Three new teams preparing to engage communities for transformation

Three new teams, Henson Chapel UMC – Gonzales, Evans Chapel UMC – Gonzales, and Trinity UMC – San Antonio will come together in February to begin their learning journey in preparing to engage their communities for transformation. The Transformational Communities of Praxis [TCOP] www.tcopraxis.org program, now beginning its’ 4th year, will convene the teams at the conference center for three intensive learning sessions in February, May, and October.

During these sessions, participants will garner community engagement skills to enhance and nuance their current connections and relationships with the communities they serve. Utilizing the skills learned, in October, the teams will host respective community convening events each inviting church members, neighbors, and community stakeholders to envision how they can work together for long-term sustainable change and community transformation. 

The overall outcomes of the TCOP program are: a team prepared to lead the church to be missional in the context served, cultivating a mindset shift from scarcity to abundance, developing new relationships with neighbors and other community stakeholders, cultivating new practices for leading and innovating, creating a plan of action for seeking the shalom of the community, and the 2020 team becoming part of a greater community making the same journey.

The TCOP class of 2020 will have opportunity to connect with regional / national community development conferences as well as cultivate a micro-project beneficial in the development of their communities. The Praxis development team will accompany each team in their developments through out the year and beyond. The teams also now become part of the growing community development network within the conference and beyond.  

Kinney County Coalition Initiative Emerges

Kinney County, Texas is  a border county with 3,800 residents. Brackettville, the county seat town has 1,740 residents. Over the past six years or so, Hope Outreach Center, an community extension ministry of First UMC Brackettville has served as a connector of various social services to the needs of residents.

Prior to the birth of Hope Outreach, the church connected and worked with residents on improving and weatherizing their homes. It was through those interactions that the church began to hear their neighbors’ and new found friends’ concerns. Overtime, understanding the socio-economic, health, education, and employment concerns of the community, it has become increasingly apparent and pressing to work towards adequate responses. 

In 2017, a team from FUMC / Hope Outreach became part of the initial learning cohort in the conference’s community development program – Transformational Communities of Praxis [TCOP] www.tcopraxis.org. The deeper community development work now begins. Through the convening of the church, community residents, local government officials, and people of faith, residents are coming together to envision the transformational development of Kinney County.

In November 2019, about 30 residents came together to envision some actions they could take over time to strengthen their community as well as reflecting on what the holistic well-being of the community might look like [Shalom – Jeremiah 29:7]. The gathering was also a means of measuring the will of the community to embrace the development of a county-wide coalition to embrace the long-term sustainability of the vision. 

In 2020, the Kinney County Coalition will meet over the next four months to garner the skill-set and mind-set of organizing and mobilizing the community for sustainable and measurable change.  

Considering a Rural Initiative in the Rio Texas Conference

Of the 83 Texas counties composing the bounds of the Rio Texas Conference, 56 to 62 counties [67% to 75%] are considered to be rural, depending on the various state systems that classify urban and rural settings.

Recently, various pastors and laity met to share joys and challenges of the presence of the church and its’ ministry in rural community settings. The conversation was convened by the Transforming Communities Vision Team with the intent of garnering interest and insights of the value of launching a rural initiative in the Rio Texas Conference.

When asked about their interest in being past of this particular conversation, some items mentioned by participants were: passion for the small church and its’ role in the community, seeing the rural church as the heart and soul of the UMC, the rural church has much to give, yet feels at times like an unheard voice, interest to hear from others serving in similar settings, and seeing what additional resources might be available to support and enhance the ministry work of the rural church. 

In brainstorming possible issues to address that can increase support for rural churches and the pastors serving them, some next steps cited were: enhancing the ways pastors serving in rural settings are cared for, broadening resource support for clergy and congregations, providing training opportunities for clergy and rural congregations and communities, and lifting up success stories and the celebration highlights of rural congregations and communities. 

In February, the Transforming Communities Vision Team will gather to look for ways to cultivate this initiative through follow up and further conversation with participants of the initial gathering as well as broadening the conversation to connect with pastors and rural congregations and communities throughout Rio Texas. 

As the Transformational Communities of Praxis [TCOP] program www.tcopraxis.org begins training new teams in 2020, two of the incoming teams are from rural communities.

