As a musician it’s particularly encouraging, especially when you take what’s in your heart, put it in a song, and then tentatively stretch it out for everyone to hear and have an opinion about.

I’ve had bad reviews – and good as well – with previous musical projects, and those are always particularly difficult to take.  Personally, I think it’s God reminding you that He wants you to be humble more than He wants you to be critically acclaimed.  But good reviews always make your soul fly a bit higher, and in another way they can be a kind of affirmation that you’re on the right track.

Enter CCM magazine.

They didn’t say much – obviously they had to reserve space for people much more important than us – but they said it nicely.  Take a look for yourself.  You can find our review on page 36 as well as a “Story Behind the Song” segment on page 52.  You can also view the “Story Behind the Song” segment here.

Now I’ve always been taught that when someone says something nice about you, you should say, “Thank you.”  And so we say, “Thank you, CCM!”

Music for the Radio is now available on iTunes!  So if you have a friend from outside the Houston area that wants to check out the music please pass it along.

We’re also hard at work on two new websites, daveandjessray.com and musicfortheradio.org, which will be in operation shortly.  We’ll tell you more about that soon.  For now here are a few pics from the concert courtesy of Jim Idiaquez:

A great set, put together by Gary, Miguel, Stefan, Jonathan, Daniel and Eli, with lighting by Tom Stanziano. Thanks guys!

Dave on electric!

Jess on vocals.

Loved this picture of Bebo.

In other news the CD release concert approaches and we’re excited about sharing all the new music with you.  Aid Sudan is running some really cool promotions through their Facebook page.  Here’s how you can give yourself a chance to win some cool prizes:

1. “Like” the Aid Sudan Facebook page so that you can do the following two things.
2. Go to photos and tag yourself in the Bebo Norman concert photo for a chance to win an autographed Bebo Norman CD.
3. Go the Bebo Norman concert event and leave a comment for a chance to win a meet and greet with Bebo prior to the concert.

http://www.allaccess.com/christian/10-questions/archive/9803/10-questions-with-dave-jess-ray

And go to jaqchapman.com to find out more about Jackie’s work.

After an evening with friends we woke early for a breakfast with Jeff Goins from wrecked.org.  Jeff happened to be a big fan of BDA, my old band, and had actually worked with our drummer, Jake, for a time.  He asked some really probing questions that helped us share the heart behind this project.  Afterwards we joined up with an old friend, Clint, to play a couple songs for Breathecast.com, where we got the most unexpected question of the day, a question about believers whose spouses don’t follow Christ.

Next we met Caroline from CCM Digital Magazine and swapped stories about our infant sons.  At one point she asked us how we were providing for our family if we were giving all of the proceeds to the project to Aid Sudan’s Hand-held Radios.  I replied, “We steal things.”  Hopefully that doesn’t make the final cut!

We quickly downed some Subway and headed back into town to meet with Mike Harland from Lifeway Worship.  As it happens, he’ll be at Tallowood in two months speaking at the Baptist Church Music Conference.  Finally it was back out to Salem Communications where we met with Vance Dillard, program director for The Fish Radio Network.

And after all that we found ourselves with a few extra hours before our evening flight, so we grabbed a snack and caught The Source Code.  It was a fun ending to a crazy trip!  The most exciting thing was that we had a number of opportunities to share the story behind the project.  We’re grateful for every chance we get to point people to the bigger picture, reaching the people of southern Sudan with the Gospel.

We’re excited to announce that our Music for the Radio CD Release Concert is just around the corner and that we’ll have a special guest headlining the show!  Bebo Norman, an incredible singer/songwriter, will be headlining the concert on Sunday, May 15 at Tallowood Baptist Church.  Doors open at 5:00 PM and the concert starts at 6:00 PM, and best of all – it’s free!  We hope to see you there!  Every penny we receive from sales of Music for the Radio benefits Aid Sudan’s Radio Station Project, which allows the people of southern Sudan to hear the Gospel in their own tribal languages.

Music for the Radio

$20: The amount it costs to manufacture and distribute one hand-held radio.

10-15: The average number of people reached by one radio.  (We even have reports of half a village listening to a single radio!)

$0.63: The amount (out of $0.99) that we receive whenever you download the new single, “Better.”  (iTunes takes a cut, and then our distributor takes a cut.)

32: The number of downloads it takes to purchase one hand-held radio.

Just listing those numbers makes me smile.  It’s a “loaves and fishes” situation, where God takes the little gifts we bring and transforms them into something much bigger.  Imagine if instead of just buying a song on iTunes you were helping someone follow Christ.  Or helping a whole family follow Christ.  Or a whole village.  That’s what Music for the Radio is all about!