We are excited and honored to be joining Dan Duet as his special guest! Join us Wednesday night at Our Lady of Perpetual Hope in Glendale for a night of prayer and worship. See you there.

I post this e-mail I received (new names inserted) to show everyone in ministry that we as people are tools God uses. I think many times, we are unaware of how God is using us. This story made me cry, inspired me to say yes to God, everyday and believe he is working through us:Dear Billie,Hi, I’m Becca Jones, that awkward girl that asked you for your email address before your last Lifeteen mass at St. Mary’s :). I’m sorry that it took me so long to write to you, and I’m also sorry that I was never brave enough to introduce myself when you were still in Eugene! I do hope that life in Arizona is suiting you well…I’m sure you’re busy, but I feel like I should tell you what an inspiration you have been to me. When I was in high school I used to drive up from Cottage Grove to Lifeteen mass with my older sister AFTER having gone to the required mass with my parents that morning. We went every week together with her three little girls so that we could listen to you sing. On the way home we would stop at Starbucks so we could talk about what an awesome singer you were, and the example you set for the community. Our favorite song that you did was “You Are My King.”After my sister, Nancy, and nieces died in the car accident in 2006, you were the ONLY reason that I continued going to mass. I spent the whole summer driving up from CG every Sunday night so I could hear you and feel at peace, if only for that hour. When you sang I could feel my sister next to me, her love and her council, and I learned to believe in God again.I still feel like you are my living connection to my sister, and that your gift is what has kept God in my life through all of the difficulties. I cried when I learned that you were moving, and you can’t even imagine what it meant to me when you sang “you are my king” at your last mass- I swear that someone hugged my soul…I want to thank you, so so much, for what you have done for me in the past few years, even unknowingly- and I want to thank you for your album. I was ECSTATIC when I learned about it, I got it just a few days ago and I love it! I play it super loud in the car so that my sister can hear it too :).Anyways, I just think that when someone is awesome, people should tell them that they are awesome…. I hope that everything is going well for you, and that maybe I’ll see you again someday, maybe on stage!Thank you for your inspiration and your time,Becca Jones

This note comes after reaching relative sanity after 3 weeks of utter chaos. Here is a run-down of our move:

First, I drove to Phoenix to find a place to live, I arrived on a Tuesday and met Tony there (who had flown in via New Jersey) We flew home that Thursday, so we managed to make a decision on a house to rent within two days. We flew home to Oregon on Thursday and prepared for our movers who were supposed to be there on Sunday. Tony left Saturday morning with his dad and Kailey to drive down because he had to begin work the following Monday morning. The movers called and couldn’t make it on Sunday because their truck had broken down and they were going to need to get it fixed. They did come Monday, and here is where the real party began.

The movers immediately began telling me that the cost of their original estimate wasn’t going to cut it. They approached me no less than 5 times, with pricing quotes raising each time. While I ha been told the loading of the truck would take 4.5 hours, 5 hours later they hadn’t even begun loading and were still “prepping.” Later in the afternoon we came to an agreement that we would pay per pound with proof of wait and I was going to leave to start my drive to Phoenix with Caitlin and my boys. They promised to meet me in Phoenix by Wednesday.

We drove overnight Monday night, since that seemed to be the easiest way to make the 15 hour drive to my moms house in palm springs with my two and four year old. The drive went fairly smoothly, with the exception of Caitlin getting extremely sick and needing to pull over frequently for her poor stomach. Nevertheless, we arrived in Palm Springs the following morning and planned to stay there until Wednesday when the movers delivered our household good to Phoenix. This is where is gets really interesting, along with the price more than doubling during the moving process, the movers hadn’t brought a truck large enough to transport everything, so they were supposedly re-loading everything onto one larger truck. On Tuesday, we were informed that the truck had broken down and they were reloading onto another truck. On Wednesday, Tony found out the original truck had actually been in an accident, which necessitated the movers going north to Portland, prior to re-loading and starting towards Phoenix. Finally by Friday the first truck arrived and began unloading- OTHER PEOPLES STUFF- Oh the truck had some of our stuff, plus another load they had picked up- and wanted to charge us for those pounds as well. Eye-eye-eye. So, they trekked to the scales in Glendale (40 mins) and then back to unload only our stuff and then back to the scales to weigh the  other peoples stuff plus the weight of the truck. OK well, at least we have beds now, all of us except Caitlin of course. J Finally, Monday, the rest of our stuff shows up. With lots of headache we negotiate an acceptable price (still thousands of dollars more than they had bid) and the happy ending is that we have our stuff.

