What Up Peoples!!!???

July, 26 20102 Comments

I’m coming to you this morning from the Kansas City airport after a long couple of days of touring. Last night we played a show at the Kansas City T-Bones ballpark and had a blast.  Aaron and I sang the national anthem and then got to enjoy the game from the press box… which was amazing!!  The show was a lot of fun and we have to say thanks to Calvary 88.5, KLOVE, and AIR1 for promoting and giving us a nice crowd of about 1500-2000 to play to!!  It was awesome!!  So now we wait for the plane to get us back home. “Time-Crunch” otherwise known as Brian Coleman (our road manager) got us up extra early anticipating a crowd at the airport and so I have about 2 hours to write this blog.  Thanks Brian Coleman… (can you hear the sarcasm in my voice??) lol.

Summerfest has been awesome this year and why wouldn’t it be???  The line-up is sick!!!  Britt Nicole, Mikeschair, and Finding Favour along with the always amazing (wink, wink) Building429 for $5… well it’s insane.  Britt is amazing… and she’s as deep of a well spiritually as I have ever known.  God is blessing her because of her faithfulness.  If I have seen her back stage praying with a fan once I’ve seen it a hundred times.  To be honest… I’ve never met another artist who was more serious about the power of prayer than her… EVER.  She never stops giving from the second she shows up til the second she leaves the venue.  No matter what’s going on she really understands the power of a moment and the strength that can be found in the simple process of praying over another person.  It’s truly inspiring for an old dog like me.

I am so impressed with the character of the bands that are out on tour with us this time. These guys are young, driven, extremely talented, and yet so humble and relational in a way that has really been refreshing for us to see.  I know that sounds weird for me to be surprised by such things, but Building429 has seen its share of ego maniacs and weathered its share of rat races through the years… so in a lot of ways the last few years have been great for all of us in terms of perspective.  Knowing that this is just a moment that we’ve been given to capture the hearts and minds of an audience and then turn them to Christ has truly been a lifechanging thought.  It used to be that we would try to “wow” a crowd of people with the gifting that God had given us.  But at some point we started to realize that our gifting and talent would never impact a crowd the way that the spirit of the Lord in a room would.  And with that realization we began to build tours and sets with that as our criteria.

Our concerts look different today, in every way, than they did in the past.  Today Building429 has found its voice as an ambassador for children in need around the world.  Some people may not enjoy me talking about such things for extended periods during our events, but if you’re a Building429 fan you need to know… it is our heartbeat.   It’s not going to change.  We’ve seen things around the world that have shaken up the hearts of men that honestly sometimes feel a bit cold.  I’ve cried in Africa, I’ve struggled in Haiti, I’ve been broken in Nicaragua and that is something that I can’t write off as a “nice experience”.  No it was a GOD experience… and all of us knew in those moments of brokenness why Building429 has continued to exist through the years, as much as Bono knows why U2 exists.  U2 is a band that plays music that matters… but it is also a vessel that is used to proliferate the plight of the needy around the world.

With that said I think it’s time to tell the fans that I am now the worship pastor of Grace Community Church in Clarksville, TN: www.gcomchurch.com.  I have been a part of the church for the last 4 years and watched it grow from a small gathering of 20-30 people to a huge gathering last Easter of 3100 people. As much as I’ve seen God at work in the band the last few years I have also seen God at work in my church and therefore I have decided to fill that need for the church and continue touring and record with Building429.  God is at work in my life and I can’t help but remember my father’s words as I think of the work that fills my life today:  “Son, you can sleep when you’re dead”.  That’s right I can sleep when I’m dead, but right now there are people who need the love of Jesus.  So, whether it’s leading worship on Sundays at my church, playing rock shows with Building429, or speaking on behalf of starving children around the world, the work is going to get done.

In other Building429 news we are working on a new record right now… that’s right and it’s BAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDD!!!!  You are going to be soooo surprised when you hear the new music.  We’ve begun tipping our hand to a few people around the industry and they are all blown away.  We’ve taken a completely different approach this time that is really helping us stay fresh and modern.  Everything on this record is being built off of the groove and the hook, instead of the guitar or piano.  It’s crazy cool.  I’ll have a melody idea and a lyric, and before we start playing the music we find the groove… program a beat… lock the vocal idea down and then find the music.  It’s so refreshing, and if I had to describe where we may land on this record I would say somewhere between Lifehouse and One Republic.  We’re all stoked and we can’t wait to start playing some of the stuff live… maybe even this fall???!!!!!

