DALLAS—Trucks and trailers rolled out of Texans on Mission headquarters in Dallas early on Jan. 15 to support California churches responding to devastating wildfires.

Shower/laundry units are on the way. A semi-truck load of supplies also left Dallas with masks, water filters, Tyvek suits, Bibles, cots and gloves.

A Texans on Mission team already is in California meeting with church partners to determine how best to respond.

The churches have asked Texans on Mission to help establish on-site services, thus “creating a respite for people that don’t have another place to go to get away from the stress, be encouraged and have someone pray with them,” said Chief Strategy Officer Rand Jenkins.

“Their children will have a place to play,” Jenkins said. “They’ll have their clothes washed for them. They’ll get a hot cup of coffee and be able to talk to some of our volunteers and some of the local pastors.”

While Texans on Mission focuses now on helping churches provide respite for weary residents, fire recovery efforts—commonly called “ash out”—likely will emerge in the coming weeks.

“As with the 2023 fires in Maui, authorities have to keep sites secure for a time,” said Texans on Mission Chief Mission Officer John Hall. “And, in this situation, fires are still blazing and battling the flames is a top priority.

“Recovery time will come, and Texans on Mission will continue to work with churches in how best to be of support. As we like to say, we’re bringing help, hope and healing now, and we will need to do so for quite some time.”

In a video for Texans on Mission supporters, Jenkins said: “Thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you for the prayers you’re sending this way. This is an amazing need, and you are an amazing group of people that come together every time.”

To give financially to support Texans on Mission disaster relief, click here.

Anansi Flaherty, a backup fullback on Katy High School’s 2000 State Championship team, gave his life to Christ in prison. On Dec. 19, 2024, he was baptized—“raised to walk in new life”—outside those walls.

In the presence of the First Baptist Church in Burleson’s Primetimers senior adult ministry and Don Newbury, retired HPU president and retiring co-director of senior adults at the church, Flaherty participated in the luncheon program—featuring his faithful coach and him. Then he climbed into a metal trough to make his faith commitment clear.

Flaherty’s high school coach, Jeff Dixon—who has provided support and familial care since first seeing reports of the terrible crime that led to Flaherty’s incarceration—knelt beside the trough. Jack Crane, pastor of Truevine Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, dipped Flaherty beneath the water.

“God is at work here,” Dixon noted at multiple points in his presentation leading up to the celebrated redemption symbol. Those who could stood and clapped after the baptism.

Many in the room, Newbury noted, had followed Flaherty and Dixon’s story along with him, praying and supporting the young man whose life had taken such a tragic turn, now bearing witness to his redemption this Christmas season.

It was in the Christmas season of 2002 when the Fort Bend County sheriff’s department received a call about a “suspicious male walking down the street.” A witness described large amounts of blood on this clothing and body, a 2003 article reported.

That day was not discussed in the Primetimers’ luncheon program, apart from the handout, and little about it is publicly available or clear. According to several reports, Flaherty remembers few details of that day.

Reports say he recalled being high on drugs, and when he was approached by officers, the 19-year-old said he had killed his mother.

In a plea deal, Flaherty was sentenced to 40 years for first-degree murder, eligible for parole in 2022.

The hero of the story

“God’s the hero of every story,” Dixon began his message to the Primetimers’ luncheon. “And he is most certainly the hero of this one.”

Dixon—whom Newbury described along with his wife Mandy as being among the most notable Howard Payne graduates—explained in his early coaching career, he was “in hot pursuit of me,” rather than attuned to God’s leading.

His early years as an assistant coach, under Bob Ledbetter at Southlake Carroll, led to assisting Coach Mike Johnston in his hometown of Katy. Then he moved to Ennis, where he and his family intended to stay.

In Ennis, the Dixon family lived within walking distance of the church, and, Dixon noted, he and Mandy became more serious about prayerfully listening to God.

When Johnston called him about returning to Katy to assist, which, Dixon explained, would have been seen as a coveted opportunity under a highly respected and successful coach, he initially turned Johnston down.

