I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I hate fundraising. I always have. We’ve lived on the generous support of others for most of our days, continually balancing the tension between being very grateful and feeling very guilty. If you have ever raised support for a season of time – be it for vocational ministry or a short-term missions trip – you might understand what I’m saying here.

When Craig pulled his compilaton album together for our fundraising project, I downloaded the music, too. Now I’m going to let you in on another secret: I’d forgotten how much I really like Craig’s music. Craig and I met in 1993, right after he recorded his first album. The details of that time are long and goofy, but suffice it to say that when I went back to college after that summer at Eagle Lake, Craig’s tape, Up Here on the Mountain, moved into the cassette player of my red Chevy Cavalier and didn’t leave until the Living in the Wonder Years album bumped it out the following year. On this album, Craig wrote a song for the wedding of our friends Doug and Julie. Secretly I’d always hoped he’d written it for me. Of course, he didn’t, but a 20-year-old girl can dream, right?

Anyway, 15 years, 11 anniversaries, 4 kids, 8 physical moves, 2 locale moves, 95 combined seminary credit hours, 154,338 loads of laundry later and here we are, moving into another house. We think this is a good thing for us, but it is also a little bit scary. Let me tell you why.
Some of you were hanging around here when we made our big transition from Colorado to Missouri via a two-month stay in Illinois. You might remember we had trouble selling our house, as the market in Colorado really tanked the month we put our house up for sale. What we’d planned to be a big sale that would finance our seminary goals (along with savings for another future house), turned into us barely breaking even. Future home ownership looked like something we’d never see again. Seminary has been good and hard for all the reasons you think it would be good and hard. These things are just never easy.

Now we’re in a buyer’s market and have found a decently-priced house in a decently-located neighborhood. We’re getting some help from Craig’s parents to move in, but we could still need to come up with closing costs ($3,000 to be exact). In an attempt to raise this amount, Craig pulled a collection of 15 of his songs from the 90’s into a downloadable file and we’re asking $10 for the album. I’ve been listening to the songs again this week and have been remembering why I used to keep it on “repeat play” in my car for months at a time. I’m also remembering some of the things about Craig I fell in love with in the first place.

Would you consider buying Craig’s album and helping us make what will hopefully be our final move? Then, would you think about linking to our effort? We could use all the extra exposure on this we can get. And then, don’t forget to download the album. A few of my very favorites are “I Won’t Forget the Cross,” “At All Times” (I also dreamed he wrote this for me), and “Neither Slumber Nor Sleep” (I used to sing this to the girls when they were babies).

Heck, I like them all, but those are some highlights. Buy the songs, download them, and enjoy. And, humbly, thanks.

PS: You can find an update on the project thus far (along with details on buying the songs) here.