Daniel’s Latest

So I’m sitting in the Jamgochain living room on our last night here in Reading, MA. Wow, it’s hard to believe that a week ago, Jaime-Jam & I boarded a plane to head up to New England for the first leg of our Moments of Worship Tour. I’ve gotta be honest…this trip has absolutely flown by; but God has been so good to us. What a way to kick off this year’s tour; and to recap this week, here’s a new “little” blog!

As some of you may know, Jaime is from the Boston area, so it made perfect sense for the two of us to stay with her folks while we were here. Now I have never stayed with a family from here, so I had no idea what to expect. However, I’ve gotta say, the Jamgochians have been amazing hosts & made me feel right at home. As busy as our days have been, our evenings have been nice & restful because of them.

Now, Jaime & I have had very little down time while we’ve been here. We played on Tuesday for a Women’s Bible Study in Lexington, MA. where we saw & met almost 400 women. Now that’s a lot of ladies in one room (the men included a husband or two, myself & the sound guy…talk about a lot of estrogen in one room – hahaha). On Thursday, we played for another ministry called Mom To Mom (you guessed it…all ladies once again); but we had a wonderful time. I’ve done several things with this ministry over the years and I LOVE the chance to reconnect with all the moms. Each time I visit, I feel like I walk away with a few hundred more moms here in New England – hahaha!

Friday was another pretty full day. We began the day by playing for Jaime’s 100 year old Nana at her assisted living condo. That was such a fun lunch…getting to meet so many men & women & hearing some of their stories about life. I for one was excited that the audience had balanced itself out between the ladies and the guys! That evening we had yet another well balanced audience (hahaha). We played a concert for Trinity Evangelical Church in North Reading, MA. Talk about an amazing turnout; we had just over 350 people!!! One really amazing story came from the concert that night:

To give a quick background:
Here in New England, people aren’t using air conditioning QUITE yet (and being from the south where humidity is king…that’s quite an odd thing to me); so when we got to church, we were informed to keep things cool, they were going to open up all the windows. So the concert begins…windows open and a wonderful breeze blowing through the sanctuary. It was nice! At one point (I’m guessing somewhere around the half way point) a lady just came in off the street. She had been been out walking her dog and had heard the music playing from the open windows. Out of curiosity from what she heard, she wandered into the church. For me, the coolest part of the night (and maybe the trip) was seeing the pastor of Trinity praying for that same lady at the end of the concert.

Saturday we had a great time at a local Christian bookstore called Christian Book & Supply in Burlington, MA. You can check them out here: www.christianbookandsupply.com They were very hospitable & we had the chance to meet so many people who were there were shopping for a “last minute” Mother’s Day gift or two (a BIG thanks to those who purchased our albums for that gift – hehe). That night, Jaime’s folks treated us all to dinner at a killer restaurant up in Salem, MA. I had my first taste of haddock (I think it’s now my favorite fish…mmm-mmm good!!!)

So yesterday was Mother’s Day (I hope everyone remembered to call their Moms); obviously, I missed being with my Mom on her special day. As hard as that was, Jaime & I were given the chance to lead worship together at one of the largest churches here in the New England area. This all went down a bit last minute (nothing we had planned before the trip) and we had an absolute BLAST. So a BIG thanks to all the pastoral & support staff as well as the band that learned a couple of new tunes on the fly. You guys were AMAZING!!! If any of y’all find your way to Lexington, MA (or the Boston area at all) – you should really check out Grace Chapel (www.grace.org).

After the 3 services, Jaime & I returned home. Jaime’s Grammy made an AMAZING spread of homemade Italian. We’re talking baked lasagna, chicken parmesian, eggplant parmesian, meat balls (of which I’ve eaten my weight in) & sausages. Of course, I was expected to eat everything…and I gladly obliged. I have never been so pleasantly full in my life. We’re talking so full that I could barely move or leave the table – HAHA! i have since referred to the aftermath as my Italian Food Coma – HAHA. Needless to say, I slept REALLY well last night.

That brings us to our last full day here in MA (I’m pretty bummed that it’s already here). In fact, I’m writing this just as Jaime & I are getting ready to head into the city for a little excursion. I can’t wait to hop on “The T”. She wants to show me Berklee’s campus (where she graduated from college) as well as hit up the local Apple Store down on Newberry Street. If I’m being honest with you guys, I’m also excited about the Apple store. In fact, I hear it’s the biggest in the world… I’m smiling already!!! We’re also gonna try and shoot a little video blog while we’re there. We’ll see if it turns out…

Tomorrow Jaime & I board our flight back to Nashville. I can’t help but think I’ve lost a bit of my Southern accent while being here. Jaime actually called me out on a word just today. Uh-oh…could I have really picked up a Bostonian accent in a week?!?! HAHA!!! I guess I’m ready to make it back down South; it’s been almost 3 weeks and while I hate I’m leaving here, I’m feeling excited about getting reconnected back with some friends I haven’t seen in what feels like forever. I hope you each have had a great week & I’ll talk with y’all soon!

Blessings,
Daniel

www.danielkirkley.com
www.momentsofworship.com