Mercy Music: Brad's Blog

Laura and I hope and pray that you are doing well. We are VERY EXCITED to share some news with you!
This has been a busy and fruitful summer for Mercy Music. We have been ministering music in the Denver Women's Prison, to hospice patients, in recovery programs, doing concerts in the community and most recently I (Brad) have been bringing music to the patients at Ft. Logan Mental Health Center. It's been INCREDIBLE! The staff has thanked me over and over for bringing "peace" to the patients there...we will be going there next week to do an outdoor concert for staff and patients. Such a great opportunity to share God's love in this dark place! We have even been able to bless orphans in El Salvador, who have an orchestra and needed instruments!
                                               
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This is Buck...he was LOVIN' the music that I brought to the Care Facility today. After an hour of sing-along songs and some cowboy tunes it was time for this Musicianary to go...as I began to pack up my guitar he looks at me with surprise and says, "Well, where ya goin'!??" He was not ready for the music to end!! It made his day, along with several other residents and staff.
 

 
Finish Line Ministry
I played music for a Memorial Service this morning. It's a quarterly thing that happens at a local retirement community. As I pulled up, I had to maneuver my old van around two fire trucks and an ambulance. It's a regular occurrence at these places. Fire trucks and ambulances. As the automated front doors swung open for me, I watched some of the residents sitting in the lobby area observing the scene in the parking lot. I wondered what they must think...how it must feel to sit there and watch the same scene repeat itself; emergency vehicles racing in, sirens wailing. What kind of feelings must they have?  Watching friends die.  All the while knowing the next wail could be for them?  I'm reminded that a godly lady once told me that I am called to the "Finish Line Ministry."  I could imagine no other place where the ‘finish line’ were so clear as here.
The memory of her words inspires me. "Finish Line Ministry." I like that. It gives [...]

His name is Vincent. He is 67. Not that old these days. Heck, Ronald Reagan was 70 when he was sworn in as our 40th president and served until he was 78. 
So Vincent had a cardiac arrest a couple of years ago. Went without oxygen for too long... but he didn't die. I'll bet some days he wishes he did. Now he involuntarily pees in his wheelchair. Has to have nurses help him do everything. Must be humiliating. No longer lives at home but at a home. 
When his brain went without oxygen it caused some sort of dementia. Not sure how or why, but it causes him to cry out...to yell...I'm told that he can be very clear thinking at one moment and then cussing and yelling the next. He is aware of this and it frustrates him. He tells Chaplain Nate from the hospice that he feels like evil comes around him when it happens. I'm thinking that maybe that's why he wears a big cross and a rosary around his neck...
So I thought that some music might bring him some peace. The nurses wheeled Vincent [...]