Member Spotlight: Scott and Rachel Kramer, Hands of Love Ministry

Scott and Rachel Kramer reach out with Hands of Love no matter if they’re performing for a packed theater audience or for a senior citizens lunch group.

Those present will hear the Gospel and be encouraged no matter what the venue is.

The Kramers formed Hands of Love Ministry in the late 1990s out of a conviction that they needed to use their musical talents for God’s purposes. Rachel is a soprano, graduating from Bradley University with a degree in vocal performance, and Scott plays guitar, piano, and drums.

Hands of Love ministers in a number of ways, including:

• RiverLife cruises on the Spirit of Peoria, an Illinois River paddle wheeler. Each summer for the past 17 years, Hands of Love has organized music and dinner cruises featuring gospel performers including Rachel (known professionally as Rachel West Kramer); Scott performing with the vocal group For Heaven’s Sake; and Gaither Homecoming artists such as Woody Wright and Reggie and Ladye Love Smith.
• Concerts at various venues featuring Rachel’s singing and Scott’s playing—and sometimes including daughter Maria’s vocals.
• Rachel’s presentations to women at conferences and monthly meetings, including Hands of Love’s annual Real Life, Real Joy Women’s Day of Renewal conference.
• Pro-life events such as 40 Days for Life rallies and this year’s Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies.
• A Bible study that Rachel started in her front room but that has outgrown their modest home in Germantown Hills, Illinois, with dozens of women taking part in several small groups.
• Good News Music Radio, a weekly program hosted by Woody Wright airing on more than 100 stations and repeaters.
• Scott’s concerts with the vocal group For Heaven’s Sake, featuring current and former Samaritan Ministries staffers.
• Four CDs recorded by Rachel, including an album of sacred Christmas music.
• Annual Christmas celebration concerts focusing on the holy music of the holiday.

Oh, and the Kramers lead worship at Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria on most Sundays, too.

But they couldn’t do any of it without solid grounding in Scripture and faith as well as an attitude of servanthood, they say.

“Being rooted and grounded in a church, week in and week out, is vital,” Scott says. “When you go out, all of that is with you. It’s so important that you have the Biblical foundation and base of being in a church on a regular basis.”

Rachel also points to the importance of having a home that belongs to the Lord.

“It starts with seeking the Lord in our own home and living out our lives authentically before the Lord—humbly coming before Him and recognizing Him—that this is His work and He delights in using our lives,” Rachel says. “In recent years, we’ve really understood how weak we are.”

And when the Kramers talk about “Gospel music,” they don’t restrict it to any particular style. To them, a Gospel song is a song that communicates just that—the Gospel, whether it has a Southern accent or not.

“Gospel music is an expression of our love for and our worship of God,” Scott says. “He puts the song in our heart. It’s Gospel music if it leads and points to Christ and encourages believers.”

Scott says that Hands of Love is operated within a Biblical framework focusing on Philippians 2:1-11, serving one another in love and exalting one’s brother higher than one’s self. The focus is on bringing the Good News to those who haven’t heard it and encouraging those who have accepted it.

“We are an evangelistic outreach organization,” Scott says. “Our sole purpose is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever we go and whatever we do. If we produce CDs, it’s to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to encourage believers, to build up the Body of Christ.”

That wasn’t their original direction, though.

Scott’s career was in good shape with a well-paying job in a dental arts corporation as he flew around the country, working conventions and moving up quickly. It was shortly after he and Rachel were married in 1995 that he sensed the call to go into full-time ministry. When he returned from a trip, he had a meeting with his boss, who was also a Christian, and gave him two months’ notice. Shortly after that, another company in the dental industry offered Scott a six-figure salary with top-notch perks, but he turned it down, instead taking a job in Grace Presbyterian’s communications department for $30,000 a year.

The wisdom of his decision was confirmed in July 1995 when the Kramers were invited to take part in a fledgling riverfront ministry in Peoria. The committee met for a year to pray and plan before the RiverLife cruises left shore in 1996. The Kramers also started performing together throughout the region and worked on their music. Then, sensing it was time to take that full-time step into ministry, they started raising support in 1999 and stepped away from Scott’s job in faith, which by then was paying him $42,000.

It didn’t take long for them to realize they were in God’s will.

“I got on my knees and prayed, and the phone started to ring,” Scott says. “We had ministry event after ministry event coming in. We ended up doing over 100 events that first year.”

And when they did their taxes the following year, they found that their income from donations and fees amounted to just about … $42,000.

“I saw that as a direct sign from the Lord that He was able to provide for us when we took that step of faith,” Scott says.

Then everything came to “full stop” in 2001 when their son, Weston, then 1 year old, was diagnosed with autism. Scott and Rachel had to find a biomedical pediatrician and started applied behavior therapy in their home.

“Early intervention is the key,” Scott says. “In the first years, you have to act fast with the child, or they can regress.”

Rachel says that Weston is a blessing from God.

“Looking back, I recognize that God lovingly allowed and entrusted us with a special needs child,” Rachel says. “I feel it’s one of the greatest blessings in our lives. At the time, it was the greatest devastation to me. It was so sudden and turned our whole life upside down. I believe that when the Lord lovingly entrusts something that just about kills us, it makes us cling to Him like never before. I believe it is a gift. It was Weston’s autism that broke me. It brings me to my knees even today.”

Rachel says she thought that if she and Scott “did A, B, C, D and E, it would equal a healed child.”

It didn’t.

“I just about had a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t laughing anymore, not smiling. I was sick all the time. The Lord allowed me to be so broken,” she says.

But in 2004, He brought revival into Rachel’s life through the Bible study that started in her living room.

“He began to renew my life,” she says. “I didn’t even know I needed it, because I was so sick. I cannot believe how much He loves us that He would allow us to be so broken down to know His love and mercy.”

And Weston, now 13, has made great progress, to the point that this, his parents say, is his best year at school yet; he’s singing in the school choir and playing drums in the school band, apparently acquiring talent from both parents.

Maria also has inherited talents, singing on occasion at Hands of Love events and playing the piano, guitar, and even ukulele.

One of the Kramers’ main focuses since 2010 has been on Hands of Love’s Good News Music Radio program. Each hour features more than a dozen songs. Scott says the program “leans a little more into progressive Southern Gospel,” with a lot of the top Gaither artists, including host Woody Wright.

“The thing I love about the radio program is that God can have somebody turn on the radio at just the right moment and hear the message of Christ through a song,” Scott says.

The program has proven to be so popular that Hands of Love has just held its second annual concert featuring Gospel stars like Russ Taff. It was recorded in Louisville for a DVD project.

“This has been a year of planning and walking on water and mountains being moved and really getting on our knees before the Lord,” Scott says.

Prayer proved to be key in dealing with several issues during the taping, as equipment acted up, and time and staffing restrictions proved to be a real strain. The Kramers returned from Louisville spiritually, physically, and emotionally exhausted … but grateful to God. Scott set up a pile of “memorial stones” from Louisville to remember how God fought for them through “some of the most intense spiritual warfare we’ve ever been in.” But he adds that as a result of the experience, they also have been turned toward a renewed dependence on the Word’s presence in their lives, whether read or spoken.

It’s God reaching into their lives and out to others with His Hands of Love.