Precious

Again, there’s ALWAYS a story!

In the early 1960s, during the height of Motown influence on pop culture, Robert Lumzy began to teach his daughters all about Rock n’ Roll. In a small five-room house in Columbia, Mississippi, his daughters would croon, harmonize, and snap their fingers to the beat as guitar player Lumzy mapped out his dream for he and his girls to become the next Rock ‘n Roll sensation. In the meantime, his wife, Emma Lumzy, had other ideas. She knew immediately that the girls’ musical gifts should be spent building up the kingdom of God and began coaching them to sing gospel music. This musical divide was the beginning of a big lesson they were to learn while the children were still very young.

  1. Precious Lumzy Sisters 5:44

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The Lumzy sisters liken their father to Jonah. He received the call to come to the Lord and preach the gospel, but like Jonah, he ran away. It wasn’t long before Lumzy lost his two guitar playing fingers in an accident. As he prayed for them to grow back, he promised to devote the rest of his life to preaching and serving the Lord. Time passed and his fingers grew. Not just as little stubs, but right from the joint they grew back—right down to the fingernails! Undeniably, he was blessed with a miracle.

Accepting his blessing but not keeping his promise, Lumzy was at work one day while his wife was at home tending to the baby and the other children attended school. The Lord spoke to him and told him he was going to lose a child because he had been disobedient. He dropped what he was doing and ran home. As it happens, the baby had died in her sleep that morning for no apparent reason. The Lord’s message finally hit home loud and clear and his heart accepted the calling to be obedient to God’s will.

Soon after their youngest sister passed away, Robert Lumzy became Reverend Robert L. Lumzy. The girls and their father no longer envisioned rock ‘n’ roll stardom for themselves, though the Motown influence is ever-present in their gospel style, and remains a delicious sonic treat! Emma Lumzy took over rehearsal time with the girls after school while their gospel roots flourished. They began to sing at churches throughout the southern regions near their home, but eventually moved to New Jersey where their father took a job as pastor of a church.

The Lumzy Sisters recorded six albums between 1982 and 2002.

Source http://www.malaco.com/Catalog/Gospel/The-Lumzy-s/list.php

He Is Preparing Me

Many of us are familiar with this song as performed by gospel legend Daryl Coley, but here is a version sung by a soloist in the Wilmington-Chester (PA) Mass Choir that deserves props as well.

  1. He Is Preparing Me The Wilmington Chester Mass Choir 9:48

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For those of you who might be new to JVOI, the choir sang this song several years ago and it was sung beautifully by Norris Welch (who’s favorite gospel singer of all time is…Daryl Coley).

  1. He Is Preparing Me Joyful Voices of Inspiration 7:16

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