Can I just say...THAT ROCKED!

Sorry for taking so long to finish the story and add more pictures to our teaser post of a few days ago...guess we needed a lot of sleep! =)

Okay, so a few months ago I saw that my favorite band, Jars of Clay, was coming to town as part of the Music Builds tour supporting Habitat for Humanity. They were on the lineup with Switchfoot *and* Mark's fave Third Day. Since we haven't gone to a concert in years and this was such a stellar (for us) lineup, I went ahead and got really good seats. Woo Hoo!

Here we are so excited to be 1) out on a date and 2) at a rockin' concert!

The venue
Most of you probably know that early this year I found out about Blood:Water Mission and realized God had a plan for me to be a friend and advocate of this worthy cause. This summer, Mark and his brother Justin rode in the Dallas city ride of the Ride:Well Tour, which raised money for Blood:Water Mission and at that event I got to meet a couple of the employees in person and have kept up some contact with them.

A couple days before the concert I asked one of the B:WM employees if she was going to be in Dallas for this tour. She said she was not, but would be happy to set up a Meet and Greet for us to meet the band and tell them about our plans for supporting Blood:Water Mission! Can you believe that? As it turns out, we were, unbelievably, the only people getting to meet the band that evening, so we met with Jars' stage manager and he took us back to their dressing room, where we spent at least 10 minutes talking together! I still can hardly believe it happened.

Here you can see lead singer Dan Haseltine, giving me undivided attention as I rambled on.

Actually, Mark told me later that I did a good job of expressing coherent thoughts and actually getting to thank them for starting B:WM and tell them some about how it has began to play a big part in my life and will now always be a part of my story, including the Sons of Lwala Screening. (They wrote some music for the documentary and were instrumental in helping to get the clinic enough funds to get started.) In the picture above, Charlie is signing a poster I had made to advertise the screening. It is now a sweet souvenir that has all their autographs!

They seemed so appreciative of what we shared and appeared genuinely happy to know of our plans. The time went by so quickly and we figured we better let them go get ready for their concert. But we took a few pictures, first!

This is Aaron Sawyer, their stage manager. We felt like rock stars ourselves when he came and got us from the main entrance of the concert, walking past everyone waiting to get in and took us back beyond security. Woo Hoo! I don't deserve this life, but I am so grateful!

Jars on stage

I saw Greg at the concert. He is a friend I met throught the Ride:Well tour. He actually was one of the 17 people that rode his bike across the country this summer when they raised so much money for clean water in Africa. He lives in Dallas and was invited to watch the concert from backstage! I knew he was going to be at the concert, but we ran into him during an intermission right after Jars' set was over.

Just a taste of the awesomeness. ;-)

We both thought the Switchfoot show was incredible! They put on such a good concert and we're both bigger fans of theirs because of the concert.
Striking their Statue of Liberty pose


A taste of Third Day


We were on the 9th row just a tad off center. They were really great seats! I think this picture makes us appear farther from the stage than we were...9th row, baby!




The encore had all the bands together singing Love Came to Town from U2, which just happens to be my next favorite band...it was really good. Really, really good.


Well, hope you enjoyed the mini-concert along with us! This is one of those days we'll never forget... Yes, Renee, kind of like when we stalked DC United's bus and went to their hotel after already meeting them after the game, but that's a story for another day...