Before Apparent... The Backstory

Before Corrigan & Shelley Clay founded the Apparent Project they lived in Germany, where they led an eccumenical ministry for American military dependents. Their early years of marriage were spent befriending, counseling, and mentoring teens whose parents were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This experience deeply shaped the vision that would later become the Apparent Project. Corrigan discovered that his most fruitful, healing, and redemptive relationships with military kids were often those that were formed in connection with the arts: playing music with teens at weekly "club" meetings, making films with students, and assisting in art and drama classes. When given a comfortable opportunity for self-expression, kids were able to push into more uncharted conversational territories, sharing their thoughts about love, family, ethics, death, war, God, and the deepest longings of their lives. These students also found new levels of confidence and affirmation in allowing themselves to be vulnerable, collaborating with others, and sharing the products of their creative work with their community. For many, the catalyst of creativity became a bridge into a renewed relationship with their Creator and a greater sense of vision for their lives.

When somebody shapes their understanding of who God the Father is, they inevitably will draw on their personal experiences of provision, authority, nurture, justice, discipline, and parental love. Inversely, when parental relationships are broken or tarnished by painful experiences, these can distort the way a person perceives God. In Germany this principle became crucial in understanding many of the students' struggles with faith, problems at home, and troubles at school. Reconcilliation within familial relationsips was often a key part of reconcilliation with God and living a peace-filled life. Most of the teens problems stemmed out of strained relationships with their fathers, who often spent the bulk of their time at war or on temporary training duties around the globe. Most of these dads loved their children dearly and did everything possible to maintain contact during deployments, but even the best could not reproduce the security and bondedness that come from presence and a less hazardous vocation. Meanwhile, during Shelley's pregnancy with their first dauhter (Keziah) Corrigan's father, Steve, died in a plane crash in southern Oregon. This tragedy reinforced Corrigan's own sense of dependence on God the Father, and helped him and Shelley identify with the needs and worries of the teens they worked with. Ultimately Corrigan and Shelley felt that the intimacy, shared life, and modeling of lifestyle that happens within a family is the strongest and most effective youth ministry, and those with the greatest need of such ministry are those without families. This and difficulty conceiving a second child led them into an investigation of the international orphan crisis and the possibility of adopting.

Because minority boys were most frequently passed over by adoptive families, the Clays decided to pursue a transracial adoption. While they were preparing for this adoption they conceived Zebedee, their first son, and decided to wait to adopt. The time would come while Corrigan was studying art and theology at Regent College. Shelley saw a picture of Woodelson Time on the internet, and soon the Clays were making arrangements to visit him in Haiti. After 4 trips to Haiti and various orphanages they were convinced that they could not return to "normal" North American life. As they looked at the hundreds of orphaned kids and began asking their stories they realized that most kids in orphanages are only there because of poverty, and were not true orphans at all, but children relinquished by their parents to be given a more economically stable life in the United States. Shelley and Corrigan decided to launch out to try to do something to help the children of Haiti survive while staying with their families. With a 70% unemployment rate, the Clays knew that simple jobs were the key to Haitian familial security. They set out to find ways for Haitians to earn a sustainable income. Since both Corrigan and Shelley are skilled in arts and crafts, educating Haitians in the arts seemed like the simplest way to provide a marketable good that could bring in international revenue. The arts would also provide Haitians with more of a voice to share their stories with the world. Thus the Apparent Project was born!

Read more about the Clays.