Donation Projects

Music forms an integral part of Indian society and culture. For many Indian peoples, everyday there are times devoted to singing and worship.

For the Christadelphians in Hyderabad, the children at the Shunem Home, children who attend Shunem Sunday School (inclusive of children from the local villages), and the children who attend Nithsdale Learning Centre (a Shunem ran infants school), music is a daily activity that all are required to participate in. Singing and body percussion/movement is a core component of both general learning and education studies as well as a significant part of praise and worship to God.

Every morning from 6am to 7am the children and staff at the Shunem Home gather to sing worship songs in English and do the first two bible readings of the day. At evening from 6pm to 7 pm they gather again, this time to sing and do the final reading  in their first language of Telugu. This routine is also practised in individual families, as well as at large gatherings such as conferences. Added to this is half an hour of singing and dancing of regular children's sings and sunday schools song at school assembly every morning, as well as an hour before Sunday school on Sundays, and a special singing session on Sunday nights after dinner, where new songs are usually taught to the children. This all adds up to a significant amount of hours where music is used as a means to praise and worship to our heavenly father every day. This has has been an absolute highlight of my stay in India. I really love and am enlivened by how praise is considered so important and vital to the daily spiritual life of the community, and the enthusiasm and joy with the children and brothers and sister participate in these times of devotion to God are truly special to witness and be a part of.

The Praise the Lord book, as well as the old Black Hymn book are the only music sources available and printed in multiple copies for the children and ecclesia to use. I have never before heard a group of people who know as many songs from the Praise the Lord book as the Shunem kids! And all songs are sung unaccompanied and quite often all by memory. A child will call out a number, and then the group will just commence singing. This can go on for over an hour!

The love of music and song in India, encouraged me to want to share some of the music that I enjoy back in Australia. Being involved in The Seventh Day team has enabled me to learn, listen to and embrace the unique and amazing compositions of praise written by various brothers and sisters in our community. Having CDs, and tracks available, as well as sheet ,music and backing tracks means there is a large resource of material ready to use and make use of in mission areas.

The songs and music in many of these albums whilst familiar to us are unfamiliar in style, rhythm, instrumentation and pitch variation for some culture, and can therefore be quite complicated to teach. For this reason I asked the The Seventh Day team to donate some  money so that CD players could be bought and used at the Shumem Home, the Nithsdale Learning Centre and the Hyderabad Sunday School and ecclesia. A larger CD player was purchased for the Shunem Home as on Sundays there are often over 100 children attending Sunday school. All CD players have mp3 inputs and USB ports to support various types of music devices that local members and international volunteers have.

Whilst not being used to replace the opportunity for me to develop my own worship leading skills, having the CD players has enabled me to share and expose the children and the youth of Hyderabad and Bangalore ecclesias to different genres of praise music, and allows them to develop more accurately some of the musical skills they already have, especially pitch, rhythm and beat. Having the songs as well as the backing tracks has allowed us to start to teach them to hear harmony and instrumentation.

The CD players are used everyday and has been really appreciated by the children and the ecclesia. Such a simple purchase has allowed the amazing worship that we have so readily available  to us, to travel around the world and be enjoyed by our community in India. The leftover donation money has gone towards getting more copies of a songbook used by the Hyderabad Sunday school.

A big thank you to all who have shared their music, and those who have purchased the music to enjoy, and a big thank you from all in India. This combined generosity has meant that the development, sharing and fellowship of song and worship to our Father can be supported and encouraged in all places. 

~Rochelle Hadley

Jamaica - Acoustic Guitar

An acoustic guitar was donated to CBMA which was taken around Jamaica by link-brother Martin Shirley in the CBMA vehicle to the different ecclesias for helping with hymn singing.

 

Agape In Action - Recording Equipment

A MiniDisc and Professional Stereo Microphone recording setup for music tracking was donated to Agapae in Action, to help fundraising projects. (Na Sfia CD was produced with this equipment)

 

CBMA - Guyana music songbooks

Contributions made towards Guyana music songbooks which were printed and shipped down for youth group singing