Singing lessons from African kids…
Ironic it may be, on a day seemingly clouded by misconstrued ideas of justice, I am terribly excited to be able to tell you about my partnering with an organisation seeking to bring real justice to the lives of those amid great poverty.
Let’s rewind the story a little. Back in November of last year, I began to realise a desire to use the voice God has given me in my calling as a song writer and worship leader, to find ways to creatively link the arts with furthering awareness of such organisations battling injustice in our world. Those of you who have followed my music for any length of time, will know that these things are some of the underlying heartbeats in what I do and why I do it. I want to give those a voice, whose story is otherwise brushed aside, overlooked or ignored as well as bringing glory to God.
It would seem it is this very character of my music that led an organisation called Fields of Life to approach me within weeks of beginning to pray through these things. God’s direction was so clear cut and beautiful. The motivation and ethos echoed everything I felt it should be. The idea is helping people to be able to help themselves as a dignifying solution in their lives in East Africa where Fields of Life operate.
A meeting or two later and we were already planning the beginnings of this creative partnership. As the first fruits of this emerge, you will begin to see the inner workings of their diverse projects. Their heart is inspiring and their work effective. For now, I am just thrilled and proud to be able to let you in on my affiliation with these guys and how this is all beginning.
So, with a guitar around my neck and a few considered sentences strung together, a film crew and myself will board a flight to Uganda next week to embark on this really cool project we have been planning…
One of the main works Fields of Life undertake is in building schools and providing an education for the kids there. From these schools, some great singers are pulled together to form a choir, who have even made it as far as our own shores in the past few years. So, while there, we will be shooting a video of a song I have just finished specially for this project, with these guys singing on it with me. The song is aimed at telling their story as best it can, both showing the inadequate humanitarian conditions they are faced with in everyday life, contrasted against their yet evident hopeful outlook on life.
The aim is simple, to help create awareness not just of what these people go through, which I’m sure you have seen any number of times, but also to the practical solutions that an organisation like Fields of Life bring and how hope can be written into their stories.
Let’s BE love and BE hope…
Stay tuned.
Nathan
