You've got mail!

So, Chris Tomlin never responded to my open letter, but Steve Green responded to my daughter's email rather promptly. H and I wrote to him on Saturday. He wrote back today. No, really, Steve Green himself wrote an email to my 3 year old daughter.

Seriously!

You see, H really, really wanted to send Mr. Green a message this weekend. (Mr. Green, not Steve Green - because when you're 3 you shouldn't be on a first name basis with grown ups. Even famous ones. I'm old fashioned like that.) Actually, what she really wants is for him to come over and play with her. And to read books. And to stay all day until she has to go to bed.

Let me back up. . .

Several years ago, we got the Hide 'Em In Your Heart DVDs from Steve Green Ministries. They're various Scripture verses put to music. The accompanying videos show Steve singing the songs with groups of children. Hannah loves these videos. Really loves them. She begs to watch "Bible Songs," as she calls them. And, well, if my child is going to be glued to a video, I'd just as soon it be these.



When she was about 18 months old, she started getting her Bible and crawling into our bed to read. Sometimes it was actually a Bible, more often it was hymnbook (which when you're pre-literate, looks quite similar to a Bible, and was always sitting on the piano where she could reach it easily). It took us a while to figure out where this came from. We finally realized she was imitating one of the little girls in the video "When I am afraid I will trust in You." There was a storm at night and she reads her Bible for comfort. For her second birthday, Uncle Eddie and Aunt Suzi got H a real Bible. A great big one, just like in the video. She likes to sleep with it now.

H would very much like to be in the next children's DVD that Mr. Green makes. She's not looking for fame or anything. She just likes to sing, and sees those other kids having a good time, and thinks that Mr. Green is a really nice man. She would totally be good at it - if he ever does make another one, he should invite her.

Over time, her tastes have broadened slightly. She's become fond of some of Mr. Green's grown-up songs. I have one of his old CDs on my ipod. She loves to hear "Household of Faith" (aka, "Mr. Green and Mrs. Green's duet"), "Embrace the Cross" (aka, "Mr. Green's duet" because through the miracle of mixing, he actually sings a duet with himself in that song), and "Find us Faithful" (aka "That Faithful Song"). We could take a 30 minute trip and she'd just want me to play That Faithful Song over and over the whole way.

Since she enjoys his music so much, it's only natural that he come over and play with her sometime. That's been her latest hang-up. She makes me feel like a bad mom for not letting him come. I try to explain that he lives a long way away and is a very busy man. She's certain that he would come over if I would just let him. So this weekend when she was begging to send him a message, we did. We went to his website and found the "contact us" page. I asked her what she wanted to say and she said, "Thank you." I added a little bit more, telling him how much she enjoyed his music.

I forgot about it after that until today. This morning I had a message in my inbox from "SGM." I thought it was spam and almost deleted it. Instead it was a very nice response from an assistant at Steve Green Ministries. She wrote several paragraphs and told H that she would forward her email to Steve, but couldn't promise that he would have time to respond personally since he gets so many emails. Well, just a few hours later, he did! It was only a couple of sentences, but it was awfully nice. He explained that it would be fun to come visit, but since he lives so far away he can't right now.

How sweet is that?! A very busy, award-winning, internationally known singer takes the time to answer email from a preschooler. When he sings, "Let the Little Children Come," he takes it to heart. I think that shows a lot of class!