Because They Hear

Before leaving for Adelaide I was working on a very special, multifaceted project for a very special little guy.

Johan is the son of the best man at our wedding and our godson. He lives in Alice Springs (but not for much longer...) with his dad, mum and little sister Ruby. He's 2 and half years old now and a little bit of a superhero champion. You see he's had a few

health and developmental struggles. The most recent focus point for his health (aside from the weekly physiotherapy and daily work his rock star parents do with him) has been the implanting and turning on of a Cochlear Implant to try to give him more than the 10% hearing he's had so far in life.

Can you even imagine they joy of learning to hear??

Can you imagine the wave of emotions as you see your child learn your voice properly??

I don't really know if I can.

Turning on the implant doesn't mean he can suddenly hear 100% but it does mean he will slowly be able to hear more and more over time. I don't think he will ever have more than about 70% hearing. I guess no one can know for sure. Right now though he can hear more than he could without it which makes it an incredible gift. It's an answer to prayer.

We believe that as godparents it is our role to pray for him, teach him about God and love him. Praying for him from a distant is easy because distance doesn't matter to God! Loving him is easy enough through prayer, phone calls to his parents to check up on him, sending little gifts and catching up when we can (not so easy!). But teaching him about our Saviour has been something that has escaped us. We've sent him books - which he loves, but I have felt for a long time that it all falls short of fulfilling the teaching part of our calling as godparents.

Then, soon after we received news that he'd been accepted to have a Cochlear Implant, an idea came to me. I know it was from God. How could it not have been? He gave me this idea to use some of the gifts he has given me to make a gift for Johan. And so I present to you the one of a kind, never to be repeated, first album to be recorded by Joel and Rachel....

Now Johan can hear the Word of God from his godparents as he follows along with the books (which we definitely sent with the disc!). Now Johan will know the voices of two more people who love him and the words of the One whose Love is above and beyond all.

Blessed are your eyes because they can see and your ears because they hear.

Matthew 13 vs 16

Thank you's - or - Notes from the speech I'd give when receiving the Grammy Award for our Album:

~ Thanks Apple for making such easy and brilliant programs! GarageBand was so easy to understand and use to record this CD even though I'd never used it before.

~ Thanks Minuteman Press for great printing at a great price - again. (They printed a front booklet, double sided; a back cover and 2 CD labels. All exactly how I wanted it)

~ Thanks Morgan for not barking in the back ground.

~ Thanks Photoshop for letting me rock out my ideas.

~ Thanks Stock.xchng for high quality free stock images.

~ Thanks internet world for having free templates for me to get all the dimensions right. No thanks for them not being exact. Live and learn.

~ Thanks Joel for being the other voice and godparent.

~ Thank you Sam & Tara for inviting us to be Johan's godparents. We are honoured.

~ And major thanks to the Father for awesome ideas, pretty decent skills, the equipment and funds to put ideas into action, brilliant people who can make people hear and for giving us an amazing little guy to bless.