The family loved Ennis, and Dixon loved to teach. The position in Katy was for P.E. and assistant football coach, but Dixon taught math and didn’t want to give that up, he said.

Johnston understood but “asked me to remain in prayer over it,” so Dixon and his wife did.

Johnston called back just before the end of the year to explain a math teacher unexpectedly was leaving, so if Dixon came to Katy, he’d be able to coach and teach.

“We were convinced because of prayer that God called us to Katy,” Dixon said, noting when “you find yourself in God’s will, he turns you to where he wants you to be.”

They still cried when they pulled away from Ennis, the little town they’d loved so much, but “God was at work,” he said.

Back in Katy, Flaherty played a position Dixon coached, fullback. He recalled Flaherty being a kid everyone liked. Even during disciplinary-type drills designed to “get your attention,” Flaherty kept smiling when anyone else would have been miserable, Dixon said.

Dixon explained assistant coaches were held responsible for the eligibility of the players in their position. Flaherty struggled with math, so he spent many days in Dixon’s office for tutoring. At this time, Flaherty lived by himself in an apartment near the school.

His family would come to check on him often. But at 16 years old and recently released from juvenile detention, he was essentially on his own. Dixon noted if it wasn’t for football, Flaherty would have been in a lot of trouble, musing, “Can you imagine being by yourself like that?”

Sometimes coaches would buy him groceries. Weekly, the Dixon family hosted a meal for running backs at their home. The family got to know Flaherty and care about him, Dixon recalled.

When he graduated, Flaherty went to Texas A&M in Kingsville to continue playing football but came home for Christmas break in 2002. Dixon and his wife, on break themselves, turned on the news—where in the mugshot accompanying a tragic story, they saw a familiar face, Dixon said.

The impact of faithful friendship

Dixon went to see Flaherty in the Fort Bend County jail and continued to visit him weekly for a year. Dixon noted he was present in the courtroom when Flaherty was sentenced to 40 years.

Then the Dixon family went to work praying for Flaherty. Flaherty refers to his time in the penitentiary as being “in the belly of the fish” in a reference to Jonah. All during Flaherty’s incarceration the two men exchanged letters.

Dixon often traveled to visit Flaherty, as he was moved around the state to various penitentiaries. For 22 years, the men stayed in touch, and Flaherty shared in his letters how God was working in his life, signing the letters with “In His grip” and “Your Second Son, Anansi.”

When Dixon asked Flaherty whose grip that was, his answer was, “Yahweh’s.”

For 22 years, Dixon said his conversations with Anansi were through thick glass by a phone with a bad connection.

When he got word in November of Flaherty’s parole and that he was being released to a halfway house in Houston, the family headed there, not realizing there still were restrictions that normally would prevent them from seeing him.

When they arrived, they were permitted to see him and hug him. God was at work there, too, Dixon said, because the parole officer happened to be there and explain Flaherty needed a plan for when his remaining 20 days in the halfway house concluded.

They made a plan, and Flaherty now lives in the Fort Worth area.

Crane, who baptized him, has been handling Flaherty’s transportation to weekly Bible studies at Truevine, until Dixon teaches him how to drive his first car, a standard transmission, gifted to him through a ministry that provides cars to parolees.

Dixon sees that story too as proof “God is at work here.”

In the question and answer with Dixon, Flaherty explained he began to understand the power of forgiveness as an adult in prison.

Flaherty noted in his youth he had anger issues, believing he had to fight back against “the man” and racial injustice. But he learned in prison if he could “let it slide” when a guard upset him, that guard might stick up for him when he needed it.

“You know when someone is really for you,” Flaherty said, when Dixon asked him about friendship. True friendship should be unconditional, not circumstantial, Flaherty asserted.

Just before the baptism Flaherty asked, “Can I leave with an acrostic? G-O-S-P-E-L—God’s Obedient Son Providing Eternal Life.”

Nazareth has few public Christmas decorations this year, marking the second year in a row Jesus’ hometown has been precluded by wartime conditions from traditional celebrations honoring the birthday of its most notable resident of all time.

