Beneath a desert sky in Death Valley I went in search of U2’s Joshua Tree location. The tree itself is gone but I wanted to visit where it stood.
I explored areas that rivers run but soon run dry. I had climbed the highest mountains. I had run through the fieldsof vast desert spaces, walking obscure canyons I’d never seen. Searching Death Valley allowed me to feel sunlight on my face, before finding success in Death Valley had been like a dust cloud that disappeared without a trace.
In the quiet solitude a howl jumped out at me like a bullet the blue sky – a jet fighter shrieked from behind a hill and thundered low over me.
Instantly I was plunged back into the deadly desert silence to reflect back on all that I can’t leave behind when I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
You’ve thought it before “… I’m too old for this”, or maybe you’ve pondered “I’m too young …”.
But Connor Franta, Social Media Celebrity, will tell you different. Our age is a mindset and shouldn’t control us or our decisions according to Connor. He goes so far as saying we should do whatever we want regardless of our age.
Connor explains his position in this 4 min 37 sec video.
Here’s my take on Connor\’s video. He had me in the first frame … mmmm … Chemex makes great coffee! After that he couldn’t do any wrong – well maybe …
Being too old [or too young] has always collided in my life. It’s mocked me and moved me, called me onwards and chided me. Connor argues your age shouldn’t decide what are you going to do, or not do. I agree – in some ways.
There are some things that just aren’t OK no matter what your age. I’m not talking about doing drugs when you’re a minor … I’m talking about doing drugs when you’re an adult too!
I was also rolling my eyes listening to Connor say “if you want to do it, just do it no matter what your age …”. No matter how much we like the ‘Theology Of Self Satisfaction’ it breaks lives. Moving to Las Vegas at 99 appeals to our “me-ness” [it’s not a word but you get it] but ignores reality. Time with our families and friends is short. At 99 you may be a mother. You may be a grandfather. Packing your suitcase and jaunting to Vegas is a self-obsessed act. It\’s not age that should stop you moving to Vegas. Doing whatever we want, whenever we want, is a perpetuating lie. The people around you DO matter! They need to be a part of the decisions and choices we make in life.
Listen to what others are saying about Peter Woolston!
\”5 out of 5 Stars\”
Heath Andrews, Music Critic
\”kicking rock … grand confident vocals … layered guitars
… similar timbre to Switchfoot\” Kelly O’Neil (Foreigner, Kevin Max, Jaci Velasquez, CCM & CrossWalk magazines)
“… drawing comparisons to artists like Jon Foreman, Bono and Martin Smith\” Scoop Independent News
And now you can download Peter\’s latest single for free!
But there is much I also agree with Connor on. Age IS nothing but a number. I don’t think he means 70 year olds should run 100m sprints or wear stilettos. We know God thinks age is just a number too. The Bible records God using people of all ages to do amazing things all the time. Not just the young. Not just the old. All people.
I guess the key questions is this: have you listened to the lie that age disqaulifies you? Fear is a Liar. God is love. He believes in you. Get out there and do what God has made you to do REGARDLESS of barriers you face – barriers like age.
C’mon … let’s trust in God and not in our age!
Get the song from my CD that inspired 15,000 people worldwide
Fight your fears and fuel your dreams with my alt-rock anthem that featured on The Voice EMC!
Download your free song now!
Listen to what others are saying about Peter Woolston!
\”5 out of 5 Stars\”
Heath Andrews, Music Critic
\”kicking rock … grand confident vocals … layered guitars
… similar timbre to Switchfoot\” Kelly O’Neil (Foreigner, Kevin Max, Jaci Velasquez, CCM & CrossWalk magazines)
“… drawing comparisons to artists like Jon Foreman, Bono and Martin Smith\” Scoop Independent News
And now you can download Peter\’s latest single for free!
When I sat down with my Martin D-28 guitar and scraps of ideas to write \”Hope On My Horizon\” from my Auckland based studio I didn\’t think about how a song can help predict the future. I honestly never really thought about the journey this song might possibly take – a journey from my paradise at the bottom of the world here in New Zealand, over the uncertain and unsure Tasman Sea to Australia, and then, braving the foaming cauldron and colliding Antartic cold of the Indian Ocean to sail to the Ship of Hope in Africa.
