Hello, Tenth Avenue North

October 2009, was the month that I was brought back to church, well small groups, and brought back to God; the beginning of a whole new me. Now, I have never been a person to believe that you HAVE to go to church to be a Christian.. because you dont.. and actually, I dont even like to call what I have a religion.. it is a relationship. But, even though I still dont believe that you have to go to church to have faith, after what my small group taught me and how much they loved me, I believe that it definitely helps if you are lost, like I was. Of course, it took me time to grow and accept that I needed God and I was nothing without him. January 2010, I went to winter camp with my church which is the exact moment I realized everything.. from then on, my life was for God.. about two weeks after camp, my friend Emily let me borrow a CD of a band I had never heard of.. their name was Tenth Avenue North. I listened to that CD every time I got in my car even if it was a drive down the street. Each song I memorized because of the beauty of their words and the amazing understanding they have of God. Their words changed my understanding of God and brought me closer to Him every day. This was my church.. since church can and should be everywhere, not just in a building.
Well, I fell in love with this band but eventually had to give the CD back. Haha. So since I didnt have it, I would just sing their music as I was driving. Ever since the first time I heard their music, I wanted to see them live. I heard thet they were playing somewhere nearby on Mother's Day this year, but of course it was the day before Mother's Day when I heard it on the radio and the concert was 5 hours away... so that wasnt going to work..
I went on a few mission trips out of the country months later and my relationship with God grew that much more.. it grew for the world rather for music. As September began creeping around the corner, I started packing everything that I owned to move to Oregon for college.. and I wasnt sure if I would be able to find a church like the one I had fallen in love with in San Diego.
One month into living in Bend, Oregon, I go online and contact my old church to see it they had any recommendations for churches here in Bend and that email ended up in the inbox of one of my small group leaders! So she does some research and sent me the links of 3 church websites. One stood out to me most- Christian Life Center, which was about 10 minutes down the road from my house.
So I go to the website where they have a little slide show of events on the home page.. slide two was a picture of a band who would be playing on October 21, 2010.. it was Tenth Avenue North.. umm.. WOW?!
So the morning of the 21st, I wasnt sure if I had the money to go, but I decided to go anyway and not worry about it because of how much it meant to me.
We get to the concert, get the very last parking spot available after circling the parking lot 3 times, I get out of my car and reach into my wallet for the $20.. and it is not there. Turns out I only had $14 and they dont take credit cards.. CRAP. So we walk up and see maybe God will get us in.. they wont take $14.. so I turn around and a guy is standing in front of us and says he has two extra tickets and he would sell them to us for whatever we had.. WOW! I love him. Haha.
Well.. I dont like listening to opening bands, so we walked around aimlessly and went around to the back of the building where all of the tour busses were and all band equipment unsupervised. We look over to a tour bus and a girl jumps out and walks over to the building.. we didnt know who she was.
So we go back inside to go to the bathroom where they had some decently comfortable couches.. so we sat there for no reason. The door opens and the girl that we saw hop out of the tour bus walks in and we talked and laughed with her about us just sitting there, still not knowing who she was.
She leaves and goes out to the main room and about a minute later we hear a crowd screaming for a band..Tenth Avenue North?!?!?! No.. Addison Road! And there was the girl from the tour bus and the bathroom standing on stage as the singer of the band. "Hey! Thats the girl from the bathroom!!" Hahaha..

Then Tenth Avenue North after them.. and we were there standing as close to the stage as we were aloud, right in front of the band. And yes, they were more amazing as I had hoped :)