Despite personal loss, gospel piano legend focuses on helping others after disaster
Dino Kartsonakis received a prophetic word about a new beginning with “water, lots of water,” but the Grammy award-winning gospel pianist never dreamed it would come in the wake of a history-making flood in southeast Missouri.
Kartsonakis’ home in Hollister, Mo., was buried under 13 feet of water in April. In a flash, he lost his grand pianos and a lifetime of musical awards, archives, photographs, clothing and family heirlooms. The keepsakes that healing evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman gave him during the time he played piano for her ministry were also destroyed.
A homeless Kartsonakis now is sounding the “last days” trumpet—and proclaiming the power of God—as he turns his focus toward helping others who have lost so much in the deluge of natural disasters this year.
“We’re in the last days. We should be prepared because I believe the wrath of God is coming,” Kartsonakis said. “There is natural disaster and economic disaster. When Christians—the honest people who pay their taxes—leave this earth in the rapture, things are going to get worse. The rapture is about to take place. Time is short, and we are seeing prophecy fulfilled right before our eyes. If you are not anchored in Christ Jesus, you will be devastated.”
“Perhaps people have cancer. Perhaps they lost a loved one. Perhaps they lost their home. Economically, they may be totally stressed. But I am here to tell them that Jesus is the answer,” Kartsonakis said. “The joy of the Lord is our strength, and we can have joy in the midst of a storm, in the midst of a flood, in the midst of a tornado, in the midst of losing a loved one.”
Kartsonakis is reminding the stressed out, burned out and flooded out masses that God will deliver them, give them hope and bring them victory. The gospel-music legend isn’t worried about himself or his wife, Cheryl, he says, because God has proved Himself faithful over Kartsonakis’ decades of music and television ministry.
In the same way God is giving Kartsonakis a new beginning, he believes God is going to give natural disaster victims a new beginning of their own.
“It’s a new day for all of us. Even if you’ve been through an earthquake or the tornads in Alabama—even if you’ve lost everything—I am praying that God will give you supernatural enlightenment to know that it’s a new beginning,” Kartsonakis said. “And I’ll tell you the greatest beginning will be when the rapture takes place. That’s going to be the turning point of the greatest beginning.”
