Mercy Hope:
My guess is that your name will be new to many of us, so can you
give some history behind who is Vanessa Mahaffey?
Vanessa Mahaffey: My mom is full
Hispanic with a Catholic upbringing and my dad is half German and
with more of a Baptist background. My dad actually had to become
catholic to marry my mom but my parents are no longer Catholic.
I have one sister and my mom taught my sister and I how to harmonize
when we were little.
I remember when we were kids going to a lot of different Churches
trying to find a church were we fit in and it was hard to find a
church that we could really fit into and be a part of. We even went
to the Mormon church for a while.
A friend and I decided that we wanted to sing in the praise team of
a non-denominational church so we did that for a while. I sang in
High school in show choirs. Then I went on to Penola Junior College,
which is a small college in East Texas and that’s where I met my
husband, Cody and he and I and his brother formed the group, “Safely
Anchored” and we’ve been singing together now for six years.
My husband’s father was a Baptist Preacher his whole life. His
family was from the east Texas area.
Mercy Hope: I lived in Texas for
two years and I love Texas. It’s a great state and I get down there
every chance I get. From your accent though I would say you weren’t
born and raised a Texan either. (smile)
Vanessa Mahaffey: I was actually
born in Maryland, then we moved to North Carolina not long after
that and from there we moved to Texas, (around the Houston area).
It’s kind of amazing how God does things, sometimes I wake up and I
wonder, “How did I get here? How do you go from Maryland to Texas?”
Sometimes I’ve even caught myself playing things in my mind like,
“What if it had been a little different?” I mean, the things we’re
doing now wouldn’t work any other way and God knew that and it’s
just amazing how He’s brought us to this place!
Mercy Hope:
When you all started Safely Anchored what was the vision behind it?
Vanessa
Mahaffey: We’ve always been very family oriented. Because
we’re a family, we travel as a family. I would attribute that
largely to the fact that my husband and his brother had such a
strong family background. Their dad was a very strong Christian and
definitely the lead in their family. When their dad died they went
through some of his things and he had a library full of books and he
had six or seven wide margin Bibles all full of notes. Every page
had notes on both sides. He loved to read and he loved to learn. So
Ray and Cody want to pass on that strong father, family-together
role. And that’s hard for a lot of people because a lot of families
don’t stick together and the whole church is being bombarded with
families falling apart. And it’s hard for God’s Church to work if
the family is not right. Because then you come up with all kinds of
problems in children, and everything starts to stray. I think that’s
why we have so many problems. So we like to encourage a strong
family unit.
Mercy Hope: I know a lot f
people long for strong marriages, and closeness with their children
but they don’t even know where to start. A lot of people haven’t
seen it modeled. That is something that I so appreciate about you
guys. You really are modeling first of all, a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, and secondly a Godly marriage, and Godly
parenting. You are a joy to watch. What could you share with people
who haven’t seen that? They long for it, but they don’t have a clue
as to how to achieve it.
Vanessa Mahaffey: For women read
1 Corinthians 13 where it talks about what love is and what kind of
love you are to share with your partner, that love has to be patient
and it has to be kind and forgiving and I think about that a bunch
because I get short tempered. When you’re in close spaces it’s hard
and you really have to work at it. And you cannot be proud. You have
to leave pride at the door and say, “You know what? I was wrong. I
am wrong and I am sorry.” You have to be willing to go there because
if you can’t say you are sorry even when your wrong it’s just going
to build anger every day and it stays with you. It’s not bad to
admit that you’re wrong. Pride just has to go in a marriage.
Two single people coming together is hard. My husband and I have
been married five years now. And I’m not going to say it’s easy,
it’s not easy, it’s hard. And it takes commitment. Both the husband
and the wife have to say from the very first day “this is going to
work regardless” and believe that. You also have to pray. And you
have to pray TOGETHER. Read the Bible together. It’s amazing how
much closer to Cody I feel when we’re reading the Bible or praying
together and really striving to keep God center. Those are the best
times in our relationship and I notice that when we get away from
that things tend to get stressful. God gives you everything you need
for a strong marriage.
Mercy Hope:
What is another objective for Safely Anchored?
