Sometimes Nancy Greenhaw gets a little confused about what, exactly, God wants from her.

Usually the confusion doesn't last long.

Case in point: When Grace, her ministry's praise-and-worship band, was recording its second CD, one singer left and another died suddenly. So Leticia Darrow, who sings, writes lyrics and plays the keyboards, turned to her mother and asked her to fill in.

“You have to sing this part,” she told Nancy.

“Not me. I can't do it. I'm not good enough,” Nancy replied.

Finally, she agreed. “I started practicing,” Nancy recalls. “I kept practicing.”

But she was confused. “Lord, you put me in this position, but you didn't give me a voice,” she remembers thinking. “This is not logical. This is not like you. I really hate my voice. What is the deal?”

About a year later, after much prayer, Nancy figured it out.

“We have to be careful with the words we say,” says Nancy, who, along with her husband, Lloyd, founded Grace Ministries, a lay music and preaching ministry based in St. Petersburg, Fla. “I realized I had put a curse on myself. This is one of the things I teach about: what our worth is in the Lord. It's not in who we are or what we have, but it's in the Lord. He can change us if we're open.”

So after apologizing to God, she thanked him for her voice and asked that he strengthen it. She has no doubt God answered that prayer. “Now, when I hear my voice, I think, ‘Gosh, that doesn't sound like me.’”

Changed by Grace

These days, Nancy and Lloyd do and say a lot of things that would have been far out of place for them just a few years back. Back in the mid-1980s, they were cultural Catholics. Then they got involved in the charismatic-renewal movement. Their lives changed, they say, when they were “baptized in the Holy Spirit.”

At the time, the Greenhaws were living in Baton Rouge, La. Lloyd was earning “a lot of money” as a salesman of automotive equipment. They lived in an upscale neighborhood and drove flashy sports cars.

The couple moved to Florida for business reasons in 1987. They lived in Treasure Island, near St. Petersburg, in a spacious house on the waterway. They owned a cabin cruiser and a smaller fishing boat. Life was good.

Then one day, a priest visited their parish and said, “You have to give God permission to work in your lives.” Three months later, the business hit an insurmountable roadblock. They ended up losing their home, their cars, their boats, their savings and their health insurance.

The women of Grace: Nancy Greenhaw (left), Natasha Darrow (standing), Leticia Darrow (sitting) and Janie Scheiber.

‘One soul for each tear’

For each tear that I cry, I'm asking you to free

One soul for your kingdom, for all eternity

You're calling me to trust; my purpose now is clear

Join my pain to yours, and give me one soul for each tear

Soul by soul, tear by tear, Let me serve you Lord

Soul by soul, tear by tear

— from the song “Soul by Soul” on Grace's CD Ocean of Mercy

“It was the best thing that ever happened to us,” Nancy says. “The Lord wanted for us to be totally for him and to work for him.”

A friend told them about what life was like in the mission fields. Nancy and Lloyd started leading retreats. They visited Jamaica and saw poverty. Their prayer life deepened. And slowly, over time, they felt the call to becoming lay Catholic evangelists.

“When you come to an experience of God, and you know he's real, then that colors your whole worldview,” Lloyd says. “Now success is not measured in monetary gain, but rather success to me is measured in where you go when you leave this earth — whether you go to heaven or to hell.”

Trusting God

For the past 12 years, the two have lived on faith, relying on money donated when they preach and play music along with their jobs as coordinators for Renewal Ministries, a Catholic evangelism organization based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“It takes faith, which is a call to trust God,” says Peter Herbeck, Renewal's vice president and missions director. “If you don't know God you can't really trust him. You don't trust someone you don't know. Lloyd and Nancy and the family know the Lord. They know his provision. They know he's faithful.”

Nancy and Lloyd have given their testimonies and evangelized in front of thousands across Africa, including Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. They and the Grace band have also preached and played praise-and-worship music at retreats, parish missions and youth conferences across the United States. They rely on God for everything — including good health, since they don't have health insurance.

“We're disgustingly healthy,” Lloyd says with a laugh. “He's our insurance plan and our provider.”

“One of the things that strengthens our ministry is the fact that we're a couple,” he adds. “We're called by God together. The sacramental aspect of our marriage is a strong witness to what we're doing, as is the fact that we live by faith. It ought to be an encouragement to other people that, if God is legitimately calling you, he will provide for you. In 12 years, we've not missed a meal.”

Lloyd and Nancy drive across the country in their donated motor home with other band members: their daughter, Leticia Darrow, who often brings along some of her nine children; Leticia's husband, Ric, who operates the sound system; and Janie Scheiber, a vocalist and song-writer.

Leticia and Janie, who has six children, are often so busy being moms that they write music on the fly — on napkins, McDonald's bags or, in Janie's case, singing the lyrics into her voice mail, Leticia said. The group has produced four CDs and is working on one for teens.

Leticia says playing in front of teens is especially fulfilling. “You go into a room where there's a bunch of young people looking at you like, ‘My mom made me be here. This is boring. I'm going to make your life miserable,’” she says. “By the end of the day, they're raising their hands, singing and laughing, and they're coming up to you, saying you've changed their lives forever. There's no price tag you can put on something like that.”

Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.

For more on Grace Ministries, including samples of the music of Grace, go to www.thenewevange-lism.org. To order CDs, e-mail graceministries @ ij. net.