Evan Craft is unique. A 28-year-old Anglo from Mission is a multi-location ministry serving the I was taking Spanish classes in high school,
the suburbs of Los Angeles, he has taken poor, homeless, migrants and marginalized in and I loved communication and language. But
on studying and speaking Spanish perfectly, Southern California. Tell us about the ministry it was at Hope of the Valley that I first began
including the completion of an undergraduate and the impact that this work has had upon to speak Spanish with people that I would
degree in it. He has also dedicated himself you. meet around town who spoke Spanish. This
to understanding Latin American culture, all was a place where a lot of the people did not
for the cause of Christ. With his music now speak English. My Dad used a translator when
streaming in the millions, he regularly records,
tours throughout the Spanish-speaking world,
and serves the poor. His compelling story is an
“My logic was
preaching, and I said that I didn’t want to do
that. My logic was that if I had been told my
whole life to love my neighbor as myself, and
inspiration for us all. that if I had hard to express love. So I began to really put
[WM] Evan, you began playing guitar at just been told to love my neighbors or twenty years old.
as myself, After taking Spanish in high school I went to
and I cannot I went on a mission trip to Mexico in 2011. I
speak to my to Mexico that really changed my life, because
neighbor, then that mission trip to Mexico, I probably would
it’s very hard a radical encounter with the Lord my very
12 years of age. What were the circumstances
behind it? Was the guitar something that you
requested, or was it a surprise gift to you? What
were some of the early songs that you learned,
and what were the early musical influences
upon you?”
[Evan Craft] I asked my Dad for a guitar
when I was twelve, both of my parents played
music and my Dad was a pastor and they led
worship at the church. They gave me a book
of like fifty songs and I don’t know who the
authors were, but these were older songs that
we played in our church. I just loved music, I
loved being a part of worship even when I was
a little kid. There was a person that did sign
language interpretation during worship, and I
would always sit next to that person and try to
do it as well. I didn’t even know what it was but
I always treated it as different expressions of
language, worship and music. Just being able
I cannot speak to my neighbor, then it’s very
effort into learning Spanish when I was nineteen
study in Spain. When I came back to the U.S.,
was twenty years old. It was that mission trip
before that it was all theory. If I hadn’t gone on
to express love.
So, I began to
really put effort
be doing something else with my life. I had
first night. When I say that it was just theory,
I mean that it was just a nice thing to do. It
was generous of us, but it also was a little self
serving in that I could feel good after I did it.
The encounter I had with God that night was
in a little tent in a very humble area of Tijuana
where there were about twenty young people
into learning
and sixty elderly women. We had six services
a week. I got up there to lead worship as soon
Spanish.”
as I got there, and I didn’t have any of the tools
to express myself in a different way through I usually had; my guitar wasn’t working right,
music was a great thing for me, a very healthy the sound system wasn’t working right, and I
thing.
[Evan] My Dad was the director of another couldn’t sing the song in my original language.
refuge mission when I was a teenager. It was I played three songs I knew, one of them was
So, I memorized all of those songs and started about ten years ago when he started Hope of Hillsong’s, “Fire Fall Down”. One of them was a
playing in church, I was terrible, but I loved the Valley Rescue Mission. He’s been a pastor song from a band called Salvador that I heard
it. I played for the youth group and started to at the church the past fifteen years of my life, when I was a lot younger, and one of them I
lead in the worship band at church at thirteen and that has had a huge impact on him. I grew had written. I was so moved by the way people
or fourteen years old because the church was up in Thousand Oaks, California, which does worshiped that it blew my mind. That was the
small. I loved it. not have as many homeless people. It is a very moment that I understood that I did know what
blessed area and kind of in a bubble. So, when it meant to worship in spirit and truth. I think I
[WM] Since your teen age years you’ve we started going closer to LA, the reality of the was worshipping in a way where I felt there was
been uniquely blessed to work alongside your world kind of hit us, my brother and sister and a desperation and a desire for His presence
father in ministry, in addition to doing missions I, like a slap in the face and we thought, “Wow, that I didn’t know. So that began the last eight
work in Mexico. Hope of the Valley Rescue we’re very blessed.” years of my life that has been seeking a deeper
October 2019
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