Through TCOP, deeper community development work has begun in Brackettville [pop. 1,740], where through the convening of the church, community residents, local government officials, and people of faith, residents are coming together to envision the transformational development of Kinney County [pop. 3,800].

FUMC / Hope Outreach Center – Brackettville was part of the initial TCOP learning cohort in 2017.  

Holding Institute Featured on Texas Public Radio

It started out as a school for Mexican-American children who weren't allowed in Texas public schools. Now, it's a shelter for migrants from Central America.

A Honduran woman sat with her young son outside the Holding Institute, a community center in Laredo that cares for migrants, as the sun began to set. It was a special moment of serenity in a place that also offers migrants some stability and safety.

The institute was founded in 1860 as a school for Mexican-American children who weren’t allowed in Texas public schools. It takes up an entire block in downtown Laredo and is filled with families just like hers.

The mother and her son were in a section where kids can play basketball or enjoy the playground and swing set.

“My dream has always been to find the best life for my son because I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him,” she said.

The woman didn’t want her name used in fear that speaking out would hurt her claim for asylum. She said after she crossed the Rio Grande with her son they turned themselves over to Border Patrol agents and were sent to a processing center, then transferred to another facility.

After being fully processed, she and her son were sent to a local church in Laredo, but the church was full, so they ended up at the Holding Institute instead.

READ MORE & LISTEN ON TPR.ORG

Read about Rio Texas’ Growing Response to the Migrant Crisis

Vitalizing Cohort with a Successful Experiment

Devine FUMC hosted a community-wide Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday the day before Easter.  We had about 400 in the community show up including about 200 children who hunted for about 7,500 candy-filled eggs.  We gave away about 50 sets of Resurrection Eggs to families to help them share the meaning of Easter. We had a plastic egg recycling station that doubled as a photo backdrop.  We had a “sharing table” where kids with too many could share with kids with too few eggs.  We asked some youth to be “helpers” and gave each a lanyard with a nametag and a bag of candy.  We gave away prizes at each of the five egg hunts, and an additional prize at a sixth egg hunt for children who arrived late.  

The postal carrier for the area told one of our members, “In all my years delivering the mail in Devine, I have never seen anything like this--many people and children gathered at one place.”  

Many in the community responded to our invitations, attending Easter Sunday where we worshiped 208 in three services, a 39% increase over the previous year.  Some community families came by our office the following week to drop off plastic eggs, wanting to support us in making the Egg Hunt an annual community event.  It will be!  We praise God for the incredible blessing we all shared.  It will be!  We praise God for the incredible blessing we all shared.

Your fellow servant in Christ,
Pastor Harold Dailey

Hill Country District Finishes Another Lenten Used Clothing Drive

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days," says the book of Ecclesiastes. It has to be true if it’s in the Bible, right?

Well, the bread Rio Texas churches have been casting on the waters came home last week.

Johnson City UMC, in partnership with Hill Country District churches, collected used clothing and turned it over to the Seventh-day Adventists’ Community Service Disaster Response center in Keene, Texas.

The Disaster Used Clothing Drive, conducted every Lent, spread to churches all around Central Texas.

The Adventists make the rounds of participating churches by picking up the bags and boxes and taking the clothes to their warehouse where they are sorted, sanitized, packed and stored until a disaster requires used clothing. They loaded their trucks and waited for the morning when the survivors come out of the shelters.

A clean change of clothes is almost as welcome as a hot shower. Collecting in advance of the disaster is important because the need for used clothing usually lasts only 24-48 hours. These clothes are ready when the spring tornados and floods hit, or the summer wildfires and storms, or the fall hurricanes.

"This winter was difficult because we were collecting used clothes for the asylum-seekers on the border at the same time we were collecting for the Adventists,” explained Pastor Lee Romero of the First United Methodist Church: Johnson City.

“We were afraid we would short-change one need or the other, but the people of Johnson City stepped up and filled both needs.”

When Customs and Border Protection released approximately 100 refugees a day in Eagle Pass, the Methodists announced a call for more clothing. The Adventists quickly agreed the situation was a disaster and filled up a truck.

The Rev Becky Baxter Ballou thanked Marshall Gonzales, Director of Community Services, who was driving the truck, for all the clothes he was giving her.

“Don’t thank me too much,” Gonzales replied. “Most of these clothes are what we picked up from you Methodists last spring. We’ve just been storing it for a year.”

