The Surrender Reunion

Left to right: Dave Unger on Keyboards, Marc Hamer on drums, Blake Thompson on guitar, Curt Bennington on bass and Marco Riva on guitar. Photos by: Sam Cali at the Bayou in Washington DC Summer of '87.





Twenty one years ago, man that is hard to believe. Twenty one years ago I was playing in a band called 'Surrender' and in that Summer of 1987, we were just hitting our stride. We were a hard rockin' band playing the Mid Atlantic circuit and having a blast doing it. Anyway, after all these years we decided to have a get together, play some music and catch up with each other. Well, most of the time went to jammin' as we were having so much fun, we never wanted to stop. Actually, the highlight of the evening for me was when Blake's wife Kate came up and played some tunes with us. She plays among many things, the electric violin and is amazing. I've never heard anyone get sounds out of a violin like that.

Well after many hours of of accumulated blisters, sawdust and yes, back aches, we had to give it a rest for now. The sun went down and it was time to go. We all have kids and jobs which has changed things a wee bit as you might imagine.

These days, Curt is a sound engineer based in Mesa, Arizona and does sound for the big boys all around the states. Blake, Kate and the wee one, Blake Jr. reside in Nashville and are working in the music industry. Dave is... well I'm not sure what Dave does but I was glad to hear he is living in the York, Pa area and attending a church there. And you all know what I've been up to. If not, then you can do some back reading on the blog and see what I've been doing for the last 4 and a half years.

We may do this again in December so stay tuned as that might be in a club, we'll see. In the nearer future, I am going to be playing a gig with Blake and Kate in Reading on August 2. Some time in September we'll be having Blake, Kate and Dave up to the church to help me lead worship and do a couple of songs. That's the coolest thing as we're all Christians now. As soon as I have a date I'll post it on the blog.

The pics below are from the reunion taken by various people on Curt's camera.

The Latest...

Here are some pics from the last couple of months. Sorry for taking so long in updating things here. I(Marc) have been working real hard and to be honest, after a long, hard day at work, blogging was the last thing I wanted to do. I am planning on updating the other blog if not today then real soon. I plan on venturing into the political fray if for no other reason to vent my frustrations and organise my thoughts on the presidential race.

Here's an overview of the pics:

Kayleigh danced at the 'Celtic Fling' and got 2 1st places and 1 3rd.

Liam finished up his spring soccer (football to our Scotland friends) and his team went undefeated no doubt because of some amazing coaching.

Oh, we got rid of the car and got a horse with a buggy behind. The gas prices just got too expensive and while in Amishland...

Julie went along to the Philly Zoo with Liam's class to visit some of my relatives.

We got to see the annual Memorial Day parade at 8AM which goes through the cemetery behind our back yard WITH LOUD DRUMS. This was the first one for us in five years and I almost forgot to miss it.

Finally, 'Liam and the Prophets'... Sounds like a good name for a band some day but for now it's just Liam playing Legos in the back yard with his friends Jonah and Elijah. They are really nice kids but there conversations are a bit peculiar, lots of talk about Iran and Israel and Armaggedon. Oh well, they seem to be having fun.

OK, I guess that covers it for now. More pics and commentary soon.

Scotland Supporters Thank You Ceilidh

We had a great time last night thanking all our supporters with a Ceilidh at our church. We had some time dancing, which was probably the first time that ever happened at that church, a time of sharing, great food, and a mini reunion concert with 'Beyond The Pale'. Wow, that was fun as we seemed to pick up right where we left off over 4 years ago.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Erin's 3rd Birthday and Kayleigh at the St. Patrick's Parade in Philadelphia



Here are some more pics of the kids. Erin is three (which is hard to believe) and tells everyone she runs into. I can't believe she is three already, it seems just yesterday she arrived at the Stirling hospital. Wow, what a time that was. It's reminding me how much I miss Scotland. More on that some other time. Wow, she has been such a blessing, still making us laugh all the time.

Kayleigh has just joined a new dance group and is enjoying it very much. Today, they marched in the St. Patrick's parade in Philadelphia. Both Julie and Kayleigh had a great time but came back exhausted from all the walking and braving the harsh, cold March winds. Man it's been windy here this winter and there have been times I was wishing we were back in our fortress in Scotland. Those houses there don't shake when the winds blow over 50 mph. Oh well, it makes it exciting I guess.

OK, I guess by the overwhelming response to the previous post I should just stick to putting pics of the fam. up here. So here you go.

Here are some pics from Kayleigh and Liam's first time out on the slopes and some action shots of Liam playing basketball. The kids, just like their dad, love skiing and we had a great time. They were naturals and were skiing from the top off the quad chair within an hour of their first run.

