We were teaching Bible School in the summer. We did it in the afternoon and ended with supper so we became like this small community. There were five helpers and nine children. The oldest child was 17 and the youngest was 5. Maybe it was more like a family.

The songs that went with the curriculum required reading and that didn’t work for the five-year-old. The Esther story didn’t have a song, so I wrote a round for that story and William learned it easily.

Mordecai was Esther’s uncle and told her that she needed to go to the king to save the Jewish people. Esther said if she went to the king without being called by him, he could kill her. And Mordecai said, “Perhaps you have come to this place for just this act. Speak out.” So Esther did and the Jewish people were saved. The words to the round were:

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Perhaps you have come to the place where you are,

For just such a time as this!

Perhaps you have come to the place where you are,

For just such a time as this!

Speak out! Don’t keep silence! Be true to God!

Speak out! Don’t keep silence! Be true to God!

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© Copyright 1997 by Ann Freeman Price

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One time as they were doing crafts, everyone was working and not even talking. Quietly I heard a little five-year-old voice start to sing—”Perhaps you have come to the place where you are…” And then the others joined in and as they did the craft they sang the song in a round.

The wonder of it is that William’s grandmother told me that on the times when she puts him to bed he says to her “Let’s sing about Esther” and together they sing this song about speaking out and being true to God.

My dream for all my children’s choir work was that the songs that got planted in their musical brains and in their hearts would be there when they needed them in life.

It’s not easy to speak out. But in our world, it seems more dangerous to me to be silent.

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