The other great highlight of 2009 was our tour in the Netherlands. The story of how we got to be there is one of our greatest testimonies of divine providence. It all began when a friend of ours, Jeremy van der Noord, from my hometown of Geelong went to work at a Christian hostel in Amsterdam. He played our CD ‘Redemption Songs’ in the hostel over and over again and the guests started asking about it. Jeremy got me to send over a small box of CDs for him to sell there. That was in 2001 and eight years later we would play a sell out tour right round the country. So how did that happen? At some point Hans Loeve, our Dutch distributor, got hold of the music and gradually put our music into some stores. We also managed to find our way into some newspapers and magazines. One such publication was read by the producer of a religious program on the Dutch National Broadcaster. I remember receiving the email from Gerrit Bril. He said he was interested in coming over to Australia and making a documentary on us. I wasn’t sure how to take it. Was this guy serious? It seemed too good to be true. You see we often have contact from people who, in their genuine enthusiasm for our music, make big offers that we know they will not be able to deliver on. We don’t take these negatively, on the contrary, we receive these as well meaning and as a sign that they have been blessed by our music. You get used to taking big offers with a grain of salt. As if anyone would come from the other side of the world to film us for national television!
In early 2007, Gerrit flew to Melbourne for a one hour lunch meeting with me. Gerrit explained that he wanted to produce a program on the Psalms featuring our project and would use large portions of our DVD as well as other footage that he would return to shoot in June. The following June, Gerrit returned with cameraman Jeroen. They filmed interviews, a collection of B roll footage and a precarious shot of us playing Psalm 93 on a rock outcrop down on the wild southern coast near where we live. The program subsequently went to air about 4 or 5 times in different forms and raised huge awareness for our project in the Netherlands.
