State of Emergency

CHAPTER 8


Austin, Texas





Since the days after 9/11, Pastor Mike Olson and his wife Deanne, had nurtured a dream. Death and fear and hate had no place in the world, particularly when it came to religion. An open-minded couple, they allowed all men the right to worship according to their own conscience while adhering strictly to their own beliefs. Deanne was an accomplished musician who ran the youth ministry at the Sacred Peace Interfaith Church. It had been she who’d first voiced the dream—a Peace Choir made up entirely of children of all ethnicities and faiths. What had taken over a decade to fully form was now just weeks from becoming a reality. Through a televised extravaganza they would show the world that children—and everyone—could come together through music, no matter their views about what God looked like or what He liked to be called.

Mike wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed. Deanne sat beside him and patted the back of his hand. They read the letter on the desk together for the third time.

“I just can’t believe it, hon,” the pastor said. He pushed a lock of blond bangs out of his eyes. “He’s paying the entire bill.”

Graying around the temples, Olson hadn’t changed his John Denver hairstyle since he’d graduated from the University of Texas in 1989. He’d gone on to get his master’s in divinity at UT as well and it was then that he’d met Deanne, the daughter of a local Presbyterian minister. She shared his goals in the ministry, and like him, wanted nothing more than a family. Though the good Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless them with children of their own, He had provided them with an outstanding youth group—and now this saint of a man, Mr. Valentine.

“The Erwin Center . . .” Deanne squeezed his hand. “Can you believe what we talked about all those years ago is actually happening? A choir of four hundred children from all over the world and now seating for over fifteen thousand. Oh, Mike, this could make a real difference. Mr. Valentine is truly an instrument in the Lord’s hands.”