When thinking about the journey that God has taken me on from childhood to now, the most obvious verse that jumps out at me is Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
My story, although still relevantly short, is so full. Had I been told as a teenager the plans God had for me, I wouldn’t have believed it. God has so intricately woven together people, skills, and experiences not only to make me who I am, but also to create a purpose much larger than myself. My story in many ways starts and ends in Peru. But all roads lead to God and the work of the Holy Spirit.
I learned to play the violin when I was in fourth grade at my elementary school. Despite several attempts to quit, my middle school orchestra teacher had other plans for me. I ended up finding my voice through my instrument and going to college for Violin Performance and Music Education. While in my freshman year of college, my mom told me she was serving on a committee to plan a mission trip to Peru with Grace Church. She stressed on the phone to me that she wasn’t going, but suggested that I consider going. I said yes, mainly because I wanted to travel, and invited one of my college friends, Emily, along. Not only did I go, but so did my mom … and my dad … and both of my brothers. This was unprecedented. I don’t think we had ever gone anywhere with all five of us in over a decade.
The trip was life changing. It was life changing in that we visited a developing country for the first time and were faced with our material wealth. It was eye opening in that we visited an earthquake zone only a few months after an 8.0 scale earthquake had decimated 80% of Pisco. It was life changing in that we worked hard, struggled to learn a new language, met new people, and were embraced by a new culture. People who had so little were hosting us and opening their homes to us. I ended up playing my violin at a few worship services with other musicians on the trip. One afternoon we went to a remote area of Pisco that was basically a tent city where people had been displaced from their homes and were living without water or electricity. This was the most severe poverty that we had encountered thus far on the trip. We brought backpacks with school supplies and toothbrushes to the children. I played my violin and led some music games with the children. I remember that there was joy in the room. A cold place, suddenly warm. I’ll never forget that afternoon–I witnessed the cruel inequality that exists in our world, but I also saw my instrument as a way of connecting with people and as a surprisingly relevant tool in an unexpected place.
I returned to Peru several times with Grace Church and my family to do subsequent mission trips in Pisco. Each time I went, my violin came along with me, and I would bring along new ideas, games, and activities from my music education courses that I could do with children in Pisco. I was inspired by El Sistema in Venezuela, their national music program that was funded by the government under the ministry of families and social services, rather than the ministry of culture, as a means to address social challenges. I began to think about music in terms of community building and social change. I met people in the U.S. who were also starting El Sistema-inspired programs as the Venezuelan concept of music for social change became a movement worldwide. My parents and I met for lunch one afternoon while they were visiting me in Philadelphia at Temple University and the idea came to us that we could start a nonprofit so that I could fundraise to start a music program in Pisco. The goal wasn’t to just teach kids music, but to provide an outlet for students living with the trauma of the earthquake with few extracurricular options in the city.
With the help of my parents, we put together Notes for Change, Inc. Grace Church completely embraced the idea and supported me financially through benefit concerts. I also got funds from Temple University through a creative arts research grant. I went to Pisco, Peru, for three consecutive summers, bringing fellow music ed students with me each summer to teach for a month. We worked with local churches and I found a champion in my now lifelong friend Katty. Katty opened her home and church to me and my team repeatedly, also making connections for us locally so we could run the program out of schools, get instruments, and feed the teachers! Pam and Carlos Frias embraced the team as well, treating the Notes for Change trips as a continuation of the Grace Church ministry and opening their apartment to us in Lima. Through these trips, my world opened up. I began to understand that there are many roles that art can play in the world. I began to embrace my role as a teacher and organizer. I also met my now-husband, Raul, on the first Notes for Change trip, as he had been recommended to me by a friend to teach in Pisco. Raul became an integral part of planning and implementing Notes for Change on the ground in Peru, as well as crucial in helping me understand the culture, history, and politics of the country. My violin had brought me to this point and connected me with a passion: Service through music. Community through music. Purpose.