The house we are renting is gorgeous. It’s really big, so if anyone is in our neck of the woods we would love to host! It has a super insulated media room where Caitlin’s drums are set up and Sebastian plays for hours on end. It looks like Sebastian has gotten into Saint Timothy Pre-K, and we will be attending that church. Their music program is really great, along with the many other programs they have at this church. (including, my favorite- childcare during mass!!)

The bottom line at this point: Tony really likes his job, and we are both very grateful he has one. I am waiting for January when, hopefully, I will be licensed to practice law through reciprocity and will open Access Legal here. Sebastian is in school and we have found a parish- this is really huge for our family’s well-being. Caitlin is checking out the many many parishes around here through daily mass and searching for a job. We’re all doing really well and trying to settle in.

A few weeks ago I posted the blog below- somehow I forgot to put it on the website-sorry. Anyway, I have 700 CDs of my 1000 left. I am very very pleased that so many are already in distribution but….I want more of them out of my house and in the hands and CD players of the public. SO, tell your friends or buy two!  God Bless!

Changing Music Industry
Current mood:  pensive
Category: Blogging

Music in Recession (Christianity Today) published a 5 page article on the changing music industry. Here are the main points:
1. Labels are “bleeding out the eyes”
2. CD and music sales in general are WAY down
3. Piracy is generally accepted and KILLING the industry
4. Attendance at festivals and concerts are down
5. The number of festivals is shrinking
6. the need for music, especially inspiration music, in bigger now than ever.

What does this mean? I highly suggest you read the whole article. But what I want to know, is where you see this headed and what you see our options to be. My thoughts are that we probably need to be selling CDs for much less money per unit. Maybe we change the entire distribution system to include “pay per play” as opposed to “pay per download.” Maybe, if people don’t feel like they “own” the music, they will be less likley to illegally copy and distribute it.

For us musicians, the question is “How” rather that “if.” The calling to create music is rather compulsory for me, it isn’t a choice. Does this mean musicians will need to finance their endeavors with no prayer of a return? maybe.

I want your opinion. What next? Where do you see this going and what options do we have?

Peace,
Billie

It has been too long since I’ve updated the blog with the latest. And lots of stuff has happened. Shortly after the Cd release in March my husband Tony was laid off from a really great job. We were once again at one of those cross-roads that life brings. However, this time was a bit different. For whatever reason we both found unexpected peace with this huge upheavel knowing that whatever God had planed next would be better than we could imagine. We picked up our family and drove 15 hours to Palm Springs to visit my mom. We spent the week just having fun and calculating what to do next. We seriously kicked around the idea of selling everything and buying a huge tour bus and taking the band on the road full-time. By the end of the week it was clear that it wasn’t the time for that journey. Tony really did leave his job “on top” as far as his reputation and contacts are concerned, so it wouldn’t be a good time to walk away from that. My business, limited legal services, has a huge untapped market and serves a great need in our community. We were probably better off using our MBA and Law degree than parading around the country trying to make a living making music. I mean really, the CD was just released in March- there isn’t even a demand large enough to justify living on a bus. BUT…..the seed has been planted, and just because now isn’t the time, doesn’t mean it won’t be the time somewhere in the future. The other thing that Tony losing his job meant, was that we has fewer resources to bankroll our music projects. There are plenty of places that would like our band to come and play, but few of them have the means to help us cover our expenses. We need a new sound system and we are working on a music video for the song HOME. The script is writtten, the video is cast, next we film and edit and post!

The Bad news: My goal was rather narrow. I really want to be involved with serving Catholic youth ministry and lifeteen. The only label I was interested in “Spirit and Song” isn’t interested in me-at least for now. Bummer- my music really is geared toward corporate worship and liturgical use and the bottom line is that Spirit and Song and OCP control most all of the publishing and booking for catholic youth events. OK so life gives you lemons-what next?

Well- our band is going to enter the Colgate Country Showdown- a national talent search for country musicians. While it isn’t exactly in line with original plans- there is still lots of room for evangilization in country music. We are going to do a country version of Home and a new song I wrote called God Planted Seeds. I predict this will be really good for our band and lots of fun. Hopefully we do well- and maybe will win enough money to buy a sound system!

More Good News: Send Me was selected as one of the songs for the “Best of New Catholic Music 2009″ Very exciting. We are getting radio airplay all over the country and in Spain. I continue to get contacted by promoters and producers and there are so many opportunities for submissions-it is difficult to wade through it all. Please vote for us in the Kingdom Bound Talent Competition- it only takes a second

http://www.kingdombound.com/talent.html

It would take forever to update you on the very cool stuff going on with my new company Access Legal and my kids have been nothing short of fabulous! More later I promise.

Love and Blessings,
Billie

I Love you all and can’t wait to update you on everything that’s going on