Music is a very powerful tool. Have you ever left a concert and commented to your friend, or tweeted out, “that was awesome!” What caused that reaction? Was there a subliminal message in the music telling you to praise them?
No.
You praise what you enjoy. And music helps fuel that action.
No one knows this reality more than God. He created music. Music has always been a part of God’s story. Think about how He used Joshua and the ‘orchestra’ to bring down the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6), or how when David played his harp it calmed and serenaded the evil spirit annoying King Solomon (1 Samuel 16:23).
Why is music so prevalent in God’s story?
There are multiple answers to that question, but at least one answer is that it is a very powerful medium. Music has a way of focusing our attention and arousing our emotions in a way that reading words on a page cannot. When our hearts and minds are focused and our emotions are engaged, often times our hands and our feet take action. In the Kingdom of God this is where music and mission collide. Music often promotes mission and mission often times creates music. They are woven together in God’s agenda.
Our Story and Our Music
In 2007 there were close to 5,000 Guatemalan children adopted by families in the United State, and from 2008 to 2014..zero new cases of international adoptions. That is a staggering statistic. Zero new International cases from Guatemala since 2008. That’s tragic because there are so many children needing homes, and so many families longing to bring home children.
That’s our story.
It involves a little girl we met in 2008, just after Guatemala closed it’s doors to international adoptions. Her name is Selena. Selena has cerebral palsy, and will steal your heart in a second. We met her in an over-crowded orphanage, and the trajectory of our lives has been forever changed. We now have two biological children, but Selena has always been our first. We knew we would look into adoption one day but weren’t expecting to so soon. But God’s timing is not ours. We met Selena and very clearly the Lord told us to pursue her.
After finding out international adoption from Guatemala was closed, and there was no way to formally adopt Selena, we decided to keep pursuing and loving her. Over the years that meant traveling by ourselves and visiting her as much as we could afford. It also meant getting her moved out of the orphanage and placing her in a foster family where she can get the care, attention and love that she needs. It’s been an amazing journey that we hope and pray will end one day in adopting Selena and bringing her into our home. We continue to support her and her foster family who have become our family over the years. They love Selena like their own daughter and we are so grateful for them.
My wife and I have always loved music and I’ve been in the church music scene since I was a child. So over these last five years after meeting Selena, there would be these moments where the Lord would give me a passion to rewrite and redesign an old hymn. Most hymns are written in the most beautiful way, and the content is so rich and full. Over these five years, I would have these occasions where I would sit down and work through a hymn we loved. We never knew why God was prompting us to create music like this but over these years we collected a handful of hymns that we had rewritten.
With Selena having special needs we knew that she needed financial support. Whether it be for her physical therapy sessions, medicine or whatever else she may need, we decided early on to take those cost and tell the family we will meet those needs and support them taking care of Selena until, Lord willing, we could adopt her. This has never been a burden; it has always been our joy. And God has met every one of Selena’s needs over these five years.
We’ve always wished we could support them more than we have and always wanted to bless Selena and the foster family in a particular way.
Last spring that opportunity came about.
We started to put together plans for what we would call HYMNS FOR SELENA. This project would be a collection of redesigned hymns that we had written over the years, plus some newer ones. We would ask our amazingly talented music friends, who have loved and supported us over the years, to be the featured artist on each track and then release this project for free on NoiseTrade. Any tips that would be left or revenue from these songs would go towards supporting Selena’s needs. So we starting asking our friends and the response was overwhelming. We basically created the album for nothing. Top artist like Billy and Cindy Foote, Michael Bleecker, Lauren Chandler, and David Gentiles, to name a few, donated their time and talent to the album. We recorded it in top notch studios and even had it mastered by local Houstonian Bob Boyd. We are really proud of the quality of this project and so overwhelmed by the generosity of those involved.
12 featured artist, 8 musicians and 10 Hymns: Hymns For Selena.
This project was released in November and the response has been so positive. We’ve been able to send the donations to the family for Selena, and they are overwhelmed by the generosity of the people hearing Selena’s story.
The beautiful effect of this project is that we are being missional through music. This music project is a way for the body of Christ to come together and to meet a need.
The story of our adoption has no foreseeable end. But we are steadfast in our pursuit of Selena. We love that God has woven into our story this beautiful album and that through the album we are bringing others into Selena’s story. We need others to pray for us, to pray for Selena, and to pray for the country of Guatemala.
Music is extremely powerful. Especially in the hands of believers who can be stirred towards mission. May we always be people who are stirred towards mission by music and may we always be creating music in midst of our mission.
