Steven Curtis Chapman family's loss

In 2005, I interviewed Steven Curtis Chapman just as he was about to visit Oklahoma City for a concert tour promoting his album “All Things New.”

It wasn’t our first interview, but I have always remembered it fondly, no less so than today, upon hearing the news of the tragic death of his youngest daughter, Maria. 

During our interviewing the popular contemporary Christian singer-songwriter told me he had lost his voice for three months. During that time, his faith and zest for ministry were renewed by the Lord’s Word, though he could not initially convey that renewal in the way he knew best — through song.

Chapman said with that sense of spiritual regeneration came several amazing new and life-altering realities for his family. One of those realities was that he and his wife, Mary Beth, had adopted two more daughters (Maria Sue and Stevey Joy) from China to complete their family, which already included China-born adopted daughter, Shoahannah, and their three older children.   

“God is in the process of — not just in our little corner of the world of Franklin, Tenn. — moving things, stirring things, all over the world,”  the singer said at the time.

He and his wife expressed their sense of connection to the world at large by adopting their daughters and founding Shoahannah’s Hope, a ministry aimed at reducing the financial barriers of adoption.

I can still remember the joy — a sense of wonder of God’s goodness – that radiated from Chapman, even over the telephone lines.