"O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth." Psalm 96:1
I was born in Indiana (United States) in 1960 and grew up in the state of Oklahoma. For several years beginning in 1979 I was involved in music ministry in different areas of the US before returning to university in 1989. It was before my senior year of university that I felt God calling me into full time missions. This was something completely new as I had never considered even leaving the US much less going to work in missions full time.
During this time God began to reveal more of Himself and His voice. As I began to seek Him as to where I should minister He led me to YWAM. I did my DTS in 1991-2 in Sydney Australia. It was while I was there that the Lord revealed to me that Thailand was where I would be serving Him for the rest of my life.
After I came to Thailand in 1992, I did a School of Frontier Missions (SOFM) that gave me a good foundation for understanding the Thai culture and working with the Thai people. Language study came next and soon after I began working with campus ministry.
Being a musician and worshiper at heart it was not long before I became involved in leading worship in YWAM and a local church. Almost all of the music used in the church at that time was translated. As I began to understand the language I realized this was a poor substitute for songs that were actually written in the language. Even more, I began to see that language is so much a part of culture that the translated songs would never really be able to communicate the original meaning of the songs. More importantly, Thai language is tonal, so the melody needs to fit the language to a certain extent.
Soon after, God opened up doors for me to work with a young Thai producer who was a Christian and that had begun to record some Christian music. I asked him to work with me on recording worship music that was written in Thai. About the same time God brought many young Thai Christian musicians into my life that had a heart for seeing Christian music written in Thai. In the student ministry there was a new Christian name Tan who was gifted in the area of music and began to pursue learning more about singing, playing, mixing sound, and recording. Tan is now working closely with me in the music ministry in YWAM Thailand.
Over the years I've been blessed to be a part of recording and producing several cds of not only Thai Christian worship music but also in a Thai "country" style called Isaan music. I also help with worship at YWAM and throughout Thailand. Saeng Tong ministry is the name of the worship ministry in YWAM that I currently work with. In the future I also have a heart to begin recording Christian music written in other languages in SE Asia as well.
You can listen to some of the music that I have produced on the links below:
http://official.fm/tracks/249231
http://official.fm/tracks/254396
http://official.fm/tracks/268783
http://official.fm/tracks/250757
http://official.fm/tracks/275122
http://official.fm/tracks/251377
http://official.fm/tracks/273195