Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Christmas Letter In January

Christmas 09 (In Jerusalem)
So, this is our Christmas letter... I am aware that it's a little late. You might even be wondering which Christmas this is for. But I assure you this covers last year, and what a year it was!

Christmas Morning
[Christmas morning]

Christmas in Bethlehem
[Christmas in Bethlehem at the Church of the Nativity]

The year went something like this: I'd found a highly attractive girl named Whitney who made me laugh like crazy, so I married her. Her and I and two other married friends of ours then formed a band and went on tour from Ohio to California and back. Then about a month or so after the tour, Whit and I packed up all our stuff and moved to Jerusalem, Israel, where she is now working on her masters degree in ancient languages and I am making documentary films. The rotation of our heads is coming to a gradual stop as I write this.

A Marriage needs at least two people.

I've always dreamed of being married. But those dreams only ever included a woman of whom i'd created in my mind, so in the end i'd only been interacting with myself. So for that reason marriage was much different than I had thought. As it turns out Whitney has all kinds of thoughts and desires I would have never put there if I had made her, and thank God she does!

We got married in Ohio on April 8th, and then had our wedding ceremony a while later on the Mt. of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem. We honeymooned on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and then in May we flew back to the states and had our reception in a barn in Columbus, Ohio.

You can see thorough documented evidence of this process by clicking ---> here

Almost immediately after, we moved in with our good friends Phillip and Melissa Fox. Phillip and Melissa are fellow musicians and the four of us quickly started rehearsing our music for a national tour that we'd already planned for only a month and a half later. Phillip and I sang, played guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, bass guitar, and who knows what else. And our wives backed us up on the shaker, piano (Melissa) and drums (Whit, also with the shaker). By God's grace we were ready when it came time for us to set out on the road for our first show, and from there we played a show nearly every night for the next two weeks, covering 12 states from Ohio to California and back. It was very exhausting, but very rewarding, and an amazing experience in the end.

Here is our first of several tour videos:


After the tour Phillip put the live recordings of his songs on an album ---> www.phillipfoxmusic.com. I myself am still working on getting my music out there... (Shouldn't be too long from now!)

Then, in the beginning of August Whit and I stuffed our clothes inside of a couple of drums, stuffed more clothes inside my guitar case, and even more clothes to pad the inside of suitcases full of recording equipment, and we flew to Israel, where we are now.

In the spring of 08 Whit graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in Hebrew. She has a great passion and gift for languages, particularly ancient Biblical ones, so she is now continuing her studies here in Jerusalem. Her classes deal with the history of ancient Israel and some archaeology, but her favorite is her Greek class (which i am auditing with her). Since the beginning of the very first class our teacher has spoken to us almost entirely in New Testament Greek, and it's awesome! And apparently this is the only place in the world that they teach Biblical languages with this "immersion" method, so we feel very privileged to be taking part in it! Eventually Whit would like to be teaching little kids Biblical Greek and Hebrew so they can read the Bible for themselves in its original languages, so this is a divinely appointed step in that direction! (When the time comes that your kid can take a Biblical Hebrew or Greek class with Whit, sign them up! She's going to be an awesome teacher!!!)

As for myself, I've been busy being newly married, learning Greek with Whit, and working more than full time on a feature length documentary called, "The Bible vs. Joseph Smith." It's based on a conversation between a Mormon and a Christian in which they test the prophecies of both Bible and Mormon Prophets, to essentially see which faith is real. We've been going strong on the documentary since early august and we're not far off from its release. I'm super excited about seeing what you all think of it. I'll post something here on the blog when it's done.

Other than that, Whit and I are still super glad we got married. I deal with the spiders and she prepares creative and yummy lunches. We love you all and appreciate all your support and prayers!

Nathan and Whitney Lundquist

7 comments:

Your momma said...

LOVE IT!! You can add creative writing to your Repertoire..you're starting to sound like Scott when you write and that's a huge compliment :-)

momma said...

O.K,yeah! I love it even more!!!!!!!!!

Rachel said...

So Whitney I just had to let you know that I was watching your short tour video with Tex and I's son, Josiah who is 2 now and as soon as the music started and he saw you guys playing he started playing "drums" on the table. It was too cute! Glad you guys are doing so well!

Rachel Eisenhour

Unknown said...

hey Rachel! that's so awesome that Josiah started playing drums on the table, haha! I wish I could have seen it. :D

Hope you guys are well too!

Anonymous said...

Whitney, This is cousin Dawn (Kirk and Ryan's mom). So glad you sent the link. I'm enjoying reading the news, seeing the wedding video, and getting to know more about you.

Beautiful!

Thank you for sharing.

PS. My Christmas cards are still in a pile, 1/2 done...Shhh..don't tell! :)

Steve Ulrich said...

I spent a year in Israel and loved every minute of it. I did grad work and would like to return someday to finish.

Anonymous said...

love it!

~faith & nick

p.s. is visiting for a month too far?