Liam had a great time in his first season playing basketball in the Upward league. Upward is a Christian league where they not only learn the game, but spend time in prayer and scripture memorization. I have to say it was the most well run kids sports program I have ever seen. Great job by all the volunteers. Next up, spring Soccer.

Great Message on the Emerging Church

I usually reserve this kind of stuff for the other blog but I think this is important enough to have here in case some of you may not feel like clicking the link to my other blog.

This message by Brian Broderson (Assistant Pastor at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa). is the best response to the claims of Rob Bell and Brian McLaren and other Emerging leaders I've heard.

One of the most important points he makes here is that this is not about methodology, it's about theology and the undermining of essential Christian doctrine.

Please give it a listen!

Just go to this website and click on the feature message, Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, Emerging or Submerging. You can download it on to your computer by right clicking it and clicking save as.

I would love to hear your comments.

Marc

http://backtobasicsradio.com/

The Christmas and New Years Slide Show



Wow, this is exciting. I finally figured out how to put this slide show thing on here so this should be lots if fun. Here are some pics from Christmas. I hope you enjoy all the festivities including Christmas at our house with Marc's side of the family, a trip into Philly to see a play with Marc's dad and the kids,Christmas at Julie's mom's with Julie's side of the family, Ice Skating in Lancaster, News Years eve tradition of smashing the Ginger Bread house, etc.

Happy Birthday Kayleigh!!!

OK, so this is a week late but what a busy week it was. Actually Kayleigh's 9th birthday was pretty busy as well.

Since this is the Christmas season the weekends get pretty busy so we thought we'd better go out and get the tree while we could which added to the birthday fun.

After that we came back to the house to get ready for the party and the invasion of other 8 and 9 year old girls. Wow, it was loud but they all had lots of fun.

I can't believe Kayleigh is 9. What the heck! I mean that 9 years went by so fast the next blink of an eye we'll be sending her off to college or something.

Well here are a few pics from the day and the next morning when we woke up to a birthday snow. Hammish the Piper woke up to a bit of a chill running up his kilt as the temp. dropped to 12.

The First Snow!!

Yea, today we got our first snow. It's not much (around an inch) but it still looks nice although kind of weird with many of the leaves still stubbornly hangin on the trees. Not too far away up in the Poconos, they had almost a foot so ski season is not far away. We are very much looking forward to that especially since we haven't gone skiing in close to five years. Hopefully this snow is the beginning of a very snowy winter. I miss snow big time.

Does Anyone Remember 'The Birds' by Alfred Hitchkock?


Just wanted to let you all know that we are still here and haven't been eaten by any birds. That's the view of our backyard looking towards our very complient neighbors. I have to say, those neighbors are the best ever as they are never disturbing though sometimes they can be quite festive when they celebrate an addition to the neighborhood.
How 'bout that blue sky. I'm telling you if it gets any sunnier around here I just can't take it. Actually, I'm serious as the sun is so bright my eyes can't take it. I guess my eyes got so used to the cloudy grey skys of Scotland they are still trying to adjust to all the sun.

We do get some rain here too as you can see in the pic with the red maple. We planted that tree back in 2003 right after Hurricane Isabella blew down another maple in the back yard. The leaves have been hanging on forever this fall. I've never seen them stay on this long. They're ususally off the trees in the first week of November. The colors have been amazing so they can hang on as long as they want as far as I am concerned. Must be global warming eh.

We'll have more updates soon. Just wanted to let you all (3) know we are still alive and kicking.

13 Lucky Years!



Ok, I can hear Julie saying right now, 'Luck, Schmuck!'. So, the reality is, we've been blessed to have 13 years of marriage behind us now. Hard to believe it's been that long but come to think of it, much has happened during that time span. Lord willing, their will be many more years of marriage and many interesting turns in the road on the way.

So, what did we do for our anniversary? Just the two of us (1st time since 2003) went away to the Poconos, Jim Thorpe to be specific.

Jim Thorpe (named after one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century) is a beautiful little town nestled in the Pocono Mts. of Northeastern Pa. We stayed at the Inn At Jim Thorpe which has been an Inn since the mid 1800's. Some say the place is haunted, more specifically, room 310. We stayed in 312 and as far as I know, nothing paranormal happened while we were there.

During the day, we walked the streets and opened many a creaky door to find quite an eclectic array of shops filled with stuff your just not going to find at your average Wallmart. We also climbed up past some amazing waterfalls and went biking through a gorge on an old railroad bed. Usually the leaves would be peaking out right now with some of the most varied species of trees in North America, but things are a little behind this year so we had to settle for a few very colorful trees instead of what would normally be mountain sides ablaze in jaw dropping color.

Well, to sum it up, we had a great time getting away to celebrate God blessing us with 13 great years.

