Slave Next Door by Bales Kevin & Soodalter Ron
Author:Bales, Kevin & Soodalter, Ron. [Bales, Kevin & Soodalter, Ron.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: University of California Press
ISBN: 9780520255159
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recall that Keith Grimes, a Baptist minister in Sherman, Texas, had
gone to Zambia and brought home a number of boysâ choirsâostensi-
bly to earn money with which to build schools and improve the lives of
the boysâ families in their home village of Kalingalinga. (In actuality,
nearly all the money ended up in Grimesâs pocket, with practically noth-
ing finding its way back to Zambia.) In the early 1990s, after appoint-
ing himself pastor of the âMinistry of the Zambian Acapella Boysâ
Choir,â Grimes converted a barn for offices, housed the boys in trailers,
and went looking for venues where they could perform. He first focused
on the churches. In 1996, he contacted the First Baptist Church of
Colleyville, a town outside Dallas. No one in the congregation was more
enthused about hosting the choir than Sandy Shepherd.
Bales_Ch07 2/23/09 11:02 AM Page 168
1 6 8 / T H E F I N A L E M A N C I PAT I O N
Sandy was, and is, a devoted churchgoer. She had been deeply
involved in church activities since she was very young; in 1969, she had
helped write a ministry program called Early Christian Awareness, for
children between the ages of six months and three years. She married
IBM executive Walter Deetz Shepherd and spent several years moving
her family to various cities, both within and outside Texas. Finally, she
and Deetz moved to the affluent, predominantly white town of
Colleyville, and in 1990 they built a house and settled in with their
three daughters. Nothing in her or Deetzâs life prepared them for what
was to follow.
When the choir was booked to sing in Colleyville, Sandy took on the
task of finding âhost familiesââmembers of the congregation who
would be willing to put up the boys while they were in the area. Sandy
herself took in two of the boys only two days after her oldest daughterâs
wedding. They didnât speak much English, and, as Sandy recalls, âThey
didnât understand the electric lights, or the bathroom fixtures. They
expected to sleep on the floor.â5
Sandyâs church hosted five concerts within a short time, and âby this
time, I was hooked. I volunteered, and made lots and lots of calls to find
them concerts and host families. I wrote a curriculum for their teacher,
since it was obvious that they were getting no education.â As it turned
out, that wasnât all they werenât getting.
When the boys returned later in the year, their language skills had
improved enough for them to make Sandy understand that something
was wrong. There was little or no money being sent home, no schools
were being built; and the education the boys had been promised had
simply never materialized. Further, she discovered that other host fami-
lies were writing letters to the boys and enclosing telephone calling cards
so that they could call their relatives in Zambia, or the host families
with whom they had built relationships, but that Grimes was comman-
deering the calling cards and throwing all the letters away before the
boys saw them.
Grimes hired a series of two-person teamsâa voice teacher and a
choir directorâto tour with the boys. The first teams were Zambian.
Initially, the teams enforced Grimesâs rules, untilâone by
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