Karen serves as chaplain & secretary with Melita Inc., a 501c3 non-profit Christian street ministry, certified with American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a gospel recording artist, who sings and plays the piano. I remember being around 6 or 7 years old & I'd stand up behind the church pews using the top of the pew for my "piano" & I would say the Lord was going to send me a piano. We didn't
have one but I wanted one really bad, later on my folks were able to get us a piano & I started taking lessons, but the teacher sent a note home to my folks one day saying they were wasting her time & their money because I wanted to learn on my own. I always said it was because I wanted to sit down & PLAY a song, not just peck it out. Needless to say, I've never remembered anything during those lessons, only the stories my folks told me, but I believe there was a reason for that, because you see the Lord has been my teacher. I don't read music, all I know is to just sit down & play, just what I always wanted to do I suppose. For years I've had folks ask "when will you be recording", well I know there are far greater musicians & singers & I just never truly had the desire to do it, but my brother Johnny started pushing me to record. It all started with him wanting us to write "October Pain" & record other songs we started working on. The recording process had already begun when Johnny died & I just couldn't see doing it without him. I didn't have the desire to even play or sing, but I finally realized that what he & I had started was something I needed to finish. So reluctantly, kicking & screaming I began to work on the "Without Words" project, it was hard & to be honest my heart wasn't in it & I wanted to give up. Later after deciding to go through with the project, I even thought I would do the one CD for him & I would sit down, "take a break", not sing or play, just rest awhile, but God had other plans. I know I've failed the Lord miserably in my life, but I also know that sometimes when HE speaks & you know it's HIM without a doubt, then it's time to run, so here I am running.....Not only did we finish the "Without Words" project, but the Lord blessed with a second CD "Give Them All" and before either of those two were done, God gave me two more songs to write & a vision for the next project titled "The Change Of Me". "Without Words" project is contemporary - "Give Them All" project is southern gospel. Just because you like one, does not mean you will like the other, God has not put me in a box of a certain style of music - there's definitely a variety & I pray it all reaches someone - and as of now, only the Lord knows what's next but I'm following HIM. This whole process, we call life, has definitely been the change of me. Around 2013 my ministry leader, Kipp began speaking "Esther" over me, talking about how she was, her character, her work ethic, her boldness/courage/strength, everything about Esther in the Bible was who I was/who I was to be, little did I know that sometime later I would finally realize that perhaps "yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4"14 - would become my life story, that maybe, I was brought to the kingdom for a time as now to help the ones the Lord intended for me to reach - you see I now realize more than anything in this world what the scripture speaks of when the shepherd left the 99 to go find the one lost sheep - because after losing my brother, all I could think, was finding the good somewhere, somehow of my brother's life & his story & finding just ONE to reach, so you see, here I am in the kingdom for such a time as this......