Jesus’ hometown and the place where his ministry began also is hometown to Yasmeen Mazzawi, a volunteer paramedic with Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency services system.

For her, Nazareth is home, yet she feels the sadness of another year with no Christmas trees in the public square. In normal years, Nazareth has three beautiful trees on display, she said.

With the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement announced Nov. 27, there’s some improvement over last year. A few Christmas trees can be seen peeking out of windows, Mazzawi noted. But the overall tenor is far from celebratory, her damp, crestfallen eyes in a video call communicate.

Baptist influence

Nazareth is in northern Israel about 70 miles south of Lebanon. An Arab Christian, Mazzawi graduated from Nazareth Baptist School.

Her family did not attend a Baptist church. But, she explained, it was next door to her school, and she was there every day for chapel services.

She said her experience at the Baptist school “contributed a lot to my faith and my life day-to-day and also [her commitment to] helping people in need, definitely.”

Mazzawi said it was amazing growing up in Nazareth, walking the streets Jesus walked. She explained her Baptist school was in the town center, “where we know Jesus walked and where he went to the churches we have only 200 meters from my school.”

She explained her family talks at home about how many people in Nazareth go about life there as if it’s “very ordinary,” never considering Jesus physically inhabited their town. But she and her family think about the fact they are walking where Jesus walked all that time.

Since the war began, she noted, she has been working so much with Magen David Adom, she’s rarely able to attend church.

“It’s day-by-day,” she noted. “No expectations. Nothing is guaranteed.”

Over the last six months, communities in northern Israel, including Nazareth, have been the focus of Hezbollah missile attacks.

The ceasefire between Hezbollah and Isreal may have stilled the rockets, but Mazzawi explained explosions and other smaller acts of violence continue.

Mazzawi works full-time as a business analyst with Deloitte in Tel Aviv. But with increased need for emergency responders in northern Isreal, she has been working remotely in Haifa so she can serve. Mazzawi explained she works two 8-hour shifts a week as a paramedic.

She has served with Israel’s emergency services for about 10 years, joining as a “young volunteer” at 15 years old, until she could take paramedic training at age 18. Mazzawi was encouraged to serve by her parents, Fadoul and Suzanne Mazzawi, according to a news release from Magen David Adom.

She worked with the organization after she became an adult to complete her required years of national service. Then she stayed there as a volunteer paramedic, one of 30,000 volunteer paramedics and EMTs of the 33,000 who serve with Magen David Adom, the release notes.

“I grew up in a loving home on values of accepting the other and loving the other,” Mazzawi said in the release.

“We do not judge anyone for their religion, race, color or language. We have only one goal: saving lives. That means accepting people no matter who they are.”

Difficult work

Mazzawi said serving during wartime conditions is hard. Her paramedic work has called her to cities hit with rockets that could be hit with rockets again.

“It is scary to go to these places, but I turn to my faith for strength,” the release noted. “Sometimes the situation is quite chaotic, and I definitely face fears. But I keep focus on how best to serve the injured and frightened around me. Keeping my attention on how to serve helps me through.”

She noted the difficulty of “disconnecting her heart from her mind” to serve in these challenging locations. “I have to be ‘Yasmeen the paramedic.’ And I have to serve, help and give aid to patients. I have to be with the special units, serving with people I don’t know, who aren’t my team.”

Mazzawi described the noise and the fear she particularly faced serving at the northern border, “but the thing that really helped me is that I believe that our heavenly Father is with us.”

She said she drew all the strength from God she needed to provide first aid and “be the light” in the moment for those she helped.

But she acknowledged that when she got home in the evening, the terrible injuries she treated would come back to her.

“When we go to bed at night, we recall everything,” she explained.

She said her paramedic team was “like her family,” and they rely on each other to get through what they’ve seen.

Mazzawi explained she prayed for the ceasefire to result in better days, noting a colleague’s 10-year-old daughter’s experience—two years of COVID restrictions followed by two years of war with only a year of normalcy between.

“They’re not having their childhood,” she lamented. “They can’t go out and see the country. We have so many beautiful places here.”

