Kenya Clark, a gifted young LDS singer, collaborated with LDS singer-songwriter Alex Melecio to create a very powerful music video where they combined Spanish and English lyrics for the song, “The Prayer.”

Children carrying Latin American flags in Spanish cover of "The Prayer"According to their video description on YouTube, Kenya and Alex dedicate this song “to our Latin American people who suffer constantly due to corruption, discrimination, tyranny, and poverty. We join our voices in prayer for your peace, safety, happiness, and justice. God’s love knows no borders and makes no distinction between people. He has brought some of you out of your homelands and into this country [The United States] where it’s possible to blossom and raise generations in freedom and peace. May God bless you and grant you the compassion, charity, and freedom necessary to fulfill the American dream. Love, Kenya & Alex.”

Both Alex and Kenya have roots in Latin America. Kenya’s mother is Mexican, and so Kenya proudly identifies as half Mexican. Alex is originally from Sinaloa, Mexico. All of the children who appear in the video also have roots in Latin America.

Kenya Clark and Alex Melecio singing a cover of "The Prayer" in English and Spanish, dedicated to their Latin American friends.This music video does an excellent job of capturing the feelings of many Latin Americans who might be struggling to create a bright, hopeful future for themselves and their children. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Kenya and Alex believe that God loves all of His children equally, no matter where they were born or what language they speak or what color their skin is.

One scripture in The Book of Mormon reads, “And he [the Lord] inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him … all are alike unto God.” (2 Nephi 26:33) This verse means that God does not love any person more than another. He wants everyone, no matter who they are or where they are from, to come unto Him. Followers of Christ strive to look past our differences of ethnicity or nationality and recognize that we all have the same spiritual origin; we are all God’s children.

One of my favorite parts of the song is the bridge, which happens to be entirely in Spanish:

Rogamos por un mundo sin violencia

Un mundo de justicia y esperanza.

En armonía nos damos la mano

Símbolo de paz y de fraternidad.

Latin American boy reaching for the hand of another child as part of the music video for "The Prayer," a Spanish - English cover by Kenya Clark and Alex MelecioRoughly translated from Spanish to English, this means, “We pray for the world without violence, a world of justice and hope. In harmony, we join hands, a symbol of peace and kinship.” This part of the song is especially meaningful because Alex and Kenya are harmonizing beautifully as they sing these words. I feel that these lyrics capture the whole spirit of this music video. We all hope for a better world, a world where violence is scarce and justice is abundant, a world where we can feel hope for the future and joy. There are many places where it is difficult to feel these feelings, and many of those places, sadly, are in Latin America where violence and corruption are growing problems.

If we pray for a better world for ourselves or others, that also means that we need to do our part, even if we feel we cannot do much. That’s how we show our faith and sincerity to God about what we ask Him for. We can do that by offering our help to those in our own neighborhoods and communities. Reaching out to one another, even in small ways, shows that we understand that we are all brothers and sisters—God’s children.

 

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