Fortunately/Unfortunately ...

I distinctly remember being in grade 2, sitting in a circle with my classmates, with my teacher reading a book to us to teach us the meaning of the words "Fortunately" and "Unfortunately". It was something about a man who ... "Fortunately got to take a ride in a hot air balloon. Unfortunately the balloon failed and began falling. Fortunately it landed on something soft". You get the idea!

Well ... the last couple of weeks have gone something like that! Fortunately we planned a great fundraiser at our home church to raise the money to finish the new album my hubby is working on. We had some great things planned for the concert. Unfortunately on the morning before the concert, the company we were getting the snow machine from called to say the snow machine wasn't working. Fortunately we were able to locate another one on the morning of the concert. It was on a truck travelling on the 401 and had already passed Belleville, but fortunately the driver agreed to pull off and drive back to Belleville to drop the machine off! Fortunately we had some great help getting the concert to run smoothly. Jeff and Carolann McCann have joined our team and they were instrumental in getting out the advertising, securing the snowmachine, helping serve coffee and cheesecake prior to the concert and making sure the concert was LIVE via the internet. Fortunately all aspects of the concert seemed to run smoothly. Unfortunately we came in quite a bit shorter financially than we had hoped.

Fortunately we had a completely uneventful drive to Charlottetown over the next couple of days. Fortunately the guitar player, Tom Vitacco from Chicago (worship pastor at Willowcreek) arrived just fine as well. Unfortunately the plane our producer, Dan Cutrona, took from Toronto was delayed by two hours.

Fortunately Tom spent the next two days laying down all the guitar parts to the drum and bass tracks Andrew and Dan had recorded in Toronto the previous week. Fortunately they sounded amazing! Unfortunately while Tom was flying home on Wednesday morning we discovered that somehow the hard drive would not transfer the guitar files! Unfortunately we spent the next two days trying to figure out what was wrong. We finally gave up! Fortunately Tom agreed to record the tracks in the Willowcreek studio and send them to us as soon as possible. Fortunately Andrew was able to add his vocals to the tracks over the next several days without any trouble.

We packed up and were ready to leave mid-afternoon on Monday, but decided to listen to what we had accomplished in 8 days first. The van was completely packed, the kids were ready to go and yet here we all sat in the studio listening to this incredible production! Words that come to mind are "stellar", "sensational" and "brilliant". We were all moved to tears. When we had finished listening, I honestly felt like I had been to the best concert in my life! Fortunately, you too will be able to enjoy this production in the spring of 2008! Andrew along with Dan Cutrona and Paul Milner are a winning team! I'm sure the Father was grinning from ear to ear!

Fortunately we live in the beautiful country of Canada. Unfortunately, if you are travelling in Canada in November you can expect to experience all kinds of weather within a 24 hour period. And we did!!! On the drive home we experienced dark clouds, sunny skies, heavy rain, fog, freezing rain and lots of snow! Fortunately we arrived home to our sparkling Christmas lights (see previous post!) without any trouble ... tired, but with a sense that we had accomplished what God had set before us to do.