If you are looking for a vacation spot in the Great Smoky Mountains, I can’t recommend Fontana Village Resort enough. I’ve vacationed there for the last 4 years and had a blast each time. The Village is top-notch and the scenery and lake are even better!

I’m still deciding what to do with all the photos I’ve taken at all the parks. I’ll definitely be making a book for Trey to remember all our adventures by. I’ve got a couple other ideas and I’ll keep you posted. For now, here’s our video invitation to our cookout this weekend.

Watch the video in HD on Vimeo.

* Behind the scenes: Jym Davis pumps fog over the water while Kenny Jensen swims

*Behind the scenes – Jym Davis films Kenny Jensen

The project was a collaboration with my mother who gathers and edits stories written by missionaries on the field in West Africa. Entitled “The Intercessor Connection”, the monthly newsletter (it was bi-monthly for the first 2 years) focused on personal stories of prayer requests and answered prayers.

This month my parents are retiring after 25 years of missionary service to West Africa. Their retirement and the recent re-organization of the IMB which merges the West Africa region into the larger grouping of Sub-Saharan Africa are the reasons for discontinuing the newsletter. I’m sure in the next couple months a new iteration of The Intercessor will emerge for the larger region.

I’ve compiled all the issues of The Intercessor Connection into one PDF
which you can download from the gowestafrica.org website:
http://www.gowestafrica.org/pray/newsletters/intercessor-conn-archives.pdf

I’d like to thank several people for helping out on this project that resulted in over 75 issues being created.

• First, my mom for her hard work collecting and editing the stories for all those years.
• Thanks to my dad for reviewing and approving each and every issue that went out.
• A shout out to Mary Beth Meilstrup for coming up with the original design & logo of the newsletter.
• Kudos to the folks at the IMB eMedia department for creating the mail application used to send out each issue – Marty, Jason, Paul, Harry… you guys are geniuses!
• Thanks to everyone who subscribed and read each issue.
• Thanks most of all to each of the missionaries who shared their personal stories of the joys and trials of sharing the Gospel with the unreached people of West Africa.

Watch this video in HD on Vimeo.com

You can listen to the individual tracks below, or download the zip of them all by clicking the green arrow to the left.

Crystal Castles – “Untrust Us”
From their debut album
http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles
My brother-in-law Kenny Jensen introduced me to this Canadian duo’s incredibly intense and chaotic music that is full of samples and distorted vocals. This track is the opener off the album and is definitely my favorite.

El Ten Eleven – “Jumping Frenchmen of Maine”
from their 3rd album These Promises are Being Videotaped
http://www.elteneleven.com/
I have the site Pandora to thank for discovering these rock instrumentalists. I had built a station for Yo La Tengo and they showed up in the queue. Another track off the album has been featured in the trailer for Gary Hustwit’s new documentary Objectified.

Passion Pit – “Little Secrets”
from their 2009 album “Manners”
http://www.myspace.com/passionpitjams
This album by Passion Pit has been one of the most anticipated of the year (by me especially) and it really delivered! Their upbeat tunes with catchy chorus lines and poppy synths just make me really, really happy.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”
from their 2009 album It’s Blitz
http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/
I had never been much of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs fan (other than loving their video that Spike Jonze directed). This new album, however, is being played a lot on my iPod. You also have to check out their new video for this track which involves a dancing werewolf and lots and lots of confetti blood.

Amadou & Mariam – “Batoma”
from their ridiculously good 2009 album Welcome to Mali
http://www.amadou-mariam.com/
This Malian duo really got popular after their last album “Dimanche a Bamako.” They’ve been making music together for years and used to record in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire where I lived. This latest album is a great variety of music styles and even features a guest spot by up-and-coming Somalian hip-hop artist K’naan.

Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks”
from their 2009 album Veckatimest
http://grizzly-bear.net/
I’m really loving this new trend of pop & rock bands that actually focus on have great vocals and harmonies. This song uses harmonies to establish a bit of a creepy vibe. Watch the accompanying music video to really see that effect played out.

Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner – “Big Red Machine”
from the 2009 compilation Dark was the Night
http://www.boniver.org/
http://www.americanmary.com/
http://www.darkwasthenight.com/
Aaron Dessner from the band “The National” produced and curated Dark was the Night one of the best compilations I’ve heard in a long, long time. He managed to create a tracklist that is basically a who’s who in indie music. This is one of my favorite songs from the 2-disc set and is performed by Dessner and Justin Vernon of “Bon Iver.”

