My Cousin Josh

I hesitate to say too many nice things about my cousin Josh. If you don't know Josh, it's difficult to summarize him adequately. However, I will let the signature he left on our wall when he returned to Chicago this morning do the explaining for me:

Josh wrote: "Great friends only come along once in a lifetime. I hope someday I find some. Until then, Sarah and I love settling for the two of you."

You see what I mean? You aren't sure if you should hug him or kick him in the knee. Sometimes I do both.

However, I have to give Josh some "props" for what I witnessed this weekend.

Friday evening Josh played at a youth center in Winona. It was a Christian center, but the kids that attend are just neighborhood skateboarders who take advantage of the indoor skating ramps. There is also a large assortment of old video games. I actually took my chance at some legendary favorites like Mario Brothers (the original), Ms. Pac Man, and Arknoid while waiting for the concert to get started. If I closed my eyes I could actually picture the celebration that ensued in the video arcade in south Florida when my brother beat Mario or my dad hunched over an Arknoid machine delicately bouncing a tiny ball all over the galaxy.

Okay, sorry, back to Josh (as I am sure he is mumbling as he is reading this.)

While the kids were rather distracted with other activities, it was great fun to watch Josh and our friend Ron Ray perform. I was reminded just how good Josh is! And, now, I hate to say it but how funny he is.

Josh takes his humor pretty seriously. I remember when JB and I returned from our trip to Europe and told Josh that our tour guide was funnier than he was. Josh didn't say anything about this until about two weeks later when he informed us that he had figured out why this guy was funnier -- he could reuse the same jokes on various tour groups. Josh on the other hand had to continually come up with new material.

At the concert, we joked that this wasn't really true anymore. He can now use the same jokes on every audience he performs for. Despite having heard some of the same lines before, I still found myself laughing hysterically.

On Sunday morning, Josh played for the youth at Christ Community and then spoke on worship. He started the lesson with an analogy comparing worship to the hot girl he asked to couple skate at the roller skating rink in the 8th grade. He even played "Lady in Red" when his date entered the rink. There wasn't a person in the audience who wasn't laughing. I had no idea how he would tie this in to why we should worship God, but Josh did it! Later he somehow paralleled his buddy who fell down the side of the cliff at a Burrito restaurant, with God's devotion to us. Just amazing.

I had the pleasure of working his CD table both that morning and in the evening when he performed for the Singles Group at our church again. What an amazing weekend. I am dog-tired as goodness knows John, Ron and Josh wanted "food" after these late night performances, but it was wonderful to watch Josh do what he loves and do it SOOO well. I pray that someday his music can be his ministry full-time as I know this is what he really wants.

So now, the house is quiet, and no one is making cutting remarks about anything he can think of and making me laugh every other second. The next time I see Josh, he will have a second kid in tow! Praying for you Sarah and your new little one. Could it possibly be a GIRL!?!