REXBURG — The African Children’s Choir is a program that provides help to the children of Africa while, at the same time, providing music and smiles to audiences all over the world.
Tina Sipp is the choir manager for the African Children’s Choir. She says the choir started because of the humanitarian efforts of a man in Africa.
“Our founder, a man named Ray Barnett, was doing work with the persecuted church around the world back in the ‘70s,” Sipp said. “That work initially took him to Uganda where there was a civil war going on with Idi Amin. And on one of those trips, he gave a ride to a little boy. in that Jeep, that little boy, who had lost both of his parents in the civil war, sang praise songs. And Ray was so captivated by the resiliency and really the beauty, dignity and potential of this child that he thought, ‘If the West could just see the same thing I'm seeing, they would want to help these children.’”
According to Sipp, the African Children’s Choir began in 1984. Since then, the program has helped to educate more than 58,000 children in seven different African countries. She says that the 1,500 choir alumni have gone on to make a difference in their own communities.
As Sipp has worked with the choir, she has witnessed several of the heartwarming and memorable moments that the choir aims to provide.
“We were in a small town in England and had a chance to go to a care center for elderly, and they brought in everyone in wheelchairs and walkers into a common living room area and the children performed a couple of songs,” Sipp said. “What was really beautiful is they're used to living multigenerationally. These children had zero hesitation in splitting up and going around the room, each one with a different elderly person holding their hand, looking them in the eye, asking them questions fully, fully engaging and caring for those elderly people.”
Although there are no tickets to these performances, people are welcome to donate, and these donations go to help the choir and support its mission in Africa.
“We are primarily focused on education,” Sipp said. “That is the greatest perceived need after food, really, for any parent that's in the cycle of poverty. They want to educate their children. The money that we raise goes toward several different educational programs. This opportunity for them to receive an education is really, hugely significant, because it will change the course of an entire family.”
The African Children’s Choir concert is Sunday, October 22 at 10:15 a.m. in Idaho Falls at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church. Tickets are not required, but it is recommended that people come early to save a seat.
To learn more about the choir, help support the choir’s mission and see a full list of concert dates, go to www.africanchildrenschoir.com.