About Me

Mine is the luxury to remain an amateur musician and songwriter while still having something to sing about.

I grew up around Nashville with no lack of opportunities to play music or to dream about gracing the radio with some hit single.  I was a Pre-Med at Belmont University, where I befriended numerous talented individuals pursuing careers in music.  It was there I discovered the freedom of keeping music as a (albeit somewhat intensive) hobby.  I went to medical school in Ann Arbor, where well-meaning friends coaxed me out from behind a piano to play and sing my own songs.  By the time I married Rachel in 2005, we were committed to moving overseas to try and serve the poor as missionary physicians.

And that's what I do.  The story is, of course, way more complicated than that, but that's what the other websites are for.  (Somewhere in there, we had three kids on three continents.)  We treat patients, teach medical students, and try to grow more and more into the image of a God whom we believe loves us dearly.

And I continue to write songs.  Why?  Most fundamentally, because I like to.  Because my wife likes listening to them.  Because life produces them inside of me.  And given that my life experiences are a bit unique, there are not many other people trying to articulate this kind of life with the medium of songwriting.  And I believe it's worth articulating.  

There are lots of talented songwriters.  There are more missionary physicians than you might guess.  But the combination seems a bit rare, so I try to tell the stories in a way that would bring them to a bit more life.  I read.  I think.  I talk with people, and I think some more.  Then I try and write it all together, recording in the back office of our Burundian home when the electricity works.  If you find something here worthwhile for your own life and your own heart, then it has been my pleasure to provide it.