FamilyLife Today®

Emmanuel Garilus: I remember doing those couple of months, I sat down with my mom. I said, "Mom, the same God that you serve is the same God I serve, and this is what I feel like He's telling me to do." And two years later, I find myself in New York competing at the Apollo Theater, one of the world premieres. To now become the first saxophonist to ever win that competition.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

We've got a saxophonist. We've got Emmanuel and Loreen Garilus with us. Loreen works with us here at FamilyLife Today, and she brought her husband, Emmanuel, in. He's going to play later, but their whole life—a married life with an artist who makes their living playing the saxophone.

Ann Wilson: Well, and I’m thinking of the conversation you’re going to hear about that Emmanuel had with his parents when he was in med school.

Dave Wilson: Sometimes our kids come to us with things that sound crazy. We're like, "Do not do that. Med school is the way to go." And yet, you have to appreciate—well, you’re going to find out what their mom did because it’s pretty special. Let’s go.

Talk about this, because you are living a unique lifestyle that I don’t know what percentage of the world has a married relationship where one of them is an artist. You’re a saxophonist and an educator, and she's working at FamilyLife. How is that navigated? Easy, hard?

Emmanuel Garilus: It definitely has its challenges. A lot of late nights, especially practices. I’m always practicing for something. Sometimes she wants to hang out, and that’s definitely different than if I was working a nine-to-five job where I just come home and everything stops. There’s always more work to do. I could be learning another song, I could be posting something on social media, I could be anything.

Trying to find that balance to be intentional. At 7:30, I’ll stop. Let’s maybe have dinner and hang out. Because for us, dinner time or even afterwards when we’re watching something is really our bonding time. She loves watching shows and, therefore, now I love watching shows. She sees something on the screen she loves, and we discuss it. We have our time together. It’s a very unconventional life, a different life. Some weeks I do back-to-back travels. Being on the phone and communicating with her frequently just so she can feel safe and feel seen that he’s not here physically, but he’s still here.

Ann Wilson: How did you know that was your call, Emmanuel? Because a lot of us—Dave was in the band, the orchestra, all of it in high school.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, upright bass. Can you believe that? A little tuxedo and a bow tie. And played drums in the marching band.

Ann Wilson: For a lot of people, that’s fun, they’re doing it for fun. For you, it’s a calling and your dream is being fulfilled by your lifestyle now. I think a lot of listeners have these dreams, and then life is hard and we have to pay the bills, so they set some of their dreams aside. But for you, how did you know this is what God wanted you to do?

Emmanuel Garilus: It didn't always start this way. I think things really started shifting for me in college. In college, I was actually on the pre-medical track. I was studying to become a doctor. My degree is actually in health science. Right after college, I was preparing for medical school, took the MCAT, spent some months preparing for interviews.

During that time, I just felt a big pull towards music. During that time, I was still gigging, doing shows, but it just felt like more and more as time continued on that I really felt like if I went down the path of medicine, it sounds crazy, but I’d be throwing my life away. I remember during those couple of months, I sat down with my mom. I said, "Mom, I feel like this is what God is telling me to do."

She told me something very practical like a lot of parents would do. She said, "Well, you’re already so close. Go to medical school, become a doctor, go to residency." She’s thinking you have something to fall back on. She’s like, "If you still feel that way after all of this, then you can quit and go play the saxophone."

Ann Wilson: Because she’s thinking, "How are you going to make a living? How are you going to support a family?"

Emmanuel Garilus: And it’s all good questions. What she was saying is very practical. During this time, I’m praying and asking God, "Why do I feel this way? Why is the pull this much that I feel like this is what I should be doing?" I prayed on it and I called a meeting with my family. I called a meeting with my mom and dad and set it up. I remember sitting there telling them, "I’m not going to medical school."

They thought I was crazy. If you grow up in a Caribbean household, they only know three majors: medicine, engineering, and law. My sister is about to graduate law school in about a month. She really wants to do it. One of my younger sisters is actually going to college for engineering.

When I was sitting there with my parents, there was such a lot of pushback. I told them, "The same God that you guys serve is the same God I serve, and this is what I feel like He's telling me to do." After that, for a while, when you have a conviction like that, there are so many unknowns. It’s not like I had this big result to show them. There was no way to prove to them at the moment that I’m right or this is what it is. I just had to have faith in God that this is really what He's calling me to do.

