times to see new “quotes” at the top. enjoy! and if you have any more funny ideas for text to put up there.. please leave it in the comments… i might just add it to the random list.)

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so here we are, in holland, michigan. it’s almost 1:00pm, and we were scheduled to leave at 10:00am. we had a lock in and program last night, but as we pulled in, our van was acting even stranger than normal. it was shaking, not accelerating well, and basically making the craziest noises that made us wonder if we would reach our destination. so as soon as we got in and unloaded everything, we took the van in to have it checked out. well, we just found out in the past hour that it’s a more major problem, that cannot be fixed until tomorrow afternoon. this is a problem since we have a concert in IOWA tomorrow. we were supposed to make the 9 hour trek to waverly today… but now that is impossible without a vehicle. so right now, we have been so graciously been given a nice, air conditioned house to relax, eat, shower, sleep, watch movies and check our email in. the generosity of people we meet is always a blessing. but because of this van situation, it doesn’t look like we will get to lisa’s home church at all. it would not only be the first ‘canceled concert’ for wmd, but also a really sad thing for lisa…. since we are supposed to be playing at her home church tomorrow. as of right now, it looks like we won’t be making it to iowa, unless some miracle. we are praying.. if you would like to join us.. please do. the only way i can think of us making it to iowa would be renting a car… but then i would be the only one who could drive it… so that doesn’t sound possible to drive 9 hours with only one driver. it also would be expensive. i don’t know if youth encounter can afford such an expense… ESPECIALLY since we had to do that already once this year (when our van was stolen in october.) so as you can see.. we may be stuck in holland. bummer (no offense to holland, because it IS beautiful here! and the people have been so accommodating to us, even under such short notice)

but God is good… His plan is the best… there is most likely a really good reason for this trial….

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welcome to battle creek michigan…

thanks julia for driving to battle creek to hang out with a fellow nerd! you rock!

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yep. twenty-five days left of team. that’s all i have to say about that.

hey. anyone in the minneapolis area… come to our last concert! here’s an advertisement for that: (click for larger)

in other news. i talked to amber from kindred and found out that they recently were on ‘the price is right’ and sarah won a piano.. AND kissed bob barker.

oh.. and we’ll be in milwauke on saturday. and saturday is five days away….

ok. now it’s time for bed.

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*note* i wrote this the other night (7/16/04)… and just got an internet connection to post it.

what a day.
i had a late night last night getting pictures done and online from our week in catasauqua… then up early in the morning (well.. we left around 9:30am) to say our final goodbyes to our host families in catty… then we hit the road. while i was taking a nap in the back of the van, i suddenly awakened to the van being stopped along the side of the road. “what’s going on?!” “the trailer blew a tire and the wheel well is down the road.” “oh.”

yes. we finally got to use that spare tire that has been floating around the back of our trailer. it was pretty funny to see john walking along the side of the freeway with the fender from over the trailer wheels. and what was i think the most humorous part of this adventure, was the fact that there was another car, broken down, on the side of the road, RIGHT behind us! as john was changing the trailer tire, i took pictures (obviously… ) and a tow truck came to pick up the car behind us, john thought of the idea “stuckalongsidetheroad.com”, and then we hit the road again.

back to sleep for me.

then i wake up, a couple more times for gas stops and potty breaks… and finally around 3pm we reach our next destination. we played two programs at a juvenile detention center and shelter. we had been here earlier in our tour (and i mean REALLY earlier… it was within the first month of us traveling together as watermark) and when i heard that we were going back, i couldn’t have been more excited! i remember the first time we went there, i was so scared, confused and couldn’t figure out WHY we would be playing THERE. how in the WORLD could God use us in a place like that? well, God completely rocked my socks off last time, and sure enough.. He did it again. i just had so much fun talking to several of the girls from the shelter and detention groups. we played some old songs that we hadn’t played in a while.. and all went well. it was just such an awesome time hanging out with those kids. i haven’t laughed that hard in quite some time. and i am STILL amazed at how God can use us in situations like that. how walls can be broken down and instead of seeing the ‘hard’, emotionless and/or angry kids from a juvey hall… seeing the heart of some of God’s precious creations… just going through some crazy times. (yet, no ‘crazy time’ is too big for God… which is pretty darn cool.) all i could say as we pulled away from there was, “man… i love those kids.” and to think, God loves them even more.

so leaving there, it was after 9:30pm. now we have an hour drive to the camp where we are sleeping. well… we found the camp with no problems… but finding someone FROM the camp to get information from… well.. THAT was a different story! so now i am typing this on my computer (no internet access though.. sad day on my face) from a room in the conference center… that i can tell someone just ‘moved out’ of it… because we have NO idea of where we are supposed to be. but anyways… that’s my day. hopefully i’ll get a chance to post this soon.
night!

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you don’t believe me? check out the pictures from this week’s vbs here in catasauqua.

welp.. i should get to bed. we go back to a more ‘normal’ schedule now. no more relaxing at one place for a whole week, back to lots of driving, concerts, and less free time. but hey, we have been spoiled this past four weeks! and just to think.. in a week.. we’ll be in milwaukee. huh.

oh. speaking of milwaukee… i talked to amy on the phone, and i learned that we (watermark) have been advertised on 105.3 – the fish. i love it. i guess the commercial said something about ‘watermark, with former fish intern’… heh. man i love all those crazy people at the fish. i miss ‘working’ with them, but i must say it’s nice to have connections in radio. what a wealth of knowledge they are.

and for all yous in milwaukee (man.. i’ve been in pennsylvania too long… i’m starting to use the word “yous”) watermark is coming, and coming in force. (well.. not really.. but we will be playing a couple times around milwaukee… same thing) here’s the dates of the shows that you MUST see:

-july 24 @ 5:00-7:00pm we will be playing an outdoor acoustic program at the ucm center (right across the street from the uwm union.)
-july 25 @ 10:00am we will be playing music at westminster presbyterian church (about seven blocks south of uwm. on the corner of farwell and belleview)
-august 4 @ 7:00pm we will be playing at king of glory lutheran church (in greenfield, wisconsin) [map]

alright. now i REALLY am going to go to bed!

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