STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN: 'No guarantees'

October 21, 2002

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN: 'No guarantees'
___By Trennis Henderson
___Kentucky Western Recorder
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP)--Steven Curtis Chapman's 25-city "Live Out Loud Tour" isn't the typical contemporary Christian music concert.
___In addition to performing singles from "Magnificent Obsession" to "Fingerprints of God," Chapman turns the spotlight on his advocacy for adoption and Bible translation.
___Chapman's longtime support of adoption took on a new dimension two years ago when he and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted a 6-month-old daughter from China. Shaohannah joined three older siblings: Emily, 16; Caleb, 13; and Will Franklin, 11.
___Adopting Shaohannah "was the most profound experience spiritually, emotionally, in my life and my family's life," Chapman said. "We want to enco

CONTEMPORARY Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman draws on his life experiences as he writes and records music about his faith. Key themes of his current concert tour are advocacy for adoption and Bible translation.

urage and challenge as many people as we can to experience this as well."
___Chapman, the Dove Awards' five-time Male Vocalist of the Year, used his fame and influence to establish a foundation called "Shaohannah's Hope Assistance Fund."
___Inadequate finances are "one of the biggest stumbling blocks for a lot of people" interested in adoption, Chapman said. The fund helps meet that financial need.
___"We have been able to help several families already, and their children, now who are in loving Christian homes."
___Bible translation is another top priority for Chapman. He credits the book "Through Gates of Splendor," about five missionaries murdered by tribesmen in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956, with igniting that concern.
___"When I finished this book, I knew I will never be the same," he said. "This has really left a mark on my soul and on my life."
___After the five men were killed, family members of two of them, Elisabeth Elliot, widow of Jim Elliott, and Rachel Saint, sister of Nate Saint, eventually went to live among the same tribe. They helped translate Scripture into their language and led many of them to faith in Christ.
___Saint's son, Steve, also became a missionary to the tribe years later, ministering and living among the people who had killed his father.
___Chapman told the story, using songs to narrate a multi-media presentation that included photos and film clips taken by the five missionaries a few days before they were killed.
___As the segment closed during his recent concert in Louisville, Ky., Chapman introduced special guest Steve Saint.
___"God never wastes a hurt if we'll trust him to write his story with our lives," Saint said. He told how Mincaye, one of the men who killed his father, had become a Christian and now is known by Saint's family as "grandfather." Saint then introduced Mincaye to the crowd.
___"A long time ago, I didn't know anything about God's carvings," Mincaye said in his native language as Saint translated. Explaining that he and other tribesmen "were living angry and hating," he added, "We had never known how to know the Creator."
___Mincaye said missionaries began to teach his tribe that God "sent his Son down here to make a trail."
___Chapman described the conversions of many of the tribesmen as "an incredible story of transformation, of forgiveness, of redemption."
___Chapman said other influences on his ministry in recent years include the school shooting five years ago at Heath High School--his alma mater--and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The 1997 school shootings in his hometown of Paducah, Ky., left three teenage girls dead.
___"Those kinds of things had a tremendous impact on me at several different levels," he said. "Obviously, it awakened all of us to the reality of just how uncertain our world is around us. If this could happen at Heath High School, it could happen anywhere."
___Chapman said his song "God is God (and I am not)" is among his responses to "foundational shaking tragedy."
___"My response is I don't have any guarantees about tomorrow; I don't have any guarantees about anything other than I trust that God is truly the one in control. He can even take those things that are terribly evil and use them for good and work them together for good.
___"That's the anchor I have found in the midst of those times," he said. "Those anchors become more sure when you walk through those kinds of tragedies."
___

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