Literally not even two years later, I find myself in New York competing at the Apollo Theater to now become the first saxophonist to ever win that competition.

Dave Wilson: Really? First ever?

Emmanuel Garilus: 92 years. At the time, it was the 90th year.

Ann Wilson: Was that total confirmation?

Emmanuel Garilus: If there was ever confirmation.

Dave Wilson: Were you guys dating at the time, Loreen?

Loreen Garilus: That was a really beautiful year because that was the summer of our wedding. He won in June of 2025, and then we got married that next month.

Emmanuel Garilus: This was back in 2023 when I had the meeting, we started dating in 2024. I remember each round after round, because there were four rounds there, I kept winning first place there. God kept showing me, "This is me leading you." There’s a scripture in Proverbs 4:18. It says, "The path of the just is as a shining light that shines brighter and brighter."

When I first entered the competition, the way that they score it is that they have everyone line up and they’ll call your name, and the crowd is the people that’s judging you. They have a meter on how loud the crowd screams for you. That’s how you do it. That’s why it’s actually one of the hardest competitions to be in because the crowd could also boo you off the stage. Within the first 20 seconds, they’ll let you know if they like it or not.

Loreen Garilus: If the mass amount is booed, you're out. They have a little caricature man that comes out and does a little skit to almost make fun of you. They call the Apollo audience the most brutal audience in America.

Dave Wilson: What instruments usually win?

Emmanuel Garilus: Voices. Singers.

Dave Wilson: So it's not just an instrument, it's your voice as an instrument too. Do they do it once a year?

Emmanuel Garilus: It happens throughout the year and the finale is in June. Each round, you go against ten people. By the time you get there, you would have gone against thousands of people.

Dave Wilson: So you’re playing, can you hear them cheering?

Emmanuel Garilus: I played "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. Within the first 30 seconds, they started singing with me. I said, "Okay, we’re good." Because while you’re there, the backroom people are freaking out because they’re hearing others getting booed off the stage and they have to go next. It’s completely nerve-wracking. If the crowd starts to sing with you and starts to like you early on, then you know you have a shot.

Just to see what God did during that competition. Back to the Proverbs 4:18, the first round, I said, "Lord, if this proverb is true—and I know it is—I want that every time I go on this competition that my score goes higher and higher because You say my path is as a shining light that shines brighter and brighter." It’s out of a hundred. First time I went, I got an 82. The next time, 88.

Dave Wilson: And these are different crowds each time?

Emmanuel Garilus: Different crowds every single time. The third time, I had a 91. And the last time, it was probably the loudest cheer I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was a 96.

Dave Wilson: Did you play the same thing every time or something different?

Emmanuel Garilus: It was the same song every time because it’s a different crowd.

Loreen Garilus: He even wore the same suit.

Emmanuel Garilus: I kept everything. It was this beautiful black suit. It was just beautiful to see how God's word is still alive. When we trust Him and when we put our faith in Him, He’ll come through in a big way.

Ann Wilson: Many times we don’t sit and really talk to God about our passions and our desires. I’m thinking about so many listeners that have maybe had dreams and felt like, "I wonder if God could use this part of me, my gift, and my passion." When I was in high school, I had this dream, I remember writing it. Someday, I want to write a book. But then you get married and you have kids and we put some of our dreams on the shelf and think, "Well, that was just a little kid’s dream."

But God can resurrect those dreams. He knit us together in our mother’s womb, He knows everything about us. Your dream and passion, God's passionate about that as well. He showed you very specifically, Emmanuel, this is what I want you to do. That was such confirmation. What do you think your dreams were?

Dave Wilson: After I became a believer, which wasn’t until my junior in college, I just very quickly learned I want God to use my life to lead people to Jesus. What else matters? I thought at that time, it’s going to be football. That’s what I’m gifted at. I actually turned down an offer to try out because the guy who mentored me said God's call is not to be a football player, it's to be a minister. It was bad advice at the time. It should have been that’s one way to do it.

I’m not going to be some Hall of Famer in the NFL, but maybe I could have played a few years. I didn't tell my son that when he got a shot to play in the NFL. I said, "It’s an opportunity for a few years, take it. You can be a minister in a locker room in many different ways." But yeah, I just feel like I’m doing it. I never thought it’d be in marriage or writing books or sitting in the FamilyLife Today studio, but here we are. Even when I’m playing guitar on a stage, I can be a light. To watch people’s hearts be moved by music and what sound does that a spoken preacher can’t do, it’s just the way God wired and even made us.

