I was twenty-one and looking for twenty hours of work to go with my twenty hours of college every week.  I found it hanging on a bulletin board.  “Musician needed,” it said.  “Methodist Childrens Home”

After a few months of my guitar strumming, the Childrens Home chaplain had a major life crisis and stepped out of his teaching duties, leaving me and another guy to take over.

That’s how at twenty-two I became co-chaplain at the Methodist Childrens Home in Waco, Texas. I stood up in front of 250 kids ages five to eighteen every Sunday morning and Wednesday night and told them about God, how much He loved them, what it means to follow Him and really just did my best not to mess them up.

Some of the kids were refugees from other countries sent to the home by parents who stayed behind in places like Ethiopia and Somalia.  These kids waited in our care until their mothers and fathers could find a way out of their country and into ours.  Other kids were truly orphaned, losing parents to illness or accident.  Some were pulled from abusive situations by grandparents or other family members unable to care for them personally but not wanting the State of Texas to be their guardian.  Still others, most actually, had been in some kind of trouble with the law and a judge somewhere agreed to let them live at the Childrens Home as a means of being rehabilitated rather than placing them in a juvenile detention center.

Once a child arrived on our campus they were given clothes, food, education and the opportunity to investigate who Jesus is.  They lived in a home with other kids their age, with a “mom” and a “dad”.  They saw, some of them for the first time, two adults kiss, hug and say kind words to each other.  They were told they were loved daily.  For most, the Childrens Home was the best life had ever been for them.

This Saturday, May 19, the Baptist Childrens Homes of Tennessee are hosting a 5K run to fund their operations for the next year.  That’s the hope anyway.  I’ll be there to play a short concert and fire the starter’s pistol.  And eat some Chick-fil-A.  Way-FM will be there and so will the kids who live on the Brentwood, Tennessee Childrens Home campus.  I’m opening for their choir actually.

This matters to me because I know from experience that the children in this home desperately need to know they matter to someone.  And that’s the message conveyed when a few hundred people show up on their campus and listen to them sing and then run a few laps on their behalf.  It says “We care about you enough to give up a Saturday morning and wear shorts in public.” And it matters to me because these kids matter to God.  The Baptist Childrens Homes of Tennessee change the trajectory of little lives every day.  They put families back together.  They provide a safe place for kids to learn and grow and experience love, sometimes for the first time.  That matters.

Join me Saturday, May 19, on the Brentwood Campus of the Baptist Childrens Homes of Tennessee to tell the kids living there that they matter to you.  Get all the details at www.tnrun4kids.org.  And please pass this info on to everyone you know in central Tennessee.