John Campbell Elliott, a passionate mathematics professor for 43 years, has changed equations in retirement and turned his passion to gospel music.

He has released his first CD, “I Will Pray For You,” with a title song about people who leave their loved ones for new chapters in life.

Like many of Elliott’s eight songs, it came to him while he was contemplating how people feel when they put the lives of their loved ones in God’s care. That especially fits the lives of soldiers leaving their loved ones for battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said.

This new verse in his life comes after decades of dealing with numbers in classrooms. Elliott, 65, just retired from the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Years before that, he taught at the now-closed Ricker College in Houlton.

Elliott, who lives in St. John Plantation, has no musical background, doesn’t play any instrument and never composed.

But things started to change about four years ago, when Elliott and his wife participated in an in-depth course at an Edmundston, New Brunswick, church.

“It involved all kinds of topics in religion – Christianity, prayer, the Holy Spirit and reading the Bible,” he said. “It was an intense course, and I became immersed in that.” Soon he was getting up mornings “with tunes in my head.”

They were tidbits, with Christian content, and he found himself pondering words of comfort, encouragement and inspiration.

“I listened to the melodies and lyrics while getting dressed, in the shower and driving to work,” he said

He memorized the tunes and lyrics and found himself humming while shaving, not knowing where they came from. He kept on picking up ideas here and there, sometimes from something someone said in his home congregation, Fort Kent Bible Church, or in people’s homes.

Finally, he started working these into complete songs.

He sang them to himself for months, then for his wife. She thought others may like them.

A year later, he and his wife were driving through Caribou and decided to stop at the Caribou Baptist Church. A musical group, Duane and Friends, was playing. He told them of his new songs, and that led to a tape being made. It was put on a CD and introduced at a concert at the church in the summer of 2002.

That fall, a Canadian musician entered UMFK, where Elliott was teaching.

Neil Burton had a portable studio in his apartment. So he took a couple of Elliott’s songs and made a demonstration recording. About the same time, Elliott met Betty Gagne at his church. A singer, Gagne lives in Baker Lake, New Brunswick, and performs regularly at area gatherings. She made a demo of Elliott’s songs with Burton’s help.

Before leaving school, Burton introduced Elliott to Fred Lays, a Nova Scotian singer with his own recording studio. They worked long distance, by telephone and e-mail, making background tracks, then Gagne went to Nova Scotia and started recording Elliott’s songs.

“Our goal was to get a CD out to distribute,” Elliott said. “He had all my data, he mixed it and mastered it and sent it back,” Elliott said. “I had a CD manufactured by a downstate company, and we brought it out before Thanksgiving.”

Elliott believes in a divine spark that brings him the music and the people who help – just when they are needed.

“The Bible course made all this come to me,” he said. “It was the Holy Spirit working in me because we are supposed to use our gifts. I didn’t know any of these people three years ago,” he continued. “They have all come into my life, helped me.

“We four put this together, but at no time were we all together at the same place,” he said. “Things went up and down. God wanted me to use this gift.”

The CD has eight songs: “I Will Pray For You,” “My Jesus, My Savior, My Lord,” “Jesus Is My Friend,” “Skyward,” about a 6-year-old boy who dies after a long illness, “Faith, Hope and Love,” “Do You Believe in Angels,” “When I’m Weak,” “He Paid the Fine,” about Christ on the Cross, “I See Him Now” and “Look Up, Reach Up, Stand Up.”

He hopes to put out a second CD. He has new songs. “I have a passion for doing this,” he said.

The CD “I Will Pray For You” is available in Fort Kent-area stores: Country Cottage, the Country Cafe in St. Francis, the Bread of Life bookstore

in Madawaska, several stores in Edmundston, New Brunswick, and on christiannetcast.com. Contact Elliott at 1161 St. John Road, St. John Plantation, 04743.