Kentucky Baptist Convention

[photos courtesy of Dannah Prather of the Western Recorder]


Our God is sufficient for all our needs. In His sufficiency, He blesses us with earthly friends to guide, lead, direct, and encourage us. And what a great history of friends that Hawaii has had with the Kentucky Baptists! This was the theme of our performance at the Kentucky Baptist Convention Chapel Service ... a time of thanking and honoring these folks for the years of partnering with us.

In addition to the staff of the Center (which also houses the Western Recorder - the organization that prints our convention newsletter - see info below), the service was filled with old friends. It was especially nostalgic for Randy and Danette as some of their professors and fellow students from their Southern Baptist Seminary days were in the audience. Did you know that among the alumni of Southern Baptist Seminary who have served and continue to serve in Hawaii include: Dan Kong, Jim Baggett, Mori Hiratani, Arjay Gruspe, Sterling Lee? (apologies to all the others who are serving that I don't recall at this time) Danette was especially thrilled to revisit with Mozelle Sherman, one of her former professor, and Ted Hodge, who was her supervisor in her first Chaplaincy. Mozelle has been one of our biggest supporters on this tour from the very beginning. She made a lot of contacts with churches here and help set up some of our concerts. She also provided us with an ukulele before Randy arrived, so we could use it for the luau at Brookview Baptist Church. In addition, she connected Randy, Gay, and Danette via telephone with their former professor and well-known composer, Phil Landgrave, who had planned to be at the concert at the Baptist Building. However, he was in the hospital and unable to attend. Friends with direct Olivet connections included Betty & Dan McAninch (they were also at the St. Matthews program) - Betty served as our organist; and Roberta Tassie and her husband - Roberta was our choir director as well as a teacher at the Hawaii Baptist Academy and her husband helped with the founding of Puu Kahea.

This tour has been filled with blessings from the very moment that Master's Touch said yes to Randy & Gay's request to accompany them. And many times, we walked in faith that God would provide. In order to transport all the donations to Otter Creek, we needed another vehicle (and you already read about the "holey moley" experience) so we just rented it and figured we'd deal with the credit card bill once we returned home. At this time, we want to thank the Fryrear family. This family was Danette's adopted family when she was in seminary- always there to support her! They continue to have a generous heart, as at the end of this concert, they presented Danette with a token of appreciation for Master's Touch ... and yep, our God is sufficient - our "holey moley" van expenses are now covered!

And ... all the photos thus far are from Dannah Prather works so hard to put our Hawaii Pacific Baptist Newsletter together. Not only has she provided the photos that are up on the blog right now, but she has been a driving force in getting other Kentucky Baptists to welcome and support us on tour. And we were able to meet several KY Baptist Convention staff, including the WMU Director, Joy Bolton, who had played in the seminary band with Danette. The WMU put together a wonderful assortment of refreshments for us as part of the reception which was held in our honor by the staff of the Baptist Building.

Hawaii has been blessed by our partnership with the Kentucky Baptists. It is our prayer that this friendship continues 'til the end of time and that they will be blessed until we meet again!