Show Hope

Last night was a very special night for our family. We went to the
Steven Curtis Chapman concert at Yorba Linda Friends Church, and had a great time in the presence of God! We were invited by Steven’s adoption foundation called Shaohannah’s Hope. We had so much fun as a family just being there together. Bethany Dillon opened up the concert sharing her music with us, and we could tell that our young budding musical artist named Abigail was being truly inspired. Sanctus Real played next and rocked the house. The high note of their time on stage for me was when they shared a stirring song and testimony with their song called Benjamin.

Steven came up after that during the intermission and welcomed us all. He gave a presentation on adoption throughout the show, and the grace is on him big time for this. He encouraged us all to take part in the Show Hope Campaign, where we the concert goers get to bring our loose change and dump it in big buckets during the intermission. Whatever is collected goes to selected adopting families at the end of the concert. Steven is so inspiring the way he uses the gift and platform that God has given him on behalf of the fatherless. To demonstrate how a child is orphaned every 18 seconds, he had a ticker on the screen adding up that number during the concert. By the end of the evening, over 600 children had been orphaned!

We went to the back to take part in the offering, and we were happy to see our friends Don and Erin Diva (pictured left) who are also in the process of adopting an orphan. Kim had last talked to them in June, right before our journey had really even started, so it was neat to share with them a little of what God has done in such a short time. A wonderful man named David who works with Steven (He’s the road manager) came up and told us to meet him in the back by the Show Hope booth at the start of the song Live Out Loud. David is a really neat man and made us feel completely welcomed and comfortable being there. The whole staff for Shaohannah’s Hope is amazing too, and just made the whole thing a great experience for us.

We went back to our seats after intermission and enjoyed the show. Not too long into the show Steven proudly introduced the newest members of his band. His 18 year old son named Caleb plays guitar, and the drummer is his 16 year old son named Will! Let me just say that as a musician I was impressed! I talked to Caleb after the show, and he said that they are both self taught, and have “just played a lot”. It was a treat to watch them rock out. I went to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert 13 years ago! It was a great show back then, but the youthful energy these kids dished out shaved some age off the bands’ sound for sure! I would be honest and say it if I thought these guys had an amateur level of play at all about them, but they were completely professional. Their energy added a refreshing flavor and raw fire to the music, and it was fun to watch the family enjoy performing together. Steven really has a lot of ground to cover to please the crowd with all the hit songs he’s written over the years, and accomplished this well with the medly he put together. The highlight song of the show for me (Todd) was his new song called Cinderella. He told us how he wrote the song, and I could really relate to what he shared. It’s a beautiful song about living in the moment and seizing the opportunities we have with our children. The video that accompanied it was also very beautiful, showing him dancing with his daughter over the years. He had our row in tears, that’s for sure! 😉

It was particularly refreshing to see the way Steven got the crowd involved. He brought a family up on stage during one of the songs, and all through the show he just shared a lot with us. He gracefully educated on the subject of adoption and shared his passion, and encouraged the fund raising aspect of it, but never once did it seem overdone or become a burden. I’ve been to too many events where this was not the case. Adoption and caring for the orphans really is a core message and demonstration of the gospel and this concert did nothing but fuel the fire for me to want to work and find ways to participate in caring for them.

Our little Hannah melted down pretty early on in the show, (I think the volume level was getting to her fresh little eardrums) so Kim had her in the back already, and by the time Live out Loud started, both Jonathan and Abigail had fallen asleep on me (literally). But they didn’t complain too much when I rousted them. We went to the back and then our pal David took us up by the stage. Prior to the event, we didn’t know anything about the Show Hope campaign, and so we didn’t know what to expect. Steven had mentioned at the beginning that there were 3 families invited, but when we got to the stage, it turned out we were the only family present.

He called us on stage and had us say our names and share a little about where we are in the adoption process. Kim shared that we are adopting a blind child from Bethel Foster Home, and he was rocked! He has visited Bethel before and played there and knows the founders well, etc. He got excited and told the audience what Bethel is about. Then he asked Kim the name of the child we are adopting. After that he announced the results of the change collection. It turns out that they collected a record $9,600 in change for the evening! He explained that the maximum that they give per family is $4000, so we received a grant for $4000! We were blown away! We applied for a grant with Shaohannah’s Hope, but we didn’t know for sure if we’d be receiving a grant. We thought we probably would when they invited us to the concert, and thought maybe they were going to tell us about it on stage, but we didn’t know about the change collection, and it was just a really neat way to receive the grant. We said thank you and praised God and then he laid hands on us and everyone prayed for us. What a tremendous blessing! As he was talking, I flashed back to a prayer gathering we had at our house not too long ago, to pray for Hope. A family we are friends with came over, with their young daughter named Genai who they adopted from China. She brought us her bag of change that day that she’d been saving for a long time and gave it for Hope. Giving a little changes a lot, and I realized that change collecting is a very effective fund raising tool!

The concert ended and we got to go backstage with Steven and hang out for a bit. It was just Steven, our host David and us for a while, and we got to tell him a little more of our story.
I got to tell him how our journey started with Abigail and her heart that had been stirred and how she had saved up $400 and wouldn’t spend any of her money so that she can adopt from China one day. He told Abigail that she was our Emily. I didn’t know about this, but his daughter Emily was the one God used in his family as well to stir their hearts for the orphans. We also talked more about Bethel, how we were floored to find out that Hope is there and how we got to talk to her on the phone, etc. Many from his staff were coming by to say how much they love the kids at Bethel, and what a great work they are doing there. David told us how he actually just celebrated his birthday there at Bethel! We were able to deliver a special package to Steven from a friend of ours, and then he asked us to let his son Caleb take a short video of us saying hello and thanks to Guillerme, who is the founder of Bethel. They are putting something special together for him for an upcoming gathering. (It’s a surprise 😉 ). It was really neat to see all the connections with Bethel that they have. They didn’t know the child we are adopting is at Bethel, and we only found out that Hope is at Bethel a little over a week ago, so it was like God had a special surprise up his sleeve for all of us! Steven and Caleb took us in a room and videotaped us talking a little bit, but I wasn’t able to get in a flow for the video. Kim did fine but I was just spacing out. I am glad we got to say something, but let me just say for the record that I sure hope I don’t ever have see the part with me talking, because I think I would die of embarrassment. Oh well… After that it was neat to hang around a bit more and watch Steven share his time and passion with the people who were there after the show. He has so much energy and his heart to serve others beats strong.

While we were on our way to go up on stage, a man had passed a business card to Kim and told her that there was someone who would like to talk to us who was working one of the booths in the back. On the back of the card was a note from the man saying that they had also adopted a blind daughter from China! So we found them in the back while they were packing up and got to meet the whole Reynolds family, including a beautiful and amazing blind girl named Jamie, who is 12. She was adopted a year ago from the Hunan, and they all told us some of her story, and we were able to share some of our story with them.

It was such an amazing God evening. We left after 11:30pm and the kids were pretty tired, but they did great the whole time. It was one of those special times that we will always remember. We are so thankful to God, and to Shaohannah’s Hope and the Chapman family, and everyone who showed up to the concert last night and turned their change into Hope.