Speaking of fall, Building429 is cranking out a fall tour called “30 Seconds to Change: A Night to Benefit Haiti”, featuring Mikeschair and another amazing band called Abandon.  Get ready to come and be blessed by your willingness to serve.  To me, the moments when I’ve felt the closest to God were the moments when I served the way that Jesus did.  Not just by saying the right things, but by actually moving and making the effort to meet people where they are with love that is unyielding.  Maybe that, for you, is a mission trip, maybe that for you is the nursery at your church, maybe that for you is coffee with a friend and the heart to listen and love, or maybe for you this fall it will be joining us for an amazing night of music and learning how you can change a life on the  “30 Seconds to Change” Tour.  Either way, MOVE. Don’t sit there… get to work.  Jesus gave us an amazing example of how to live… so let’s follow suit.  He never sat still for long, and he was ALWAYS looking for ways to intersect other lives and free people from the ordinary.  So MOVE.

With all that said I’d like to end this update with my prayer request:

This weekend my church is going to have the Ugandan Children’s choir on Sunday and, for those of you who have followed my travels, you know that I’ve actually been on the ground in Uganda.  So my wife and I have decided to open our house and be a host family for the weekend.  5 Ugandan children along with my own.  It should be fun… and I pray that my children will make some new friendships and be changed by people who have joy without all the “stuff” that we think we need to be happy!!

Jason Roy

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Haiti After Night 2

April, 30 20103 Comments

We lost internet on the 2nd night and this is the blog that I wrote the next morning:

Well last night was 100 times better… I feel a lot better and though Cortni and I both sweated all night, we woke up refreshed and ready to go this morning. Yesterday was insanely busy as we drove into the nearby mountains to 4 CDP (Child Development Program) areas and really got a bird’s eye view of what these people live like. One of the interesting things was our mile walk to the clean water source. Up a mountain and down the other side the whole way we were passing children (8-13 yrs) carrying 5 gallon buckets full of water on their heads to take back to their homes. When we got to the water source we found several eye opening things.

1) The water source was under a Voodoo Tree (Voodoo is the major religion here) and no body wanted to get near it… they were so scared of that tree.

2) Apparently the water source doubles as their shower… because most of the women and children were bathing in the 2 inch deep water and that was a first for everyone in our group. Even in Africa we never encountered such a thing, and it definitely let us know that Haiti is a place that is in desperate need.

3) The water had receded since the earthquake to the point that one of the lower wells… about 100 yards down the hill had dried up completely. A problem that we later found to be rampant in the mountains… there are huge concerns that the water tables have been messed up and the people are worried that it might stop. (Scientifically unfounded or not, the people are concerned, and that makes it a HUGE issue.)

4) The people in these CDP’s are dealing with some huge health issues, the major one being widespread high blood pressure. Funny enough, high blood pressure is a solvable issue. It is caused by the fact that they are not drinking enough water. FH (Food for the Hungry) is poised and ready to face this problem head on… but they just just need the funding to do so. Building 429 came off of that mountain last night ready to end that issue.

The Child Safety Zones are pretty primitive, but they are so important. The children go to school for approximately $30 (US) a year and not everybody can afford it. But because of the earthquake most of the schools have made tuition free for the year… which sounds great, except the government of Haiti doesn’t pay teachers. The childrens’ tuition pays the teachers and obviously they’re not getting what they need to continue teaching.

Here’s an interesting side note… School only lasts till about noon, at which point the children have to go home for the rest of the day and fend for themselves. Most of the children are walking in excess of an hour one way to and from school and they’re on HUGE CLIFFS on the walk as well. The child safety zones are set up so that the children come in and play until later in the day. Yesterday there were some 50 children in each of the zones we visited and in spite of all the decimation that was around us, (fallen houses and over run grave sites,) they were laughing and singing and it seemed as though they were able to forget about the earthquake for at least a little while.

We took them lunch at one school, which was literally croissants torn in half and juice, and it was like a thanksgiving feast. I remember that they wanted to do a program for us and all we wanted to do was feed the children. But we sat and watched for about 45 minutes while the children did their program and eyed the croissants. Finally we were able to feed them and it was really cool. Afterward we all realized that we had fed them an AWESOME lunch meal in their eyes… and it was only ½ of a piece of bread.