When we started our church and I told Mark, our music director, "We’re going to do this with excellence." I was a strummer guitar guy. I just knew chords. I’m like, "I want to play in this," and I’m like, "I’ve got to learn theory." I didn't even know what theory was. I became a much better artist because I did the work. It’s like God's heart in sound. When I hear an excellent artist, it’s like watching an excellent athlete. People don’t understand how good that is. What they’re doing is a gift from God.

Ann Wilson: Watching you two together, you’re fanning the flame for Emmanuel’s call. As your family grows and you’re married a while, you have kids, what will that look like? The dreams that you have, Loreen. I think some women can feel like, "Well, this is Emmanuel’s dream and I’m just going to fan the flame," but you have dreams too.

Loreen Garilus: We were just talking about this in the car today. I’ve always been a chatterbox since I was little. I actually thank my parents that they didn't shush me. They didn't shut it down. I also was an avid reader and a writer, and I still am. I have dreams too, to speak. I love to teach.

Back when I joined ministry at 20 years old, I just got married last summer, but still to date, my greatest accomplishment that I’ve done in this life so far is devoting all that time in ministry. I wouldn't trade it. Because even in that time, I was in it because I wanted to grow closer to God. I remember I told my ministry director, "I’ve spent all of these years living for me, I want to live for Him, I want to make up for lost time."

I didn't even realize in that time, there’s so much professional skills that are cultivated in ministry. They would have us go through what they called a "Witness Training School." We learned how to teach people the gospel through Romans, specific verses, it’s called the Romans Road to Salvation. After you go through the course, then we go out to Lake Eola and we’d witness.

Can you imagine interrupting people on their beautiful Saturday morning with their dogs and their coffee to go up to them and ask them, "If you were to die today, are you 100% certain that you’d go to heaven? And then if you stand before God and He asked you, 'Why should I let you into my heaven?' what would you say?" To cultivate something like that at 19, 20 years old and then to repeatedly do that, I’ve now almost become fearless in a way. I’m not scared to stand on a stage in front of other humans. It’s something really special that’s built when you apply yourself to learning God and wanting to share His gospel. So, I have those gifts.

Ann Wilson: It’ll be fun to see how God uses that. In our families, it’d be an interesting family meeting to ask our kids, "Tell me what your passions and your dreams are," as they get a little older. Do you ever feel like in your marriage, "Okay, come on, dude. Let’s go get a real job"?

Loreen Garilus: No. Just what Emmanuel was saying about how he asked the Lord to make that scripture, Proverbs 4:18, come alive in that way. I think of the other proverb, a man’s gift makes room for him and sets him before great kings. That’s real.

Emmanuel Garilus: And even the other one, "Do you see a man diligent in his work? He shall stand before kings and not mean men." I know I’ve experienced that. You can have the passion and you can have the gift, but you also have to develop it. When it’s unrefined, we’re not there. You have to spend the time to really refine your gift and you have to spend the time to develop it to the point of excellence.

Dave Wilson: When we started our church, we called it the "unblemished lamb" concept. God required an unblemished lamb. Why? He wanted the best. "Give me your best. Don’t bring me a blemished lamb." If you’re going to do art, same thing. It isn't like God doesn't accept it, but God says, "Give me your best." If you’re going to play on the stage, we’re going to require you to be excellent in your art because excellent art is what He does. It doesn't mean He doesn't accept a mistake, but I did the work. When I came to rehearsal, everybody in the band’s like, "He worked all week." He didn't walk in and say, "Hey, what are the chords again?" He has done the work because he’s saying, "This matters. I’m offering God something that’s as good as I can get." That’s what you’re doing. That honors God, and God blesses that.

Ann Wilson: And we taught our kids that with Colossians 3:23. Whatever you do, work heartily for the Lord rather than for men, because we do it a lot of times for men, but God sees it all. I just think it’s such a good reminder, one, watching you two together. I love that you’re like, "No, I wouldn't want him to do anything else. This is his calling from God," instead of being bitter you’re gone all the time. You’re very aware of this is a calling for both of you.

Dave Wilson: I think we need to hear some sax.

Ann Wilson: I do too.

(Emmanuel Garilus performs "I Will Always Love You" on the saxophone)

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry, celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.