The Boyds is a family band, but Bruce and Julie Boyd usually perform without their children at events like marriage conferences. However when friends in Lebanon, the tiny country in the Middle East, invited them to perform in high schools, they decided to take their 3 boys with them.
So they began practicing as a family, and Brandon, 15, Shaun, 13, and Ryan, 11, began learning the bass guitar, drums and electric guitar.
While in Lebanon they performed at 12 different schools, giving 20 concerts in just 6 days. All the schools were Christian, but many of the students were not Christians.
"In Lebanon," says Bruce, "the public-school system isn't considered to be very good, so many parents send their children to the private schools, which are often Christian."
In Beirut, the capital, the population is about half Muslim and half Christian. Bruce told the gospel message, and the boys each spoke about how God had worked in their lives.
"I'd never shared [the gospel] in front of a big group of people before," says Brandon, "and I was nervous about how the students would receive it."
But the students all responded well, and the boys kept in touch with a few by e-mail in the following months.
During every concert, the Boyds invited the students to bring their friends and parents to a community concert at the end of their time in Lebanon.
Over 500 people showed up for the concert, and the event was taped by a local television station and rebroadcast later, and even shown in Syria, Jordan and Iraq. When they collected comment cards at the end of the concert, 72 percent of those responding indicated they had accepted Christ.
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