By Kira Stussy, Tumwater High School Intern to ThurstonTalk
Music is an ancient form of human expression that has always given people a way to show who they are. It has the magical effect of forcing people to feel emotions from depressing sadness to total elation depending on the mood of the song. Mark Wagner, a local worship pastor and musician, along with his wife Kalle, has found a way to harness the immense power of song with a program called Storysong.
Storysong’s focus is to form relationships with people, especially kids, around the world through unique and “creative ways,” shares Wagner, who believes “that everyone has a story and every story needs to be heard”. But Storysong does not just equip children here in Thurston County with ways to share. One of the program’s main purposes is to send groups abroad, specifically, to Africa.
Last August, they traveled all of the way to Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa. They traveled with a few National Directors from Leadership International, the larger non-profit that Storysong operates under. According to Mark they “visited several of the community development projects” in the area. The point of going to Africa was to help the young people there learn to share their lives, their stories, and to build bonds with them, sharing their experience with American friends when they returned home.
The program aims to help their friends in Africa in more ways including assistance with community projects they visited while last there. “We believe strongly in the power of creativity and our hope is that we would encourage our friends around the world to share their own stories of transformation,” said Wagner. “Whether you’re from the suburbs in Washington, or you’re an orphan in Africa, stories unite us.” Wagner and his team hope that by providing children, not just orphans in Africa but also kids right here in our own community, with a decent education they will also be giving them confidence to share their stories.
When asked about what Storysong meant to her, Kalle Wagner spoke of being able to help those in need and being “about something bigger than ourselves.” She loves what the program is about, how it allows young people to express themselves and the amount of positive “global impact” they are able to make through it. Storysong was built on the foundation and idea that everyone had a story that deserved to be heard. Both Kalle and Mark hope to encourage all of their friends from around the globe to share their stories of who they are and the transformations they have gone through. They both have a passion for helping people and Storysong was certainly established based on this love of serving others.
Kalle described the last trip to the African continent as an “eye-opening experience,” showing her how extremely fortunate we are here in the United States of America and how we manage to take so many things for granted. Things that some people in Africa wish they had the luxury of using every single day. The trip challenged her to focus on what was truly important in her life.
The next Africa trip will take place in the spring of 2015. The couple will be taking groups to help share stories through song, build strong relationships, and help out with community projects. Even though the next trip is not for quite some time, there are always children in need right here in Thurston County.
For more information about Storysong and its goals, visit their website at ourstorysong.org. Music is a powerful conductor of emotion and expression, it always has been and it always will be. Over the years, it has evolved from swinging jazz to electronic pop. It has the power to inspire, create, and share. With this kind of power, using it to help create relationships and share stories could help countless people around the world. And that is exactly what Storysong’s mission is and that is precisely what they intend to do.
