Hello Everyone
I thought that I would like to share a true story with you that later had something else added to it.
At the end of 2001 I unexpectedly received an email from a lady called Leonie who lives in Holland. She explained that she and her husband Willem were members of a traditional Dutch church. A few years previously they had attended the funeral of a friend in Bristol and during the ceremony a hymn was sung called "Do not be afraid" which Willem liked very much and later spoke often of his desire to hear it again.
It is a song using some of the words in Isaiah 43: 1-5 in the Bible.
Leonie said that it was fast approaching the 12th Anniversary of Willem's involvement with his church, and the choir of the church wanted to surprise him by singing his favourite hymn. Knowing his affection for the "Do not be afraid" hymn she began her search for the words and music on the Internet. Her search took her to my site where she found the words of the song, yet sadly no music.
Leonie then sent me an email explaining about her search and asked if I knew from where she could obtain the music.
As some of you may know I play guitar in one of my local Anglican churches some Sunday mornings, so I went along the following Sunday and asked my choir leader if she could find the music. In a couple of days I had a sheet of music of the hymn, but sadly it only had the melody line on it.
Now as some of you may know I never ever do things by halves .......so I took the music to a friend named Joe Markey who is a jazz saxophonist, composer, and keyboard player. Joe upon receipt of the music, then manually played it into a program on the PC that added further musical parts to it such as drums, bass line etc and then not only prints out the musical staffs, but also generates the music as a midi file ( a music file that a PC can play). Finally I could reply to Leonie not only sending a sheet of music with the melody line, but also the full score and also a midi file that could be played on the PC as a guide for the choir....or even as backing music.
In March of 2002 a celebration ceremony took place and to the utter delight of Willem, the song was sung by the choir.
A day or so later Willem wrote to me personally thanking me for what I had done. I cannot explain how good it felt to be able to touch people with my site, it just felt wonderful.
More to follow......

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