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Religion

A song and a prayer

Christian singer Kristin Taylor balances her career, 13 children and a growing outreach mission.

By MEGAN VOELLER
Published December 9, 2005

Minutes before Kristin Taylor takes the stage in front of 300 people, her make-up artist wants to know which color lip gloss she prefers.

Her 13 children are knocking on her dressing room, wishing her luck and showing off their semiformal outfits.

Through it all, Taylor, an internationally known Christian recording artist and president of nonprofit THORN ministries, looks poised in her black evening dress. In fact, the statuesque blond mother looks like she's having fun.

With pleasure, she juggles her career as a singer, Christian missionary, and mother of 13, including eight adopted kids, ages 7 to 25.

After performing on a recent Saturday night, she will wake up Sunday morning and run a mission to feed scores of homeless people. Neither her performance nor the next day's work fazes her.

"I have to feed 400 people tomorrow, and I haven't even thought about what I'm cooking," Taylor says.

She laughs: "You can't be a control freak and do this."

On this evening, Taylor is performing in Valrico at a benefit at St. Stephen Catholic Church for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Proceeds from the Nov. 19 concert will be used to rebuild Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church in Biloxi, Miss., which was devastated by Katrina.

Since 1991, Taylor, 44, has produced eight albums and performed throughout the United States and abroad as a professional Christian vocalist.

Taylor says the event at St. Stephen has special meaning for her because past performances in New Orleans boosted her ministry in its earliest years.

Taylor founded THORN, which stands for Thankfully Helping Others' Real Needs, in 1995 after a trip to Western Samoa changed her life.

After she lost her parents and three sisters, a friend sent her to Samoa for a performance and a change of perspective.

The poverty she saw there reminded Taylor of what she still had, she said. And it instilled her with the desire to dedicate her life to helping the people of Samoa.

Though people there did not lack food, Taylor said they did lack the kind of basic medical technology taken for granted in the United States. The sight of children suffering from untreated spina bifida triggered thoughts of her daughter, Mariah, who also was born with the congenital defect.

Mariah, now 23, overcame the bleak predictions of doctors after years of surgery. Today, she walks with the help of crutches and cares for a child of her own.

Taylor became determined to give the children she had seen in Samoa the same chance Mariah had. Returning home to Riverview, she collected medical and school supplies, including wheelchairs, to send back to the South Pacific island.

"My husband thought I was crazy," Taylor said.

Then she turned serious.

"We throw this stuff away," she said, referring to the abundance of material goods in the U.S.

After visiting, she called the prime minister of Samoa, who remembered her performance there. Her offer: a 20-foot shipping container full of free medical and school supplies, with the promise of more to follow, on the condition that Samoa pay the freight charges and waive the duties.

"He said, send me the information on your foundation within two hours," Taylor recalled. "Of course, I was thinking, "What foundation?"'

Taylor founded THORN that day.

In appreciation, the king of Samoa, Malietoa Tanumafili II, later surprised her with the title of honorary princess.

In 1997, THORN's work expanded to feeding people in the Tampa area. That Thanksgiving, Taylor wanted to give her children an opportunity to experience mission work in their own community. They loaded a minivan with food and fed everyone they could find.

They came back the next day. Then Sundays became a habit. Eight years later, the mobile feeding outreach provides meals for 1,000 people each week, Taylor says. And former THORN volunteers have gone on to create three other bay area feeding outreaches.

"You know," Taylor says, "it's not just the homeless we feed."

The end of each month brings out more elderly and more children, whose parents send them out for food when federal benefits have run out, she says.

THORN itself, including both the Samoa and Tampa operations, runs on a bare-bones budget with an all-volunteer staff and fueled by donations.

"It's been a seat-of-the-pants ministry," Taylor says.

But now that THORN boasts a solid track record, she is determined to cultivate a group of regular donors.

The same determination can be felt in her performance at St. Stephen, peppered with inspirational stories and a slide show of the Samoan ministry.

Her songs tell of overcoming adversity and despair in pursuit of a higher purpose. During the most joyful ones, Taylor draws children from the audience to dance with her on stage. She asks people in the audience to stand up in their seat and join in.

Whatever comes, she tells the crowd, "we will take suffering and turn it into hope."

"Amen," they respond.

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 07:50:08]