Here are the other pics that I couldn't get on yesterday.

Liam at Rehoboth Beach trying not to get slammed by a monster wave. Erin and her cousin Victoria who she's renamed, 'McToria'. I guess she's decided she should be Scottish. The other shot is of our golf outing which you probably figured out.

Just thought we'd share a few more recent pictures taken in the last few weeks. I wish I could put a caption under the shot but for some reason this blogger thing is acting weird. Anyway, we've got Erin at Pop-Pop's pool, chasing wild turkeys in the neighbor's yard, the kids harvesting some amazing tomatoes in Grandma's garden, the boardwalk in Ocean City, Md, Liam and Kayleigh on the beach at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on a cloudy cool day, and Liam sizing up his shot during some miniature Golf in Rehoboth Beach.

Since all the fun, we've been busy getting our house in order, going to school and doing a few painting jobs. Things are far from normal, but we are getting there slowly and yes, we still miss Scotland and our friends there terribly.

The weather here after some very hot weeks, is now absolutely amazing. Sunny everyday with highs in the 70's and lows in the 40's and 50's. It just doesn't get any better. I love this time of year especially when the leaves start to change which they are just beginning to do.

That's all for now but stay tuned for a new series entitled, ' Things You Won't see in Scotland'.

Marc

One Busy Month







Well as you can see from the pictures above we've been pretty busy this 1st month back here in Pa. Not bad though as it's been fun kind of busy. First we got a week at Bethany Beach and visited the board walk in Ocean City, Md one evening which is where the shot of the sand sculpture was taken. Then it was a week at our house where we spent many hours painting and putting things back together. Then some more time at the beach, this time at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. In between we squeezed in a trip to Hershey Park and a few visits to Pop Pops pool.

We are still mired in boxes as we just got our stuff back about a week and a half ago. Things are slowly coming together but it will probably take us another week before we really feel like we're getting organised.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the kids started school and seem to be doing well adjusting and actually enjoying it.

We do miss Scotland and our friends there very much. We had the whole morning service this past Sunday at our church where we shared on our experience in Scotland and as we showed some pictures it was hard to get through without shedding a few tears. Scotland will always be on our hearts and I for one can't wait to go back some day.

Some have asked if we will continue the blog since we're now back in the states and the answer is yes. I just haven't had much time to post anything recently but things should be getting more normal now.

Well that's all for now, I will keep this a little bit more up to date now that we are starting to get back in the groove of things.

To all our friends in Scotland, we miss you terribly.

God bless,

Marc

A Day in the 'Fair City'


Believe it or not the best route (and least expensive) for us to go back to the states was through Dublin, Ireland. So, on Wednesday morning with about two hours sleep, we headed out of Edinburgh en route to Dublin


We checked into out hotel, got a little rest and then headed into the ‘Fair City’ on a quest for some good music, souvenirs and of course a pint of Kilkenny. We were successful on all accounts and had a great time even though we were dog tired. Actually one of our goals was to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College but we were too late as they just closed right before we got there. I think he saw us coming and raced to lock the doors. Actually even if it were still open we wouldn’t have paid to see it as they were charging 8 Euros to get in.

Well after a great night sleep at the Tulip Hotel, we headed to the airport and took off from Dublin around 11:15am. For the most part the flight was good but we did have some turbulence. I wasn’t enjoying that particular aspect of the journey as my imagination begins to go wild thinking of all kinds of potential catastrophes all the while putting on the, this is no big deal face for the kids. Actually, they thought it was fun like they were riding on a roller coaster or something. All I could think of was, how much stress are these planes designed to handle and I wonder how old this plane is.

Well the plane held up just fine and we landed smoothly at JFK in New York at exactly 1:01pm. We were scheduled to land at 1:00pm but I decided I would (being a Christian) extend them some grace and not complain.

To be continued…

Our Stuff is Packed and We're on Our Way Home...

This was the scene on Friday as some of our goods friends here came out to help us load the container. Since we had a somewhat multicultural team here, we decided to assign them roles that would go along with their geo-stereotypes and it worked to perfection.

We had Frank the German in the truck making sure everything was organised so that it would fit perfectly and it did. Amazing job by Frank as I'm still sitting here in utter amazement that all of our stuff fit in there. Then we had a few Americans telling everybody what to do and a Scot and Pa Dutch team letting us know how we could do this much cheaper. Oh and Pastor David who kept us all in prayer and no one was hurt and we filled the truck with 15 mins. to spare.