She’s grateful the constant rocket explosions, for now, are relieved. However, the ability to move about freely is still largely curtailed by smaller-scale terror attacks that continue to be reported.

Isreal is a diverse country, she noted. She serves with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze and Bahai, religious and secular. And where there is diversity, challenges are inevitable, she said.

But, “I can see, and I feel that people want to live, and people love life. And so, I really pray for better days.”

A year ago, she responded to a call to resuscitate a baby. The Jewish mother allowed her to pray for her and the infant and began to pray too at Mazzawi’s urging. They have remained in contact, and the baby recently celebrated a first birthday.

The mother commented on the light Mazzawi’s calming, peaceful presence provided in dark times. Mazzawi said she shared it was the Father who loves her shining through.

In the six months after tornadoes struck Sanderson, residents of the small West Texas town have “pulled together” and made strides toward rebuilding, Pastor Mike Ellis said.

Ellis, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sanderson, credited two factors in the successful recovery and rebuilding efforts—“neighbors helping neighbors” and the prayers of God’s people around the state.

The June 2 tornadoes destroyed or seriously damaged multiple buildings in town, but the First Baptist Church facility escaped without even a broken window.

Jessica and Chase McCrory and their two young sons lost their home to the tornado, but they are “on the road to recovery,” Ellis said.

The McCrory family—members of First Baptist Church—have been working with their insurance company and a contractor not just to rebuild the home they lost, but to construct the home their young family dreamed of having.

The couple enlisted a contractor to build a barndominium—a structure blending traditional barn architecture with modern living areas—set back 10 feet further from the road than their previous home had been.

“Chase McCrory would be the first to say: ‘God is good. God had a plan,’” Ellis said.

When McCrory decided to install all of the insulation in the house himself as a cost-cutting measure, volunteers from First Baptist Church helped him, Ellis noted.

Before the contractors hung drywall in their home, the family invited members of the church to use permanent markers to write Bible verses and other words of blessing on the boards between studs, he added.

Ellis serves First Baptist Church bivocationally, working as an electrical, plumbing and building contractor.

As the self-described “only licensed electrician in town,” he and his grandson worked 16-hour days for the first month after the tornado, helping their neighbors restore power to their homes.

“My grandson had been talking about wanting to become an electrician. I think he may have reconsidered,” Ellis said.

The local coffee shop plans its grand reopening in two weeks, and other businesses in town either have reopened or plan to in the near future, he noted.

Ellis, who served in “tornado alley” during his 20 years working in the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma, had extensive experience with natural disasters and was trained in emergency management.

“In all that time, I had never seen a group of people who jumped in and started helping each other quite like the folks here,” he said. “Everybody pulled together. It’s neighbors helping neighbors.”

In the days immediately after the tornado hit, members of First Baptist Church worked side-by-side with volunteers from other local churches to provide meals to families affected by the tornadoes.

The Buena Vista Independent School District in Imperial sent two busloads of student volunteers to help clear debris on a Saturday soon after the tornado struck Sanderson.

“We had people from as far away as Stephenville who sent trailers filled with building materials,” Ellis said. “And people are still helping one another.”

Ellis credits the resilience of local residents in large part to the prayer support they received from Christians throughout Texas.

“Those prayers were felt,” he said. “They’re still being felt, and the answers to those prayers are still being seen.

“God’s grace has been on us. He was with us through it all.”

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)—North American Mission Board president Kevin Ezell will host a series of information sessions in early 2025 to answer questions raised by Southern Baptist pastors whose churches are affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“Our desire is to connect with Southern Baptist pastors in the BGCT whose churches are most engaged and interested in partnering in national missions efforts,” Ezell said.

The sessions, hosted by Southern Baptist churches affiliated with the BGCT, tentatively are scheduled for Dallas-Fort Worth on Jan. 13, Houston on Jan.14, Austin on Jan. 21 and San Antonio on Jan. 22, Ezell told the Baptist Standard. A West Texas session also is planned, but the date and location are not set yet.

