Cimarron Praise Serves During Mothers Day

Cimarron Praise UMC, a new church start, visited mothers at Methodist Stone Oak Hospital on Mothers Day, May 8. The members of the church provided a luncheon to both patients and healthcare workers who had to be at the hospital during Mothers Day. 

Lunch included chicken spaghetti, salad, green beans, watermelon, rolls, and cake; as well as homemade Mothers Day cards for all women at the hospital. 

After serving 170 people lunch at the hospital, the church took the rest of the food to the fire departments in Northeast San Antonio. They also served a young family moving into a new home. 

The meal came as a blessing for many families at the hospital. One patient was disappointed because her children had yet visited her for Mothers Day. She received one of Cimarron's Praise's homemade cards from the chaplain. She was later seen asleep clutching the card. 

One nurse said no one had ever done an event like this for the hospital in 16 years. 

"This ministry was important to Cimarron Praise because we truly believe we are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world so it is necessary for us to step outside our building and be the hands, feet and heart of Jesus," said Rev. Dawn Baird. "We are becoming known in the Converse area as 'the church who is always loving on people.'"

Methodist Stone Oak Hospital CEO Marc Strode sent the following email to his employees about the Mothers Day Luncheon:

“Folks,
I want to share an uplifting story with you, and I want to take you back to Mother’s Day a couple of Sunday’s ago. As usual, we had some of our leadership team handing out treats early that morning as people came and went at shift change.

But lunch that day was a really special luncheon. We do things for our community every day. We take care of our community. We heal our community. We serve our community. Well, on Mother’s Day this year, someone payed it forward for us!

Cimarron Praise United Methodist Church near Schertz is actually closer in proximity to Northeast Methodist Hospital, but because of the positive experiences some of their clergy leadership and parishioners had as patients & visitors in our hospital, they wanted to do something special for us(and especially the moms in the building that day!)

It also helps that Rev. Dawn Baird who leads this church, is also a nurse! Not only did they provide homemade casseroles and side dishes to boot, but they also created Mother’s Day cards for our patients and handed those out in particular for those moms who were likely to have no visitors on their special day. All in all, they fed over 150 of our team and other patient visitors!

Some wonderful personal stories came out of the day’s event, including feedback from one of our nurses who said her patient was upset because she likely wasn’t going to get a visit from her children. Later in the day, the nurse rounded on her patient, only to find the patient asleep with her homemade Mother’s Day card clutched closely to her chest.

Another nurse who had recently lost her mom spoke of the emotions that day—her first Mother’s Day without her mom. While she wasn’t working that day, she was at MSOH visiting. She shared how happy she was to hear we were providing these meals, which she was able to participate in for the rememberence of her mom.

Just a lot of thankfulness all around this exceptionally kind gesture. Here you have an entire church parish who could be spending time with their own families, and they chose to be with us for our patients. And speaking of choosing, they could have bestowed this kindness onto any hospital, but they chose us because of the work you do for them!

They received so much satisfaction from the day’s events that we just received word that they are graciously ready to do it again next year. Another wonderful MSOH ( and Cimarron) tradition in the making!

An event like this one can’t go on without the help of a lot of people behind the good folks @ the church. Very special thanks goes out to Daniella in HR for helping to coordinate the day’s events, David our facilities leader for guaranteeing a/c in the classrooms on a Sunday!, our housekeepers for helping to clean us up in addition to all that they do on the floors, and security for being proactive to have badges ready ahead of time for the volunteers who were passing out cards.

Then there were our awesome MSOH chaplains who helped get the cards to patients: Rev Thomas Peel, Diana Uresti, Chaplain Nelson Arroyo and Chaplain Jaime DeLeon. Lastly, it couldn’t have been possible without the leadership of our Director of Pastoral Care Deana Kirby, who as usual played the role of consummate professional and friend, always lifting our spirits with her positivity in creating this super event! Thank you all!

Here, here to Cimmaron Praise United Methodist Church!

Keep the Spirit,
Marc
”