Hannah Peters onboard Africa Mercy
Sure, I was wanting big things to happen when I sat down and started strumming some chords … but my ‘big’ was simply wanting Graeme and Sharon from Mercy Ships NZ to like the song once it was written! Who says musicians aren’t insecure :p They had asked me to write a song but I’d neglected to tell them that this was in fact the first time I was writing by request. I had never done this before and cautiously fretted over whether they would even like the song.
The situations I have gotten my self into in life have sometimes been of my own making. Some of those times I’ve tried to blame God – He is big enough and tough enough to be used as a scapegoat and there seems to be plenty of people in the world, just like me, who are happy to fling blame at His feet without hesitation. Except this wasn’t one of ‘those situations’ – I was under pressure with my confidence and music on the line because I was responding to God telling me to take this opportunity to help Mercy Ships NZ – He’d simply said “go … write a song”.
The Bible is riddled with encounters between God and ordinary folk where He asks them to take a step and the outcome of risking that God knows what He is doing results in something incredible. But sometimes when I take steps to follow God\’s leading nothing \”life-changing\” or \”world-shaking\” seems to happen. A lot of the time it frankly appears to be quite insignificant while life seems to be mostly mundane. When I take a read through the Bible, except for the few amazing instances, people\’s days on earth seem to be like mine – ordinary and uneventful.
Mercy Ship Crew watching Hope On My Horizon music video onboard
It’s only every now and then that a prayer I’ve prayed that seemed lost in my disappointed memories suddenly comes alive or that a small obedient step I take turns into a huge adventure that I would have never imagined … but only sometimes. Frankly, I never saw this one small step to “go … write a song” in my little studio at the bottom of the world, would grow into a global voyage of discovery.
Frankly my immediate problem was writing a song that would help raise money for Mercy Ships NZ. That\’s enough pressure to deal with when you sit down to create a tune from scratch. So with the title they\’d given me, \”Hope On My Horizon\”, a few scraps of lyrics and some snatches of guitar chords I started weaving the song together … with nervous mistakes as I went.
When I first played Graeme and Sharon the first cut of the song … they loved it! Whew! At least I think they liked it … it made Sharon cry :p
Get the song from Peter\’s CD that inspired 15,000 people worldwide
Grab the courage to take that step listening to Peter\’s alt-rock anthem that featured on The Voice EMC!
Download your free song now!
Soon after I heard God whispering to me to take other songs and bundle them together with \”Hope On My Horizon\” to make a CD that told more of the story. So I knuckled down and finished writing \”Dead Man Walking\”, \”Better Man Someday\”, \”Obsession\” and \”I Believe In You\”.
But finding a Producer in New Zealand to record the project with me was a frustrating year of yearning which kept resulting in dead ends. After I\’d had another \”going-nowhere cold-shoulder NZ Producer meeting\” my wife suggested \”How about recording in Australia?\”. I was feeling discouraged and not even slightly optimistic so the last thing I wanted to do was to pluck up my confidence and take on the larger Australian marketplace in the search for a Producer.
But one thing I know is Miriam has a God-given knack to catch a glimpse of things that are possible that I have no inkling of, so I\’ve learned to lean in when it makes sense to Miriam … but no sense to me. Needless to say within weeks I was booked with Andy Mak from Australia’s The Grove Studios in Sydney to make a record! This little song, penned in my little studio, now had an international team onboard and was embarking on a voyage across the Tasman Sea. We recorded the CD in Sydney, and then went on to master it in Melbourne, manufacture the CD\’s in the USA, to ship it all the way back to New Zealand!
I was asked a rather odd question by Sharon from Mercy Ships NZ during the project – she asked why I decided to write the second verse lyric “Scratched out a half-baked plan on a wrinkled serviette cos I won’t waste my life away”. I told her that I had loads of lyrical ideas describing how it would feel to face the journey to a hospital ship, but that I had cast all those ideas aside for these lyrics as they just felt “right” when there were so many others I could have used … she was shocked. She questioned me in an almost disbelieving tone “… you knew right, you knew about Don Stephens the Mercy Ships founder … right?” I stumbled a confused “…. no … what do you mean?!?!?!” Sharon then told me how Don had originally drawn out his idea for Mercy Ships on a serviette … just like the lyrics I had penned in my studio a world away. I was even more surprised and shocked than Sharon – I had no idea this had happened!