Vanessa
Mahaffey: As far as I’m concerned, (and I’ve told the
guys this many times) I want people to see that God is alive! I want
to sing songs about a living God who is true, and real. He is still
alive and we sing a song called “He’ll do it Again” and it’s about
how God not only healed back then, but just like He did for Shadrac,
Meashac, and Abednigo, and Daniel and Moses, He can do it again
today! He can do things for you today. It’s kind of frustrating that
the Church is so complacent. People are often content to just to sit
in the pew and say, “God excite me.” It would really be nice to see
them really on fire! I feel like if they would spend time with God -
because you can’t see Him, you can only experience Him through the
Word and through your prayer - we could begin to grasp how real He
is. And if we could understand how real He is I think it would be a
lot different for us.
Mercy Hope:
What caused the shift when Christianity went from being the faith of
your parents to your personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
Vanessa Mahaffey: Going to the
non-denominational church and seeing them on-fire for God, and then
at that same time I went to a Summer Camp. You had to be thirteen
and up to go and I had just turned thirteen. It was an awesome
experience, and from that point on it was different. I’m sad to say
that as I get older and as I experience things I find that that
first love isn’t like it was, and it is a conscience decision to
say, “I need to pray. I need to take time to seek Your face.” When
you have children, and you have jobs, and you have stress in your
life it’s easy to stop your daily Bible reading, and daily
communication with God. It’s easy to forget that, “God is my front
and rear guard and He will help me through this.” You start doing
you own thing and you start doing it by yourself and you fall flat
on your face. So I really would like to see my relationship with God
go further than it’s been.
Mercy Hope:
Looking back, did you have an inkling that one day you would
minister to others through the avenue of singing gospel music?
Vanessa Mahaffey: I always
wanted to sing. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know where God would
put me, I just knew I wanted to sing. I can remember in kindergarten
telling people “I’m going to sing someday. I don’t know how but it’s
going to be on a stage and there’s going to be lot’s of people
hearing it.” I have a little boy who (at the time of this interview)
is three and we sing together all the time. There’s not a day that
we don’t sing. I’m trying to teach him to love the Lord and to love
to sing. He memorizes all the songs that our group sings. He’s
gotten to the point where at our concerts he wants to get on stage,
and if he can’t get on stage he gets really upset.
Mercy Hope: I have to say, you
have one cute little boy. What are you doing right now with your son
at his young age to instill Godly character and raise him to be a
Godly man?
Vanessa Mahaffey: We pray all
the time. We take him to all the concerts. He learns all the songs.
We read the Bible. We watch veggie tales. We’re teaching him to say
“Yes ma’am” and “No ma’am” and “Yes sir” and “No sir” and a lot of
people say “I can’t believe you make him say that,” but it shows him
there is a respect here when you say, “Yes ma’am” or “Yes sir”. I
want to teach him to respect people. I want him to say, “Please” and
“Thank you” not “Yeah” or “Sure”. I want him to be courteous and
sweet to other people. And we’re trying to teach him that God has
plans for his life. He is really fun.
Mercy Hope: Back to Safely
Anchored, how is God currently using your group to minister to
people?
Vanessa
Mahaffey: We sing Southern Gospel and we sing in churches
and the majority of the time what we hear from people who are all
ready Christians is that the music has helped them through tough
times. They are already Christians but they need a confirmation,
they need strength, they need comfort, they need reminded that God
cares about them and He’s still on the throne, He’s still in
control. We’ve had people say that the song, “He’ll Do It Again” has
gotten them through some really tough times in their life. We had a
pastor in the east Texas area who had had a problem with his leg and
he was in the hospital for several weeks, and he said he listened
to, “He’ll Do It Again” over and over again to hear the message
that, “God knows what you’re going through.” He knows how you’re
hurting but time and time again He will fix it. And if you were to
actually sit and look back at where you were, to where you’ve been
and then where you are now and see all the times when God’s come
through then why worry about what’s happening right now? You know
He’s there. You know He’s going take care of it. He will fix it
somehow – it may not be how you would like but God will take care of
it.
We’ve had families come to us who were struggling in their marriages
or getting ready to sign divorce papers and have come up to us and
said, “What you’ve said in your concert has kept us together.”
One time we were at an outdoor concert and we had a gentleman who
was an alcoholic hear our music playing and he said he drove toward
the sound of the music and he said “I just went to the store and
bought some alcohol when I heard you and I threw it away” and he
made a commitment to the Lord and said, “I want to be a better
husband and father because I haven’t been.”