Then he and his empty truck set off to make this year’s rounds of churches, winding up his route in Johnson City, where the First Baptist, First Christian, and First Methodist Churches finished filling him back up again, and the truck rolled off to Keene to start the cycle all over again.

“There is no way any one denomination could have done this alone,” said Romero. It takes all of us partnering together to follow Jesus’ instruction to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the stranger. Doing what Christ tells us is basic to being a Christian. We each take our guidance from the same book."

Written by George Barnette

College students visit Perkins and Adam Hamilton

Texas State students ministry leaders recently explored graduate school options at the Perkins School of Theology at SMU in Dallas. While at Perkins, students joined a talk by Adam Hamilton on the "Future of a Diverse/Divided Church." This seminary trip was part of a grant awarded to the United Campus Ministry at Texas State from the Young Clergy Initiative of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church.

Written by Rev. Todd Salmi

Hill Country District Asks for Donations of Clothes: Lenten Disaster Relief Clothing Drive

Hill Country District’s annual Lenten collection officially began Ash Wednesday, March 6. We invite & encourage your church to catch up. We collect wearable used clothes until our partners, the Seventh-day Adventists, send their trucks to collect our collections. This year, the trucks should come the week of April 8-12 to have your space cleared out before the run-up to Easter. The exact schedule will depend on which churches participate and how much each collects. Yes, they can accept hats, belts, and shoes. No, they cannot take swimsuits or used underwear. 

Once they have the clothes we collect, the Adventists take it to their warehouse at Alvarado where it is sorted, sanitized, packaged, and stored until there is a disaster requiring used clothing, then they load their semi and have it parked outside the shelter door in the morning when survivors wake up. The Adventists are nationally known for this disaster ministry, and they tell us the Hill Country District’s collection gives them the most and highest quality clothing of any they have all year. 

Why not just wait for a disaster to collect? Because by then it’s too late. The post-disaster need for used clothing lasts only 24-48 hours. After that, survivors usually can acquire new. There are exceptions, of course, and the Adventists are prepared for that. There also is a difference between survivors who NEED free clothing and those who merely WANT it. NEEDS are short-lived in this case; WANTS are always there. By the time a local church can decide to launch a clothing collection, and run the campaign, then deliver the bags to the disaster area, the NEED is over, and the bags of mixed dirty clothes are just more trash for the landfill. That way doesn’t work. Ours does. 

More information will be forthcoming. The more churches we have participating, the more good we can do. 

Any church in the Rio Texas Conference is welcome to participate. This is the contact information or you can contact Pam at the Hill Country District Office, 830-896-6400, dispro512@gmail.com. 

Written by Pam Elliott

Ministry Builds Ramps for Disabled Rio Grande Valley Residents

McAllen—28 volunteers came out to serve disabled people in need on Feb. 22-23. Both youth and adults served.  They were joined by students from UTRGV Campus Ministries as well.  Three ramps were built and two others were repaired and painted.  

FUMC McAllen’s CORNERSTONE MINISTRY is a ministry that has evolved over the past 26 years into one that serves primarily physically disabled individuals and their families with wheelchair ramps and other assistance.   

In the past few years, they have partnered with the Texas Ramp Project (TRP) in this ministry who provides us the majority of the funds for the supplies for the ramps.

It is such a blessing to come together in service with our neighbors!  To GOD be the GLORY!

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God."

-Ephesians 2:19-22

Written by Susan Hellums

Oak Hill UMC Gives Away 300+ Stuffed Animals during Christmas Party

More than 300 teddy bears, kittens, puppies, rabbits, lambs, and two angry birds–were given to Oak Hill-area children at an annual Christmas party hosted by the Travis County Community Center on Saturday, Dec. 8.

Members of Oak Hill UMC led a group of more than 40 volunteers that included social workers, Travis County law enforcement officers, and, of course, Santa.

A total of 115 families with 340 children participated in the event and were given gifts. Gifts also included:

• pajamas for almost 100 children

• 20 gift cards for teenagers

• more than 200 coats for children of all ages

• 200+ bananas and cutie oranges donated by our friends at Central Market

• 240 breakfast tacos

• gallons of orange juice and coffee

• almost 20 dozen sugar cookies

Together, Oak Hill UMC and the local agencies shared a morning of radical hospitality with our brothers and sisters in the community.

Written by Don Kerr