Just like the CD, the music video for the song “Hope On My Horizon” also packed it\’s bags and took flight after Australian video producer Madeleine Hetherton partnered with SBS Australia to shoot a documentary aboard Africa Mercy in Guinea and kindly offered this raw real-life footage to be combined with my studio recording footage … so the Hope On My Horizon music video was born. God only knows where things will lead when you simply say “Yes” to His whispers ….
If this wasn’t unexpected enough I recently received an email from Africa Mercy telling me they were going to play the ‘Hope On My Horizon’ music video to the entire crew onboard – this little tune had travelled all the way to sing for the real heroes of hope right there on the Surgery Ship .
Frankly, while I write this I am still dumbfounded as to how this has all happened – how responding to God\’s invitation to sit down with my guitar and notepad, turned into a song powering a ship in the poorest parts of our planet. I am amazed at how my simple “Yes” was used by God to do good and give hope. Never underestimate where simply saying “Yes …” to His stall small voice will lead you!
Leave a comment below about what’s happened to you when you’ve stepped out to do what God was saying to you and how your small “Yes…” turned into something you never expected.
Get the song from Peter\’s CD that inspired 15,000 people worldwide
Grab the courage to take that step listening to Peter\’s alt-rock anthem that featured on The Voice EMC!
Download your free song now!
Listen to what others are saying about Peter Woolston!
\”5 out of 5 Stars\”
Heath Andrews, Music Critic
\”kicking rock … grand confident vocals … layered guitars
… similar timbre to Switchfoot\” Kelly O’Neil (Foreigner, Kevin Max, Jaci Velasquez, CCM & CrossWalk magazines)
“… drawing comparisons to artists like Jon Foreman, Bono and Martin Smith\” Scoop Independent News
And now you can download Peter\’s latest single for free!
Easter is almost upon us and you know what it’s all about right? Chocolate and bunny rabbits …
But Christians like me will tell you different. When the first Easter happened (it was actually at a time called Passover) it was filled with everything we get in a gritty Hollywood blockbuster story … friendship, loyalty, envy, betrayal, hate, love, passion, murder and the impossible return of the hero when all is lost.
Have you ever wondered how Easter would have played out in your Twitter feed instead of trying to understand those cryptic stained glass windows or oil paintings? Watch this five minute video of the first Easter complete with hashtags and Twitter handles …
Here’s my take on this:
For me Easter is more than a Twitter feed, or a historian’s records, or a Biblical account – it’s remembering a collision of all of our troubles and turmoil, our mistakes and misgivings resolved by God in one fell swoop.
The Real Deal – before Jesus arrived on the scene God had outlined how he was going to resolve the differences between Him and us by sending the ‘Messiah’, from the Hebrew word mashiach, which means “anointed one” or “chosen one” – imagine the ultimate super hero who saves everyone for all time, and sorts out our sin that’s getting in the way between us and God.
God’s Checklist – God made us, so He’s the One who made us skeptical of people, including when the Messiah really is the Messiah. We can’t just have any Ordinary Joe proclaiming he’s the Messiah and messing with people’s lives right?!?!?! That’s why God provided requirements and specifications to be met by a ‘Messiah candidate’ so we could know we weren’t being duped. I believe Jesus fulfilled those Biblical requirements and prophecies meeting the measurement of ‘Messiah’.