Union Baptist Association confirmed sessions at two Houston-area locations on Jan. 14: 9:30 a.m. at First Baptist Church in Pasadena and 2 p.m. at Chinese Baptist Church.

“We are still finalizing the details,” Ezell stated. “We will share times and specific locations soon.”

“I am grateful for what Texas Southern Baptist churches that are connected with the BGCT invest in missions through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Cooperative Program,” he said.

“NAMB desires a continued partnership with these churches, and these gatherings will help us clearly communicate that and also to address questions pastors may have.”

In response to questions from the Baptist Standard about who will participate in the information sessions and whether reporters would be allowed to attend, Ezell responded by email: “In order for pastors to feel complete freedom to share and discuss openly, there will only be associational leaders, pastors and staff of churches invited to attend.”

“The meetings are intended for all Southern Baptist churches affiliated with the BGCT,” as well as associational leaders, a further clarification stated.

“The pastors we have heard from are very supportive of NAMB but are confused about how NAMB can partner and not partner with Southern Baptist churches that are affiliated with the BGCT,” Ezell wrote.

“I am thankful for the investment that many Southern Baptist churches connected with the BGCT make toward supporting our missionaries. I want to make sure they have access to accurate information about our relationship and the opportunities we have to partner,” he continued.

Partnership ‘could look very different’

“NAMB’s partnership with the BGCT might have some limitations, but how we partner with Southern Baptist churches that relate to the BGCT could look very different,” Ezell said.

In response to a follow-up question about how the partnerships between BGCT churches and NAMB might take shape, Ezell stated: “We have said earlier that the purpose of our meetings with Southern Baptist pastors in the BGCT and with BGCT leadership is to work toward continued partnership. We’re hopeful these ongoing discussions will bring us closer to that. NAMB also relates directly with many churches, so that would always be an option.”

Beginning in 2010, NAMB started shifting more resources to regions outside the South where church-to-population ratios are much higher and lostness much greater.

In partnership with leaders of South state Baptist conventions, NAMB transitioned funding in the South to an annual $300,000 grant to be used for church planting. The change resulted in several million additional dollars being channeled to needs outside the South in the ensuing years.

NAMB’s doctrinal standard is the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, and NAMB only provides financial support for church plants that affirm the same standard.

Question raised at SBC annual meeting

Dustin Slaton, pastor of First Baptist Church in Georgetown, questioned the policy during Ezell’s report to this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

“NAMB has gladly accepted my church’s financial investment in the North American Mission Board for decades without asking which version of the BFM we have in our documents or concern about which state convention we’re a part of,” Slaton said at the SBC annual meeting.

“So, can we now count on the North American Mission Board to reciprocate that investment by partnering with us to plant genuinely Southern Baptist churches in Texas and invest in us with the same resources, training, guidance, relationships and financial opportunities you would provide to a church who partners with our other wonderful state convention?”

Ezell explained NAMB can come alongside a BGCT-affiliated Southern Baptist church that wants to plant a church outside the state of Texas in states where conventions affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

“I would love for you to consider and for your state convention to adopt the Baptist Faith & Message 2000,” Ezell concluded in response to Slaton.

BGCT messengers reject affirmation of 2000 BFM

While some BGCT-affiliated churches affirm the 2000 statement, the BGCT explicitly affirms the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith & Message. At the 2024 BGCT annual meeting, messengers decisively defeated a motion to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

Ezell told the Baptist Standard the information meetings were planned after the vote at the BGCT annual meeting.

“I heard from several Southern Baptist pastors and directors of missions who are committed to NAMB and also connected to the BGCT,” he stated. “Their advice was that the best option for communicating accurate information was to do it in person.”

When the Baptist Standard asked for a response from BGCT Executive Director Julio Guarneri, he expressed appreciation for the opportunity to engage in ongoing dialogue with NAMB leaders.

Guarneri said Ezell accepted his invitation “to another in-person meeting here at our Texas Baptists offices early in the new year to continue the conversation.”

He also noted his appreciation for Ezell’s desire to connect directly with Texas Baptist pastors to clarify options available to them.

