ORLANDO, Florida – Earlier in her life, Spanish vocalist Nohemy Garcia says she wrote songs she failed to finish. That changed the day Garcia, a Mennonite of Burgos, Spain, accepted the Holy Spirit’s challenge to finish a song on which she’d been working a long time.
After partnering with Mennonite Mission Network to produce her English-Spanish CD worship album, "Limitless," the musical ministry of Garcia expanded to new heights and depths, she said at Mennonite Church USA’s convention in July.
Garcia, a worship leader at the Orlando convention, debuted songs from her English-Spanish album at Mission Network’s convention hall booth. Her passion for God and worship music drew people to her side. Mission Network is launching her album in October to support its long-time partnership with Garcia’s congregation, Communidades Anabautistas Unidos de Burgos (Burgos Mennonite Church).
"It eases the path somehow when you say yes to God, like I finally did with my music," Garcia said. "It makes it easier somehow to believe what God is doing in your life, and that God has your back, even when following God’s plan isn’t always easy, or doesn’t always make you feel good.
"Though this dual-language music project at times feels really huge and impossible, I am not attempting it on my own strength. I want to be and to do what God wants me to be and to do."
Part of following God’s plan means Garcia seeks to be hospitable to her Spanish roots as well as reach out to the global church. This dual mission seems paradoxical, and yet it unifies her life’s calling, she said. As she makes music, she also teaches English and music and is a worship leader in her congregation.
"Though we’ve been very influenced in Spain by music from the United States, we are increasingly realizing that God wants us to be songwriters in our original language," she said. "We have a lot of musical beauty and richness in our own tradition."
"In the 1980s, God first sent mission workers [Connie and Dennis Byler of Mennonite Mission Network] to us from the States. And now I want to give back by sharing my music with Mennonites in your country. The U.S. missionaries prayed for our country and helped us in many ways. Now it’s my turn to return the favor and to bless you as you have blessed us."
Indeed, Garcia blessed many convention goers as a worship leader and as a solo performer. In powerful renditions of the album’s title song, "Limitless," Garcia shared this encouragement:
Open the doors. Enlarge your territory. Tighten the ropes and make tents stronger. This path you take has never been discovered. His grace will show you that life with Him is …
"Limitless, it’s limitless, it’s limitless … It’s for His grace that life with Him is limitless."
Garcia said Spain is a very musical culture in general, and its people are learning how to simultaneously embrace their own identity at home as well as share themselves with strangers beyond. Her part in the outreach has been fueled in the fires of her family’s suffering.
"My dad was a victim of the bombing in Burgos in 1990," she said. "He was standing next to a car when it exploded, and he lost his hearing in one of his ears. … That experience made me sensitive to the pain of my own people as well as to pain of people around the globe who are suffering."
The idea of "strangers" can symbolize sharing one’s gifts with one’s brothers and sisters in Christ that one does not know personally. The members of God’s family are collectively, and individually, called to enlarge their territory [Isaiah 54:2-3] by sharing God’s good news with each other and the world, she said.
"I feel something big is coming, and I feel we need to be ready for this by equipping new generations of leaders," she said. "We need to pray with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other."