Chocolate Eggs and Bunny Rabbits – so what’s that got to do with the chocolate eggs and bunny rabbits filling our world at Easter? Nothing …. kind of – before you throw away that chocolate egg that you’ve got in your hand hang in with me for a second … Easter commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus which form the central events of the Christian faith. As with all things human, there were debates about the best way and the best time to celebrate Easter after it occurred on that first Jewish Passover, because Passover could fall on any day of the week, so Christians wanted it locked and loaded on a Sunday and it was matched to the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox (first day of spring in the northern hemisphere). This also aligned to the pagan spring festivals which celebrate fertility, life, death and rebirth. In the end, the Easter bunny and chocolate Easter eggs have nothing to do with Jesus directly. There is nothing in the Bible or Christian tradition that links the two together. Yet still, the “pagan” associations that eggs and rabbits have with life, death, and rebirth remain near enough to find expression alongside Jesus conquering death and coming back to life to provide the link.
So celebrate with me by grabbing a chocolate Easter egg (unless you’re still holding that one from earlier on) and reflect how these delectable delicacies remind us of death, new life and deliverance – the second chance we’ve all been given through Jesus’ death and resurrection to get back together with God and wipe out the barriers and separation that was between us. It’s fair to say Easter once saved the world – once and for all time. Chew on that and comment below 😀
Kiwi musician Peter Woolston is about to release his latest album release, Hope On My Horizon, but he’s giving fans a bit of a taster with the release of the Mercy Ships video for his title track.
Beneath Woolston’s alt rock tunes and catchy hooks lies a worthy ulterior motive. Woolston has partnered with Mercy Ships, coming aboard as their Musical Ambassador. To help Mercy Ships continue to provide free surgeries and life-changing medical care to some of the poorest people in the world, Woolston is ‘rocking the boat’ by donating 50% of EP, CD and iTunes profits from the song Hope On My Horizon to the floating hospital.
Mercy Ships is Africa’s medical God-send. Since 1978, the floating hospital has performed more than one billion dollars’ worth of life-changing medical services on hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest people – all for free.
Yup, you read that right. Mercy Ships is powered by voluntary medical professionals from more than 40 nations all over the world, including New Zealand. The crew pay their way and perform vital – often life-saving – medical services including cleft lip and palate corrections, cataract removals, straightening of crossed eyes, and orthopaedic and facial reconstruction, all at no charge to the patient.
The powerful video for Hope On My Horizon takes you behind the scenes of Mercy Ships to see the sheer number of people who rely on the free life-changing procedures they provide. While some of the images aren’t for the faint-hearted, they provide a humbling eye-opening reality to the staggering need and desperation of people who don’t have access to the kind of medical care the Western world takes for granted.
But making a difference doesn’t come cheap. And that’s where Peter Woolston comes in.
“My first connection with Mercy Ships was in 1983 and I was amazed at how practical Christianity aligned with caring for the poor and needy,” says Woolston.
“My wife worked with Mercy Ships before we met, and we have stayed engaged with Mercy Ships since, eager to hear about the radical impact being made in the lives of the poorest of the poor.”
“My songs tell the stories of life – the good and the bad – pointing to hope and courage with lyrics that are distinctive to how I write as a songwriter. I connect with fans one person at a time in an honest and authentic way, trying to see how I can encourage them or inspire them to take what they’ve got and make a difference in the lives of people around them.”
Mercy Ships New Zealand Director Graeme Walls says a partnership with a musician like Woolston is invaluable.
“Mercy Ships works because of the dedication of volunteer professionals to provide world-class healthcare services to the poorest of the poor, free of charge. Peter Woolston’s determination to join us in using his skills to highlight both the needs in Africa and the opportunities for Kiwis to roll their sleeves up and get involved is a gift we are delighted with.”
Drawing comparisons to artists like Jon Foreman, Bono and Martin Smith, Hope On My Horizon counts its blessings and sees the glass as half full rather than half empty. Recorded in Sydney and due for release in June 2015, this album is characterised by Woolston’s melodic and guitar-powered alternative rock. Each track draws on his knack for deep-thinking, and is consistently introspective and serious-minded – and memorable.
Influenced by bands like U2, Switchfoot, The Police and Larry Noman, Woolston’s music-making has taken him all over the world, including far-flung nations like China, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia. His love for music isn’t something Woolston takes lightly, though, which is why he took up the role of Musical Ambassador for Mercy Ships NZ in 2014.
The music video for Hope On My Horizon was released on 15th May 2015 PST | 16th May 2015 NZ.
