![]() ![]() "We would sit in a furniture-less living room, and we would say a prayer of gratitude that we were here and together, and then we would just pray for everything, the car, someone to cover the hospital bill, furniture."Ī fellow homeschooling family invited them over for a Thanksgiving meal. "I can still picture it," he said, seated with his dad and brother Luke in his parents' Williamson County home. Joel Smallbone remembers praying for God to give them a car. James said their parents encouraged the kids to pray for specific needs. ![]() The Smallbones slept on bundled laundry on the floor, the same place they shared daily prayer. Mother Helen Smallbone had yet to have an ultrasound, and the family had no way to pay for her to give birth in a hospital. The family possessed one thing in abundance: faith.ĭavid Smallbone was still unemployed when the birth of his seventh child was imminent. Suddenly, the family was surviving on little food and shelter. I still enjoy Taco Bell."īut then father David Smallbone's job fell through when his employer could no longer afford to pay him. And it didn't have the same effect as Shoney's. And as for Taco Bell, that was like Ruth's Chris. "We loved it in that moment, but we were so burned out. "I don't think that any of us will ever set foot in a Shoney's again," he said. Joel Smallbone laughed that Taco Bell's 79-cent bean burritos were a diet staple. Joel Smallbone was 7 and remembers checking the pay phones for change and eating as much as he could at breakfast because he knew it might be his only meal.Īfter two weeks in the hotel, the family moved into a rented Williamson County house where the landlord often "forgot" to collect rent.įor food the family frequented Shoney's where kids ate free. The family of soon-to-be nine packed into two rooms at the iconic Union Station Hotel because it offered free breakfast. They took a train from California to Memphis and then made their way east in the heat of August.Įventually they settled in Music City with dreams of making a living - if not hitting it big - in the music industry. The parents used most of their family's money to fly the six children and themselves to America for that job in Nashville. The trip from Australia to Nashville wasn't easy - or cheap. ![]() And we were praying for miracles and seeing them happen." "We were on the other side of the world and didn't know much of anybody and were sleeping on the floor and didn't know where our income was coming from. James said of life when the family first moved to the U.S. "We were all young enough to not feel the gravity of the situation," St. Brothers Joel and Luke formed what is now Christian pop rock duo For King & Country in 2011, and now the Dove Award-winners are following in her footsteps.īut life didn't always have such an even tempo. James and became one of the genre's best-known female artists. Oldest sister Rebecca Smallbone changed her name professionally to Rebecca St. The artistic Smallbone family is best known today for Christian rock. But when their dad got a job in Nashville in 1991, the family moved to Middle Tennessee and, through twists of fate and hard luck, their first Thanksgiving became a pivotal moment. There weren't stories of Pilgrims and traditions with turkey or pumpkin pie where the brothers were raised in Australia. Watch Video: For King & Country's Thanksgiving MessageĪs young children, Joel and Luke Smallbone never heard of Thanksgiving. ![]()
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