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Haseltine We've been touring more than we'd probably like, which has made it really hard. Our kids are old enough now to hate when we're gone; it's heart-wrenching when you hear, "Daddy, you don't have to go."

Tell us about Blood: Water Mission.

Haseltine Blood:Water Mission is an organization that we founded to bring HIV and AIDS in Africa into the conversation of college students, mostly. It's something we originally were brought into by way of World Vision. There's a need for somebody to be a bridge between this issue in the church—some way to dismantle some of the myths and the stigma that's attached to it in America. It allows the church, which for the most part has been very afraid of AIDS and HIV, to engage in more service. We do symposiums on college campuses where we basically bring people in to talk about AIDS on a lot of different levels—what the disease looks like and the effects of the disease. We're taking a world map perspective of this issue and putting a personal perspective on it in a way that would bring you to act.

What has been a surprising statistic you've learned so far relating to the cause?

Haseltine The World Health Organization released a statistic that 80% of deaths in developing Africa are caused by water-related illnesses. As most people with HIV/AIDS die from opportunistic illness that take hold while the immune system is depleted, we find the connection undeniable. [To that end, Jars and Blood:Water Mission are launching the 1000 Wells Project next spring, an effort to raise funds for the construction/repair of 1000 wells in sub-Saharan Africa. They're trying to raise money to get the ball rolling; for more information, check out the website.]

Dan Haseltine performing at Night of Joy 2004 at Disney's Magic Kingdom

What are the different ways for people to get involved and lend a hand?

Haseltine For college students, the biggest question is, "I don't have any money so I can't really sponsor a kid. What can I do?" We tell people to talk about the issue, to talk about HIV and AIDS. Most communities have an AIDS center where they can get to know someone with AIDS, and talk to them. There's the Student Global AIDS Campaign, a lobbying front that lets people know how they can become activists. When certain bills are coming up in Congress, they can notify you to put in phone calls and be active. Writing articles for your student newspapers, writing papers, using it as a topic of discussion in classrooms—there are lots of ways to just bring this up and keep it in the minds of the people who need to know what's going on.

Our government listens to college students. The whole anti-apartheid movement was in effect college students who caused it to fall. That's because they told our government they cared about this issue and if they didn't do anything about it, they wouldn't be re-elected. When people get behind HIV and AIDS and start demanding something be done about it, the government has to listen. And they're already listening to the church in a very big way, more than I ever thought possible. It's been huge.

Back to the band: Is it what you would've imagined ten years ago?

Lowell It was so beyond us to see that we were doing something that was really going to connect with people and last the long run. I don't know that I necessarily tried to imagine us ten years down the road. I think it was more a matter of surviving one year at a time. Like Dan said earlier, we were very reactionary. We thought we had to manipulate the variables to make sure we'd stay around. Now it's much more wanting to be good songwriters and craftsmen. How do we express what we're learning in a three-minute song? So now I think there's a little bit more vision for five years down the road, God willing, ten years down the road, to still be doing this and making a difference somewhere.

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