Since 1978, Mercy Ships has performed more than $1 billion worth of free medical services, directly impacting more than 2.35 million of the world’s poorest people. Mercy Ships providing surgeries, dental work, well drilling, and other capacity building services free of charge to the most destitute in Africa’s most impoverished nations, and all volunteers pay their own way. Mercy Ships has 16 national offices worldwide, including one in Auckland. More information at www.mercyships.org
Mercy Ships have:
Performed 78,000+ life-changing operations such as cleft lip and palate, cataract removal, straightening of crossed eyes, orthopaedic and facial reconstruction. All operations are free to patients.
Treated over 183,000 patients in village dental clinics and educated 5,800 local health care workers, who have in turn trained multiple thousands in primary health care.
Trained over 35,300 local professionals in their areas of expertise, including anaesthesiology, midwifery, instrument sterilisation, orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery, and leadership.
“I was waiting to die. I could not do anything. Every day, I was just waiting to die.”
Hope – something that Sambany desperately needed, something that was stolen from Sambany around 36 years ago when a tumor began to consume his life. In time, it was a monstrous burden, weighing 7.46 kg (16.45 lbs) – the equivalent of two heads.
The tumor caused unrelenting discomfort, “hot like fire”, said Sambany. “I cannot sleep at night, and even during the day it heated me up. When walking, it’s too heavy, I have to hold it.”
It was an emotional burden too. Sambany’s family and friends rejected him, mocked him, laughed at him, and shunned him. Some thought his condition was contagious hurling harsh words at him, “Why are you still alive? No one can help!”
Sambany had become so weak his home was now his prison and his life a deadening cycle of waking, eating, sleeping. He was useless to his family, watching them labour in rice fields while he wasted away, their poverty trapping them – if they dared to spend the little money they had trying to find help for Sambany they would have no money for food.
Sambany’s only escape was listening to the radio where one day an announcement sparked a flicker of hope: a hospital ship that would treat tumors for free was coming to Madagascar. Weak but with a newborn hope Sambany told his family, “Die or survive, I want to go!”
This was a desperate journey, a foolhardy struggle to survive. Sambany lived several days away from the nearest road and the Mercy Ship was hundreds of kilometers away… Sambany struggled to even walk around his house – how could he dare to dream of making the trip or even survive?
In our desparation hope gives us determination and those who truly love us do more than just smile or speak soft words, they rally with us behind the weak wish fanning it into dogged determination. Selling a rice field to pay for the trip they gathered what little they had and hoisted Sambany on the their back and set off. For two days they walked, six people taking turns to carry Sambany on their backs before they could even reach transport. Then Sambany sufferred a painful taxi ride for six hours…and arrived at M/V Africa Mercy.
Sambany’s monstrous burden weighing 7.46 kg (16.45 lbs) – the equivalent to two heads – would be extremely high-risk for Sambany and the medical team, for almost two weeks wrestled with the danger and course of action.
After a lifetime of hearing, “No, no, no,” Sambany heard the words “yes” from the Africa Mercy. Well aware of the risks Sambany said, “I know without surgery I will die. I know I might die in surgery, but I already feel dead inside from the way I’m treated,”.
12 hours in theatre with over twice Sambany’s volume of blood lost and replaced, Mercy Ships crew literally poured life into Sambany with blood from seventeen people from six nations.
Soon enough Sambany was free from the burden that had weighed him down for nearly two-thirds of his life. He held a mirror up to look at himself for the first time and reached out to touch the tumour that was gone, “I am free from my disease. I’ve got a new face. I am saved!”
Together, Mercy Ships and Sambany had fought for his life, and by the grace of God, they had won.
It’s my privilege to serve Sambany and all the other patients and crew of Mercy Ships as a Musical Ambassador and together you and I can use music with a mission to rock the boat!
I’m an alt rock singer-songwriter that writes my songs for one person at a time. For hours I will wrestle with words and melodies so that I can give a single person hope and courage. When I sing my songs I want them to be an anthem rising up in a person’s heart.
But I’ve spent most of the last 2 years locked away on a recording project. I’m holding down a full time day job so there’s not a lot of time left to focus on my music and the complexities of writing, recording, designing and manufacturing a CD is enormous … but it’s why I write and play music – to change one heart at a time.