Múm – “Dancing Behind My Eyelids”
from their 2007 album Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
http://www.myspace.com/mumtheband
Icelandic musical group Múm seemed disappear for a couple years after a disappointing 2004 album and having several of its band members quit. They came back together in late 2007 and released Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy which was a great comeback album. The collective is know for their soft vocals and their use of all sorts of trinkets and tools as instruments.

Explosions in the Sky – “Your Hand In Mine”
from the Friday Night Lights soundtrack
http://www.explosionsinthesky.com/
The soundtrack to a football movie is one of the last things I thought I’d be listening to but when Explosions in the Sky are the instrumentalists, I’m there. This Texas band is know for their long, cinematic instrumental tracks and for this film soundtrack project they took the core melodies from several of their 8-12 minute songs and condensed them into 3-4 minute tracks. This song is one of my favorites from the album and I plan to use it soon in a video project.

Beirut (Realpeople) – “No Dice”
from the double-disc album March of the Zapotec/Holland
http://www.beirutband.com
Realpeople is an electronic side project of Zach Condon’s. These electronic and ambient tracks were an odd pairing on his 2009 release that featured a disc full of songs backed by a 19-piece Mexican marching band.

Phoenix – “Love Like A Sunset”
from the 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
http://www.myspace.com/wearephoenix
Phoenix’s 2007 album was one of the best pop albums of that year – now they’re doing it again with a release that I can’t stop listening to. There isn’t a bad track on the album. This one is the longest one and is mostly instrumental. I highly recommend you check out their MySpace page to hear some of their other great tunes.

If you are a copyright owner of one of these tracks and wish to have it removed, please contact me and it will be promptly removed. These tracks are not posted for profit, but to promote the artists and their labels.

On this trip I took the detour again and despite some rain had a great time wandering in the swamps and taking pictures. I didn’t see quite as many gators as I have in the past but there were still enough to make me be very careful about where I stepped and how close I got to the water’s edge.

The article online is the story Emily Peters wrote about Pat Ozment, a missionary teach young national pastors at a seminary in northern Ghana. The piece has a couple of my photos as well as a video slideshow I created that lets you follow Pat on one of his training workshops in a village. The music in the video is by my friend James Madison Thomas. You can watch the video below:

As of today, the video has over 1 million views and well over 1600 comments. It is a testament to the power of word of mouth & social networking as I did absolutely nothing to promote the video. I just posted it on YouTube and embedded it on my own personal website.

I don’t know what makes people love the video so much – is words in the song, or Krauss’ incredible voice, or the gorgeous footage of water landscapes around the world? I think the combination of all three moves people. There are dozens of comments from people saying they are moved to tears by the video.

Another interesting by product of the video are all the religious debates that go on in the comments section of the video. Athiests and agnostics and Christians duke it out with words. Comments such as these pop up over and over:

“pretty cool. thank u 4 posting. Look at this…can you believe there is not a higher power of creation???? Do you think we crawled up from the mud?”

“God is very slowly becoming an outdated concept. In my theorization, God is simply an anthropomorphic rendition of the laws of nature themselves. I agree with Dawkins when he classed religious beliefs as a beneficial evolutionary trait, because they encourage optimism and thus improve chances of survival in those who posess them. And if anyone wants to call me closed minded, I was raised a Catholic.”

“He’s true name isn’t G-d, by the way.”

“Guys, debates on religion are pointless. Everyone just disagrees with each other and tries to prove their opposers to be wrong.
Believe what you want to believe, and grant the same courtesy to others!
Besides, the video is so gorgeous! If you aren’t religious, what does it matter? The song is too pretty for you to dislike it! I’m non-religious and I love the song. It’s soothing.”

“your right, but as a Christian your supposed to witness, but i wouldnt do it on youtube lol, do it person to person, its much easier and is all in all a better way to go.”

I find it quite bizarre that people take the time to try and have serious debates in such a petty forum full of anonymous readers. Nonetheless, I’m glad that the video has been seen by so many people and stirred their emotions (both good & bad).

Then I didn’t hear anything for over a year, until a few weeks ago he sent me a link to the site for the film which now has a proper title “The Mystery of Flying Kicks“. They are doing something very unique and asking anyone around the world to use Skype to tell them their own stories of shoe trees or shoes on power lines. If you have a story be sure to contribute – you could end up on the big screen!

Late last night, Matt interviewed me for the film via Skype. I talked about the shoe tree in Nevada that we visited and shared some of the folklore I’ve heard surrounding it and other shoe trees.

I can’t wait to see what these guys from Down Under put together and I’m excited that I was able to collaborate with them on such a huge, global project. If you are interested in finding out more about the film, be sure to visit the Flying Kicks website and also check out this interview from Sneaker Freaker with the director Matt Bates.