Thanks again to: Frank and Becky (Becky is an admin. master who typed out our whole inventory in a few mins. which would taken me a whole day), Gary who kept us laughing and thinking with his great sense of humor and keen insights, Pastor David who kept encouraging, praying and working hard (reminded me of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall), Dave for his never ending enthusiasm, energy and creativity and great sense of humor, Louise for looking after the kids while all this was going on. You all are amazing and we will always remember you and miss you greatly.

It's Unanimous!

Well, sorry to keep all three of you hangin' in suspense but I just thought it would be more fun that way.

Last Wednesday we had a special meeting to decide as a church to formally invite David Fraser to be the next pastor of Alva Baptist Church. David came out and answered many questions and I must say, he did so flawlessly.

So, we are extremely excited to announce that by a 100% unanimous vote, David Fraser will be the next pastor of Alva Baptist Church effective July 15th 2007.

I could not be happier about this because in my eyes, he is the perfect person for the position. This was totally a God thing as they say here in Scotland.

As many of you know I was taken on staff at Alva back in late November and it was agreed that we would all re-evaluate in six months to determine whether or not the church and I think we should continue. Well, that six months was up at the end of April and after much thought and prayer, Julie and I decided it was time for us to return to the States. When we informed the church, they were much sadder than we thought they would be. Don't get me wrong, we thought they liked us but we just didn't know they liked us that much. Some of them had the look of throwing in the towel. And though we were a bit concerned for the church ourselves, we encouraged them to keep pressing on and that God had a plan in all of this.

Well, a couple of days after that I received an e-mail from my good friend Chris Lawson who had just returned to California from Edinburgh. He told me about a friend of his that had just moved here to Scotland and had an interview with Stirling Baptist Church for the youth pastor position that had opened up recently. Since we had attended SBC, Chris thought it would be good for us to fill David in on the church a bit. I had a feeling at that point that this might be the guy for Alva so I e-mailed David and told him I'd prefer to speak with him on the phone.

A couple of days after that we spoke on the phone where he informed me that he hadn't gotten the position at SBC. David and I spoke for a good long time and we seemed to hit it off immediately. He had been an associate Pastor for the past 8 years at a Calvary Chapel in the LA area. I happen to have a tremendous respect for the Calvary Chapel ministry philosophy which is built around expositional preaching through the whole of scripture, an emphasis on worship and being equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit. These were things that we implemented at Alva not knowing we'd be laying down a foundation that would be a perfect fit for the next pastor.

At the end of the conversation I told him about Alva and the need for a pastor there and would that be something he might be interested in? He said he had some other options but that he was open to that as well.

As the days and weeks went by, the Holy Spirit was giving David more and more of a heart for Alva. As a matter of fact they turned down all other options, rented a house in Alva on faith, and waited to see what the outcome would be. I think we all knew though what God had in mind, it was just too obvious.

So, Praise God for putting this whole thing together. This is one of the coolest God things I have ever seen and God alone deserves the praise and honor.

One of the things we've tried to bring to focus in the church is that a successful church is a sending church. So, Alva Baptist Church will be sending us with their blessing and prayers to the USA as missionaries. Pretty cool eh.

By the way, looks like our container will be here to pick up our stuff on July 19th to take to America. Pray that we will have the strength for this whole endeavor. We've got to pack it ourselves which is no small feat.

God bless,

Marc

Well It's Official Now



No turning back now as we have officially booked our shipping and flights and will be returning in late July. I just hope our ship doesn't have to go through any weather like that in the picture. Can you say perfect storm?

Anyway, we have tons of stuff to do but life as normal has to go on as well. The kids are still in school for a couple of more weeks and Erin is in the midst of potty training and everything else she does which is lots of fun.

So many things have been falling right into place and the latest one came yesterday when the kids found out who their teachers would be next year. Every year this has been a time of real anxiety for Kayleigh especially. The latest confirmation from God that we are doing the right thing was that Kayliegh would have had the most dreaded teacher possible. So, we are escaping just in the nick of time. There have been many more confirmations including the pastoral position at Alva Baptist. Tonight we are having a meeting to decide whether we should formally invite David Fraser as the next pastor. After this is made official, I'll share the story of how this came to be. So stay tuned.

Later,

Marc

Coincidence? I don't Think So.

Very Important Message by John MacArthur

On the heels of the Paul Washer message about the American Church, give a listen to what John MacArthur had to say at a National Prayer Day gathering in Colorado Springs last month. I think this man is one of the true prophets of our day as he speaks the truth of God's word uncompromisingly. I'm sure there were plenty of people who showed up that day wanting to here a nice fluffy patriotic American/ Christian message. Listen to what actually transpired, you could hear a pin drop in that place.

What do you think? Has God given America over to its sinful desires? Here's the passage in Romans that he is referring to:
"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen." - Romans 1:24-25

John MacArthur on Larry King Live



More Later,

Marc