27018: Hermantin (news)Christian rock star sets off on mission (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Palm Beach Post


Christian rock star sets off on mission
Ride for Haitian kids starts in Gardens
By Leslie Gray Streeter

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

PALM BEACH GARDENS — Before Monday, the farthest Audio Adrenaline lead singer 
Mark Stuart had ridden his motorcycle was the approximately 150 miles between 
Key West and Miami. But by today, the Grammy-winning frontman planned to have 
covered almost twice that, between Palm Beach County and Jacksonville — with 
about 2,500 more to go in the next 11 days.

Even though the singer admitted he was "freaking out a little," a smiling 
Stuart set out Monday morning on his cross-country "Hands & Feet Across 
America" tour from Trinity United Methodist Church in Palm Beach Gardens, seen 
off by waving fans and a parade of about 20 members of local Christian biker 
groups.



Greg Lovett/The Post

enlarge

Mark Stuart (center), frontman of the group Audio Adrenaline, takes off Monday 
morning from Trinity United Methodist Church for California, accompanied by 
members of local Christian biker groups. The singer's 3,000-mile journey is a 
fund-raiser for the Hands & Feet Project, his parents' ministry for orphans in 
Haiti.


Greg Lovett/The Post

enlarge

Whenever he looks down at the gas tank of his motorcycle, Mark Stuart will be 
reminded of why he's riding from Florida to California.
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The contemporary Christian singer's trek will take him and five friends through 
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and other states between here and 
San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, making music, raising money for and 
awareness of the plight of desperate children not far to our south.

"Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and it's just an hour 
and a half from Miami," said Stuart, whose trip is in support of the Hands & 
Feet Children's Village in Cyvadier, Haiti, a residence and school for children 
orphaned by epidemics of political unrest, poverty, AIDS and violence.

About 100 people streamed in and out of the parking lot during a two-hour 
send-off party sponsored by 88.1 WAY-FM featuring free breakfast food donated 
by the Chick-fil-A restaurant on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and a chance to 
meet Stuart and his traveling companions. Several bikers rode out with the 
singer and planned to go as far as St. Lucie County, they said.

"We felt this was a good cause to support," said Lynn Jewell of Lantana, who 
would ordinarily have been working at the U.S. Postal Service but was instead 
astride her motorcycle with other members of Palm Beach County's Alpha and 
Omega chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists Association.

"So many people think of bikers and immediately think 'Hell's Angels,' of bad 
guys," said Jewell, whose husband, Charlie, is the chapter's chaplain. "But 
that's not at all true."

Stuart, who signed autographs, hugged fans, and was serenaded with his band's 
hit Big House by a group of neatly uniformed kindergarten and first-grade 
students from Trinity Christian School, said that the purpose of the Hands & 
Feet Project is to "educate and help raise up a generation of young Haitians 
who will grow up in their own country and one day affect it in a positive way."

He said he first "fell in love with the island and people of Haiti" while on a 
short-term mission trip in high school, and lived in the country briefly with 
his pastor father, Drex, and mother, Jo. The couple had moved back to the 
United States but have now returned to Haiti head up the Hands & Feet Project, 
named for an Audio Adrenaline song.

Stuart, whose band released its latest album, Until My Heart Caves In, this 
month, said Palm Beach County was chosen as the start-off point because of its 
location. Also, like other stops on the tour, it has a major Christian radio 
station, 88. 1 WAY-FM, to help get the word out, he said.

The local WAY-FM kick-off party included the blessing of the bikes by Rick 
Barreiro of the Revelation Riders chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists 
Association in Port St. Lucie.

"We just always like to ask God for protection to keep their britches between 
the ditches," Barreiro said.