In a crowded Texas shelter filled with those worst affected by Harvey, a group of gospel singers delivered an impassioned performance in hopes of spreading a little joy.
Marquist Taylor was sitting at his Houston home earlier this week when he decided that he wanted to do something special to help.
Taylor, the vice-president of the Christian non-profit group Others Outreach Missions, had an idea, so he called a friend.
“I said, ‘Listen, this may not make sense, but I think we should just pop up at the shelter and just start doing worship,” Taylor told CTV News Channel on Thursday.
He quickly assembled a group of gospel performers to join him at the Lone Star Convention and Expo Center, where they convinced organizers to let them inside.
They made their way to the middle of the shelter and broke into song, performing the gospel hymn “Spirit Break Out.”
“The people, their faces were just mesmerized … you could feel hope rise in the room,” he said.
That performance was recorded by a volunteer and later posted to Facebook on Tuesday, where it has been viewed more than 16,000,000 times and shared almost half a million times.
Taylor says he’s been inundated with positive messages, including many from people whose homes were flooded.
“We didn’t expect anything to happen from it, but it was all for the greater good,” Taylor said. “We just wanted to bring a little joy.”
Since the impromptu show’s viral success, Taylor and the singers have made their way from one shelter to another spreading that very same message of hope.
“We have been swamped since that performance, but we’re not going to stop,” he said. “We want to keep giving hope and inspiring people in the best way we know how until we all come out of this storm.”
So this just broke out in the shelter...
Posted by Joni Villemez-Comeaux on Tuesday, 29 August 2017
