A few months ago it was impossible to purchase the album Shelter from the Storm. But no more, thanks to the surprising popularity of its most popular song, “Dear Mr. Jesus,” a prayer for abused children, which took the country by storm late last year. During one span in December, New York radio station WHTZ received 3,000 requests a day for the song sung by six-year-old Sharon Batts (she is now nine). And over a six-week period, KSCS in Fort Worth averaged over 500 requests daily.
Though demand for the album has waned, it has not ceased. In some smaller radio markets, the plaintive ballad is still making its debut, according to Jan Batts, Sharon’s mother and the founder of Gospel Workshop for Children, the nonprofit ministry that produced the album under the label PowerSource. Batts said PowerVision, the for-profit organization that distributes the albums, still fills about 50 orders a day. The album is also being sold in record stores.
Batts estimates that 100,000 albums or cassettes have been sold to date, adding that PowerVision is too busy filling orders to keep an accurate count. The workforce at the organization consists mainly of volunteers, mothers of some of the 21 members of the singing group, also called PowerSource. These women typically work 14-hour days filling orders and responding to letters.
PowerVision could have met the demand for the album more quickly, Batts said, had it accepted one of several contract offers from major record companies. But, she said, “in a world where everybody thinks that big is better, God was telling us to stay small.”
Jan’s husband, Jim Batts, a board member for Gospel Workshop lor Children, said the record companies had a short-range view in mind. “We’re in this for the long haul,” he said. “Child abuse is not the only issue we have in mind.” Other songs on the Shelter from the Storm album address topics such as depression and material need. Profits from sales will go toward producing more records, cassettes, and videos.
The Batts family also turned down offers of recording contracts for Sharon. The girl has appeared on several local and national television shows, at an NBA basketball game, and at a Nashville fund-raiser for child-abuse prevention with country music star Randy Travis. But her parents have limited her schedule to one or two appearances a week. “She just needs to be a normal little girl,” said Jan.
Several of the radio stations that broadcast the song also announced a hotline number from which people could receive help. One abusive parent, in a letter to a Dallas radio station, wrote, “I will never be the same after hearing ‘Dear Mr. Jesus.’ The cycle [of abuse] stops with this letter.”