Once I graduated from Temple, I moved back to New Jersey and was connected with the New Jersey Youth Symphony, who at the time were putting together an El Sistema-inspired program in Paterson. I was hired for the job to coordinate the pilot of the program. Ironically, Paterson has the largest population of Peruvians living outside of Lima in the world! My eventual office for Paterson Music Project was situated on “Peru Square” in Paterson. I ran that program with my two best friends and roommates at the time. It was an unbelievable experience. I stayed in that job for ten years, growing the program from 30 students and a $40,000 annual budget to 500 students with a budget of $800,000 a year. As of this June, I was hired as the Executive Director for the National Alliance of El Sistema Programs called El Sistema USA® and I represent 140 El Sistema Programs across the country with 20,000 + students. It’s hard to believe that this is my job.
Throughout all of this, God wove together seemingly disparate skills, people, and projects into a cohesive and meaningful tapestry. So I have to trust that no matter how hard or uncertain the present may be, that there are plans for my life. God has blessed me with a real sense of purpose and will continue to do so.
My story doesn’t come without plenty of doubt. I had major doubts about my decision to go to music school. I had doubts and insecurity during and after running the Pisco Music Program. I spent many years wondering if my work in Pisco was really more about me than it was about the people I was hoping to serve. I was so young and so green going into that situation. There was certainly a sense of naïve saviorism and I wish I had known more about concepts like shared power and community leadership in nonprofit and service work. If I could go back, I would have prioritized building local infrastructure and partnerships so that the program could survive without my vision or support. I would have done research to find out what the challenges and needs of the community were before assuming that music was the answer. Maybe I could have supported other social service projects in Pisco such as education, jobs development, housing, and food. However, these were not things I thought to do or knew how to do at the time.
This July I had the chance to go back to Pisco, nine years after the last Pisco Music Program had run. I met with Katty, who was so essential in running the Pisco Music Program. I learned that a lot had come out of my time in Pisco with both Grace Church and Notes for Change. First, Grace Church provided funds to Katty’s church to rebuild the building from scratch. When I had last seen their church, it was a modestly sized one floor sanctuary. However, since then, they have built a second and third floor using the Grace funds. I’ve learned that Katty and her small team of church leaders have served as mentors and leaders to the youth in their neighborhood of La Pascana. This is one of the poorest neighborhoods of Pisco and the majority of young people do not finish high school or go onto any kind of post–high school study. Lack of education, food insecurity, and drugs are major problems in this neighborhood. However, Katty’s church has a vibrant youth program where they not only engage the students in activities after school and on weekends, but they also mentor them and encourage them to pursue degrees after high school, with the majority of the youth preparing for careers after high school. As I walked through the streets of La Pascana with Katty, children would run up to her giving hugs and saying hello. It is so clear that Katty is a servant to her community and leader. I couldn’t feel more good about partnering with someone like Katty both through Grace Church and also through Notes for Change. She will take whatever resources, time, and talent are at her disposal to serve her neighbors. She is the epitome of what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ. Katty told me that despite the fact that the Notes for Change music programming didn’t continue beyond my time in Pisco, all the children (now young adults)remember that time in the music program. I think that through Katty, I was able to plant seeds. But really, Katty had been tending to the growth of the many seeds she had been sowing all along in her community. There is such a need in Pisco and there are real faith and community leaders working there. I felt God tugging at my heart prompting me to reconnect Grace with her church.
So, going back to the idea of doubt, I’m reminded of the verse from 1 Corinthians 13:1, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” We can do and say a lot, but it doesn’t really matter if there is no love behind it. If there is no intention or higher purpose, our actions and words are empty. Sometimes I feel like a noisy gong, trying to make my mark as I go through life, however, God has taken my flailing noises and made sense of it. I didn’t have the full picture of why I was in Pisco when I first went down there in 2008, but God did. The relationships built and the work done were planted in love. And suddenly, our actions and impact become much less random and aimless. Our clanging becomes music. Our stories have purpose.
© 2022 by Liz Moulthrop