Committed Conversations

The Seeds for the Spirit Benefit Concert was definately a night that I will not soon forget. The event opened with a short address by Civil Rights pioneer, Rev. Samuel McKinney. He was followed by Gina Salá who set up a situation for the audience to imagine themselves in, and began to sing, the crowd joining as well. Seeing the entire audience joining her in song was the moment I realized it was going to be a special night. Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier form Sierra Leone, came on stage next and shared some of his experiences and what he had to overcome. He spoke of the ability to transform things in one’s life that originally seem like a misfortune, and how that has greatly helped him throughout his difficult life. He was followed by Tingstad and Rumbel, Grammy Award winning musicians. They played extremely relaxing and soothing music, which was a nice transition after hearing about some of the horrible things that happened in Sierra Leone. Phil Borges’ photo and video presentation was, personally, my favorite event of the night. He presented many of his photos of people from different areas of the world, each with a story to match. It really helped the audience to see the hardships and see the experiences of peoples lives across the globe. He also introduced the organization he started, Bridges to Understanding, which is an organization to get young people across the world to interact with each other and communicate. At the end, a video created by kids from Africa about teenage pregnacny and single-motherhood, which was amazing. The final performance of the night was that of Yuval Ron Ensemble, and it was absoluely amazing. The Ensemble performed music from the Islamic, Christian and Jewish religions, and is made up of people of these religions, all working in perfect harmony. In the words of Sukhawat Ali Khan “If it happened here, it should happen all over the world,” speaking of the way people of all the different cultures worked together in such a harmonious way. Their performance brought everyone together in song, leaving everyone with a feeling of enlightenment and compassion.

-Jonathan Lien, Bellevue Hope