Monday...Ummm....I mean Saturday Song Stories: "Wounded (Song for the Orphans)"

Last Spring as I was finishing up in the studio, a man named Junior Andrews came to our church. Junior is the director of an Organization called Village of Hope in Lilongwe Malawi. Junior spoke of children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The situation in Africa is at epidemic proportions. On that morning, Junior showed pictures. He said names. He explained individual situations. These were children that were just as real as my own.

The website www.un.org estimates that there are between 850,000 and 1.2 million AIDS orpahns in Malawi alone. The government can only afford to throw $250 000 at the problem.

I have to admit, I can't relate to this scope of need. A million children with no parents. How is that possible in a world like ours?

I went home that morning overwhelmed, so I picked up my guitar. The only way that I can explain it is that within 20 minutes this song had erupted. I felt that day that even though I wasn't able to give a home to an orphan, I could offer this. How powerful is a song? Can it make a difference? I pray each time that I perform it that it will be a tool in God's hands.

I also have a brother that is passionate about orphans in Mexico. I have seen the compassion of God reflected in my brother Rick's eyes as he speaks of real children who have been rescued, and the many more that need care.

And that compassion is essentially what this song is about. God cares for these "little wounded souls" and commissions us to be the hands that deliver his practical care. I guess as I worte this song, I pictured God reaching out to a street child in Malawi, picking him up, and whispering to him "In my house there are no orphans."