Brad Smith, Singer, Rocks With Katie De La Cruz!

Sitting in the audience, I could feel my seat rattle!  Brad was singing bass. I didn’t think Nashville had earthquakes, which, as a Southern Californian, was my first guess!  To be honest, at the age of 19, I’d never heard a quartet.  I quickly realized I was hearing a legend, one I’ve come to admire very much.  His love for music is equaled only by his love and loyalty to all the people in his life!

Brad Smith has been singing since he could speak!  He tours with The Songfellows and will be in concert in East Tennessee on August 5^th & 6^th.  His low-notes and tenor lines are the finest I’ve heard!  He has the stamina of an athlete, the voice of legend and the heart of a hero.  During the next Katie De La Cruz Show, Brad will take us on a journey, conversation-style as I learned of why he sings, the miracles of his wife and son, and his adoption into the Hopi Indian Tribe. 

Listen to Brad Smith on The Katie De La Cruz Show, 3:05 Friday, July 22^nd.  WYXI Radio Athens, 1390 AM. 

Brad's Website!!! (It's really cool!)

Brad's Facebook Fan Page (It's cool, too!)

Soli Deo Gloria! ~K. De La Cruz

Christian Regretting Motherhood? My Response to This Motherhood Post: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/motherhood-is-a-calling-and-where-your-children-rank#.Tiht6q53jzs.facebook

I didn’t have to read the entire article to clarify something for myself and… just in case anyone is looking, for them, too.

I am a mom.  It is the hardest thing I’ve ever accepted.  The cross my husband and I carry is that we are called to parent our children.  One must be present to parent…  So, I don’t have a career.  I have an itty-bitty radio show that I excel at the on-air stuff but drop behind-the-scenes stuff.  A lot.  Just ask my station owners...  And I wish I didn’t.  I hate not being perfect-especially in front of others.  But my priorities dictate that a few balls can drop.  Just not my husband, son #1 or son #2.  Not the family.  I've been doing this "christian motherhood, wife gig" for 11.5 years and I'm beginning, BABY STEPS  to understand what and who and how.  I heard this excellent thought last night,  "You can't be about the Big Picture when you are consumed with the needs in front of you."  So, who is our faith really in?  Christ has already promised to take care of our needs.  That reality should free us up to raise our kids with "big picture" perspective!  I pray that it does!

We drive old cars, borrowed cars and any car that will go, because our ministry tithe to our family is very, very high!   I'm not bragging about that.  We live in a once-upon-a-time cute house that-is-no-more.  (Use your imagination, lol.)   Because you may be struggling with your calling, I share this reality to encourage you,  really!

I have a radio show and for the summer, while the kids are with Dad, I get to put more than 10 hours a week into it; because motherhood is my first cross, my first act of obedience each day.  I couldn't do the show as much as I am without my husband.  My husband is called to teach, coach and preach and has the summer off from teaching.  But his first calling is as my husband.  And I am called to motherhood.  So he teaches and delivers pizza and is the kids' teacher for the summer.    Because I’m called to motherhood, because we're called to parenthood.

Sure, I hope my radio show will be a commercial-success.  It would be great to have money left at the end of the month.  But if it isn’t, I have pleased the One who matters most, the one who obeyed His Father and died for me.

Soli Deo Gloria! ~K. De La Cruz

The Great Father On Father's Day

I use Facebook quite a bit and with the advent of Father's Day, there is an unusual amount of father-kid pictures.  I love to see them.  But it stings a bit, too.  I hurt for my friends who's fathers have not been fatherly.  And that's a very sanitized way of putting it.  There is one Father, God-the-Father who is great!  He knows just what his kids need.

In the book of Phillipians, chapter 4, we read:



 ⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.


 ⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you...

I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. ¹³ For I can do everything through Christ,^[c] who gives me strength. ¹⁴ Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.


As our Father has given all good things to us, let us also share every good thing especially with those in need!

Prayerfully yours!
K. DeLaCruz

Adoption, Hope and the Party to Come!

I'm four days-out from visiting an orphanage in Guatemala.  The children, orphans are in my mind throughout the day now.  I've never been to an orphanage before but have always wanted to adopt.  There are so many reasons why I shouldn't adopt right now.  It will cost more money than I have, for one.  I have other children who need my attention.  I should wait until my radio show is making money.  And the list goes on.  But before I go all "Debbie Downer" on you, let me say that I shouldn't have gone to Guatemala for all those same reasons.  Yet the money came in, my kids joined in the fundraising and travel, and my radio show is steadily gaining both an audience and advertisers.

There are two reasons why I must choose to see the need for adoption.

Number One:  God loves me, father's me and sent his only son to die for me.  I'm adopted.  I'm his daughter.  He paid my ransom.  I am the spiritual orphan.  He made his son, Jesus Christ poor so that I will live and have riches in him.

Number Two:  Hearing this awesome news of my adoption, hearing how God-The-Father loves to bring spiritual orphans into his house, how can I ignore the state of poverty that orphans live in?  How can I not adopt, really?

I've started the research.  There's a local organization called "Hearts4Ghana" that has just been established to bring children "home" from an orphanage with as little Red Tape as possible.  Today, I plan to contact them.

A friend of mine, Wendy Twit said to me, "adoption is God's Plan A."

You don't have to believe in God to know that children need a home.  I will have to trust in God to make a home and grow our family.  And the promise I can rest in is that He is preparing a place for those who trust in him, and there will be a great party celebrating the homecoming of all God's adopted children!  As we walk by faith, our hope is not in vain.  

The Return from Casa Shalom; a Guatemalan Orphanage

My grandmother, Gerri Lamoureaux-Donahue, was an incredibly stylish and savvy woman. She had a career working on the first generation of computers for the Oil Industry during World War II. With the money she saved, she bought fur coats, took vacations and bought her own family's first car. It's quite possible that none of those experiences would have occurred were it not for the family that adopted her when she was four-years-old. That family, The Carrolls, had five children of their own when they took in my grandmother and another girl.

With the passage and acceptance of abortion law, homes for unexpected children, nee, orphanages here in the United States have disappeared. The aborted babies are the orphans we don't see. But in a little town, San Lucas, in Guatemala, there is a home for the orphaned. And I was just there.

Never have I received so many hugs and kisses. Never have I been so totally unable to wrap my mind around the truth of circumstances. Sixty-four children without a mother or father? Really? My husband and I have two young sons. I have to pause under the weight of loss for these young people...

Yes, there were 64 orphans where I stayed for eight days. They were beautiful and funny and muy intelligente! I was amazed at how many could speak english and play Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring on a simple Recorder! They were needy too and will be. They need groups to come visit and they need folks to move there to love on them. My husband and I are toying with the idea, too. There's so many more details to share with you. We traveled with the Founder of the orphanage, Jan Waldrop and four students from the high school where Jan and my husband teach Spanish. You can hear more about our trip during my radio show, Fridays at 3PM on WYXI Radio 1390 AM. And thanks for reading. Know that the reason I care and we care is because The One has cared for us first! While we were yet in sin, The One, Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross paying my sin-debt and adopting me into His family. Through Christ we know that God loves us!

My husband created a little movie with our pictures and videos...I hope to link it for you!