Today we go to downtown Port-Au-Prince and we are going into the earthquake rubble and disaster zones… we are praying that our hearts will be prepared… I’ll update again tomorrow.

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Haiti After Night 1

April, 27 20106 Comments

Well here’s the truth….

Cortni and I didn’t sleep hardly at all last night. We had to share a tent in an outside courtyard which didn’t seem too bad until we realized that the mattress on the floor only covered about half the floor… and that there was no breeze whatsoever in our 87 degree non-air conditioned tent. That meant that we were laying still but sweating like we were running a marathon… not cool man, not cool.

There are people sleeping on cots all over the compound and our little tent is actually quite nice compared to that I guess. Twelve foot fences with rolled barbed wire on every side of us reminded us that this isn’t Kansas for sure… and when I was quite sure that I had slept the whole night through and gotten a great night’s rest… I looked at my watch to find that it was literally 12am… and we had another 6 hours to go… with a rooster crowing every 30 seconds on the other side of our fence. Shortly after that all the power for the facility failed and they had to turn on the generator… which of course was 30 feet away from us… but it drowned out the rooster for a bit even though it was like sleeping under an 18 wheeler. Waking up ever hour on the hour was actually quite disconcerting… thinking that it was morning and finding out that it actually midnight.

I proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour to check my watch and find us no closer to relief. Ben, our camera man, asked if we had ear plugs to sleep in and then laughed when we didn’t… now I know why… that rooster was annoying and LOUD in the stillness of the night here in Haiti. My thought process is that if the rooster crows before the sunrise… kill it. So I’ll spend today trying to figure out how I’m going to do that (lol!). If I achieve no great scheme I may try to sleep with my in-ear monitors in tonight, because that was brutal.

So now we begin the day with a Bible study at 8 and then we’re headed up the mountain…. I’m gonna try to take lots of photos with my iPhone and upload them to my facebook tonight when we check back in.

In a final note… this is what I asked for… this is 100 times better than what these young children are sleeping in. At least I’m waking up with a toilet nearby, breakfast, and a shower…. the tent cities that we passed yesterday were miserable and the people have lived that way since January. These 3 days will be a good little reminder that these people need us to WAKE UP.

Pray for my wife Cortni… she gets migraines when she doesn’t sleep and honestly I am worried about that… I can’t function without food… her body shuts down without sleep and I know she only slept a couple of hours last night. Also on a separate note I came down here with an inflamed Achilles tendon in my left leg and last night it was pretty swollen… we’ve got lots of walking to do today and I’m hoping it will hold up.

Luxury in Haiti: running water, toilet, meals, and a tent.

We’re waiting on the Lord to show up, because we won’t be able to do this alone!!

Blessings,
Jason

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Haiti Earthquake

January, 13 2010Comment

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 13, 2010—Christian humanitarian agency World Vision plans to begin assessing damage and preparing a relief response today after the major earthquake that hit Haiti Tuesday. The agency has worked in Haiti for 30 years and has some 370 staff in country.

Downed communications, blocked roads and continuing aftershocks slowed relief efforts overnight, with staff unable to leave the agency’s Port-au-Prince office for several hours due to fallen debris in the roadways.

“It felt as if a truck had hit a wall,” said World Vision staffer Magalie Boyer, of the initial tremor. “There is extensive damage in the city. People are getting ready to spend the night in the streets. They are not comfortable staying in their houses.”

“World Vision Haiti will distribute first aid kits to survivors, along with basic materials such as soap, blankets, clothes and bottles of water as an initial response,” Boyer added.

Meanwhile, World Vision staff from less affected regions of Haiti are mobilizing and the agency’s global experts are expected to arrive in the disaster zone as soon as possible. Crystal Penner, a World Vision aid worker, was in the central plateau region of Haiti when the quake hit: “There are relief goods prepositioned in various locations across the country, though the challenge will be getting those supplies swiftly to those in need,” she said.

“We would be very concerned about a quake of this magnitude anywhere in the world, but it is especially devastating in Haiti, where people are acutely vulnerable because of poor infrastructure and extreme poverty,” said Edward Brown, World Vision’s relief director in the United States.

Reaching hard-hit areas with supplies is expected to be a significant challenge due to damaged roads and infrastructure, including the main airport and government buildings.

Donations of cash are needed for the response. The public can help by visiting www.worldvision.org or by calling 1.888.56.CHILD.

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