The hardest part of the recording has been the limits has caused meaning I’ve played live only a few times. I write my songs for a live audience and there has only been a handful of opportunities I’ve had to play for one.
The second problem is that people judge the success of a musician on the size of the audience they play for – the bigger the concert venue and the longer the line snaking around the building the better musician I must be …
But I’m not 20 something anymore so I’m over the self-important “green room” elitism most musicians seem to live for. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve performed on stage for thousands of people many times over and I’ve loved it when thousands of voices join together in chorus – but it also comes with schedule demands and the need for Concert Security that squirrel the musicians away from the audience and isolates me from the very people I’m making the music for. It’s always seemed pretentious to me to be backstage so I always head out front to meet and hang with the most important people there – not the performers … the audience. I want to hear first-hand people’s stories and look them in the eye and get to know them one-on-one so I can see what my songs have done for them.
I was in the process of mixing the CD when on a cold winters night in Auckland I drove up to a suburban house for a Mercy Ships “get together” for people who had served on the ship. 20 or so people were crushing into a lounge to hear a long-standing Mercy Ships staff member who was over from the US. I’d been invited to sing the song I’ve written for Mercy Ships – Hope On My Horizon but I haven’t served on the ship in a volunteer capacity so I felt like a fish out of water … and to make it all worse I was going to start the evening with my song.
We were sardines in a sitting room sitting atop of each other … there was no smoke machine, no lighting rig, no power amps or fold back or In Ear Monitor system or Front of House PA … not even a multimedia countdown introduction or a warm-up act! There was just me and my guitar eyeball to eyeball with a bunch of strangers who weren’t there to listen to me … so as I strummed the first chord and began my song I knew I had about 3min and 30secs to connect with them, tell them a story and hopefully inspire them with my words and music and set the evening up for them.
That night I was impressed with the close connection that comes from playing for a small intimate group of people. It’s one thing to record music and load it up on the web so people can listen and give you some “Likes” and comments but it’s not the same as looking an audience in the eye while you sing, seeing them tap their feet when they like what they hear or worse still, look down at their phones if your music doesn’t stir their hearts and souls. It’s a raw uncomplicated “lie detector” that tells you if your songs are worthy of the audience.
That night was great and they loved “Hope On My Horizon” and I realised I couldn’t wait to get back to playing live again and being with the people I wrote these songs for.
It’s been exciting to get playing again and to do that on the North West of the US! The privilege and exhilaration of playing in places I’ve never played before to bunches of total strangers is a test of me as a person and whether my music connects with people and makes a difference in THEIR world.
You may not realise it but it’s also terrifying for an introverted musician like me! When I pulled up at my first gig with only the host contact, without knowing anyone else or anything about the audience who started arriving I was out of my comfort zone and about to put myself and the songs off the soon-to-be-released CD to the test.
What if they didn’t like my music? How would it be for the hosts if the audience got bored, stood up and left during my set? How would I cope if they were more interested in their smart phones than the smart-alec songwriter :p
This was both a test of the CD songs and me as a performer – the moment of reckoning for me to start playing again … I sucked it up and leaned forward into faith …
When I wrapped up my set of songs I was met by calls for an encore and our host Lee jumped up to the mic. He talked about how he didn’t really know me before I drove up and wasn’t quite sure what his wife had gotten them into. He described how my songs and stories of my own struggles and following my my faith had meant something to him and that he wanted people to support and get behind me and my music. The night was over but people stayed around talking and kindly thrusting wads of bills into the wooden donation box until one by one we bid each other goodnight and slowly strolled off into the cool Salem summer night.
It was in the moments talking that night that my soul and spirit were touched. The people I wrote these songs for – Liz, Don, Lee, Christian, and so many others – gave me what I need to keep writing, to keep singing, to keep serving the audience. They make me a person who looks beyond my own world, beyond the typical “self-orbiting rock star system” and makes me break out of my introverted shell to give myself away for the audience and pour out my energy and hope for them – it’s these moments touring that makes me a better person.
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