We love to see people coming to the Lord for salvation. We’ve bought
Bibles for church to give away through door-to-door ministry, but we
also see that the church hurts and the people in the church need
encouragement. People in the church need to know the God is real in
their lives and there for them throughout the week. So it’s a
double-edged thing. We’re out to see people saved and we’re out to
encourage.
Mercy Hope: How can we pray for
you over this coming year?
Vanessa Mahaffey: Pray for
health. Pray that when we enter a church the Spirit will be there
and that people will be open. We were talking earlier about how
closed minded people can be – so pray that God will open their
hearts and minds and let God move and do what it is that He wants to
do. Something that was laid on my heart recently in a prayer session
with God is that whatever doors He opens that we wouldn’t close
them. That if the doors are open we want to walk through them we
want to use every opportunity. Pray for our bus – it breaks down all
the time. Last weekend we were on our way to sing at a church and
our bus broke down two hours from the church we were supposed to be
at and we were in a small town and we called Pastor of the Church
where we were supposed to be at and he said, “Hey, I know a Pastor
there in the town you’re in. Why don’t you call him and see if he
has a van, and if he has a van you can still make it here.” Well,
this Pastor didn’t have a van, and he said, “I’ll call around to
several other Churches and see what we can do.” Well, we couldn’t
get van together so we asked the Pastor of that town if he need a
singing group because we would love to sing at your church and he
said, “Sure! Why not? We’re doing the Lord’s Supper and that’s about
it.” So we went to his church and it was a great, great date. The
people came to us and they were so receptive and they said, “We
needed to hear you so much you were such an encouragement. We needed
you tonight. And at the other church where we were supposed to have
been it wasn’t enough time for the Pastor to come up with a sermon
so they had time of worship and testimonies and they said, “We got
to do stuff that we don’t usually get to do.” So it turned out to be
a great night for both Churches. So it’s awesome how God can work.
Also pray for traveling grace, and pray that we won’t be klutzes.
Last week we also backed over a basketball hoop, tore a hole in the
top of our bus, and dropped a ladder - it was really pretty
embarrassing. The next day some friends came two hours to get us and
drive us home and the wrecker came to get the bus and take it to our
mechanic near where we live. So the next day my husband called the
mechanic and said him, “You need to put the axel in because they
loosened the axel to put it on the wrecker.” And the mechanic says,
“It’s not here” and Cody said, “it should be right there” and the
mechanic says, “no, not the axel, the bus. The BUS is not here.” So
Cody says, “What do you mean it’s not there? It should have been
there last night” but he said, “No, it never made it. I don’t know
where it is but it’s not here” So Cody and Ray are like, “We don’t
know where the bus id it could be on the side of the road, it could
be stolen, all of our equipment could be gone.” So they called the
towing company and talked to the dispatcher and she says, “I don’t
know what you’re talking about.” Come to find out the tow truck
caught of fire. So not only do we break down, bust a basketball
goal, and put a hole in our roof - the tow truck caught on fire, so
I’m saying, “I think our prayer wall is down. I think we need to
call some people to pray.” So pray for traveling grace, and pray
that we won’t be klutzes. Honestly, we’ve even knocked down a
stoplight and had to call the City. But it’s those little things - a
day like that can really discourage instead of seeing the
opportunity in it you start thinking, “Okay God, do you really want
us to be doing this? Because it seems like we’re having a really bad
streak.” Some people think that Satan works by breaking down the bus
but busses are going to break down – they don’t last forever. I
think Satan works by putting the thought in your head, “You are
really not supposed to be doing this.” Whatever it is, “You’re not
supposed to be singing. You’re not supposed to be writing a paper.
You’re not supposed to be doing this interview.” You have to say,
“Wait a minute, we’ve been called to do this. We know we’ve been
called to do this. This is an opportunity.” We need to look around
because God can take this situation and turn it into something new,
something different, something we weren’t expecting. So in the
ministry if you’re writing an article for a magazine, or doing an
interview for the website, or whatever it is you’re doing if you’re
coming up to an obstacle don’t say, “I’m going to quit. This isn’t
working the way I want.” Instead say, “Okay, what is it that You’re
wanting, God? Where are You wanting this to go because it’s not
working for me. Is it possible that You want me to go in another
direction?” So you have to seek His Face in those situations when it
seems crazy and be open to what He has planned for us.
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