“As dates and locations are confirmed, we will gladly provide whatever support is needed,” Guarneri stated. “Time spent in Texas with Texas Baptist churches is an investment I’m sure he won’t regret.

“We share a Great Commandment/Great Commission task that is bigger than any one of us can achieve alone. Cooperation is essential.”

Both Guarneri and Ezell emphasized their shared desire to find a way for Texas Baptist churches that want to partner with NAMB in church planting to do so.

“Since June I have had several conversations with pastors who lead Southern Baptist churches affiliated with BGCT. In August I met with pastors and BGCT leadership with the goal of working toward ways we can partner most effectively,” Ezell said.

“The ministry work we do together at the Send Relief Ministry Center in Laredo is a great example of how we partner well.”

Pastors respond to ongoing developments

Several pastors who were part of the August meeting offered their thoughts on recent developments regarding NAMB and the BGCT.

Jeff Williams, pastor of First Baptist Church in Denton, introduced the motion at Texas Baptists’ annual meeting in Waco to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

“The reason I made the motion at the meeting was to get NAMB leadership and BGCT leadership talking about the relationship between the two entities,” Williams told the Baptist Standard. “I think that was accomplished.”

When asked whether messengers voting to reject the motion affected his church’s relationship to the BGCT, he said, “My church is as committed as we have always been to the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Slaton, who questioned Ezell at the SBC annual meeting, said he raised the query to “bring clarity” to the issue of how BGCT churches can partner with NAMB in church planting.

“In the previous meeting we had with Dr. Ezell back in August, he clarified that all of the planting resources that are available to other states are also available to BGCT and its churches. The only difference between BGCT and a convention that is a Send Network convention, (like the SBTC) is how funding happens,” Slaton wrote in an email.

“In that case, the NAMB funding comes through a grant to the BGCT, and the BGCT distributes it. This is similar to how NAMB has partnered with many other southern states for many years, and is not unique to the BGCT.”

Slaton noted his church’s relationship with the BGCT did not change after messengers turned down the motion to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.

“However, I do not think a ‘yes’ outcome of the vote would have affected our relationship with the BGCT either,” he added.

Dan Newburg, pastor of First Baptist Church in Devine, offered a somewhat different perspective.

“The allegiance and loyalty of FBC Devine is to Jesus Christ. With this said, we have found the BGCT to be an exceptional kingdom partner and the annual meeting did not change this,” he stated.

“All of the messengers we sent to Waco stood and were counted among those who were in opposition to the motion for the BGCT to affirm the BF&M 2000. We affirm the BF&M 1963, like the BGCT.”

Events in recent months have, however, caused his church to question whether it can continue to partner with NAMB.

“In no way does our congregation give with an expectation of return, but we are a growing congregation who recognizes that church planting in Texas is a need that [First Baptist Church in Devine] can and should seek to address as we seek to be obedient to the Great Commission,” he stated.

“We are also historically Baptist and interested in preserving historic Baptist distinctives, such as the distinctive of local church autonomy. As my congregation has become better informed about NAMB’s processes and expectations, it’s not clear that we can partner with them without sacrificing our autonomy, nor actually better reaching our community for Christ.”

Based in part on a Baptist Press report by North American Mission Board communications, with additional reporting by Calli Keener and Ken Camp.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This story was corrected after receiving further clarification of who may attend the meetings. The fourth paragraph with information about Houston-area meetings was added after receiving confirmation by Union Baptist Association.

Several hundred people in North Carolina, who continue to deal with the aftereffects of Hurricane Helene, will be warmer this Thanksgiving due to the generosity of a small Baptist association in Texas.

Keith Blanton, pastor of Cedar Shores Baptist Church in Morgan and new director of missions for Bosque Baptist Association, and Greg Beard of Grace of Giving left from the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in Waco, Nov. 10-12, to deliver heaters to two churches in the mountains of far west North Carolina.

Beard is a member of Blanton’s church and president of Grace of Giving, a ministry that has delivered needed food and supplies to partners in the Rio Grande Valley since 2004.

When the churches in the association expressed interest in providing support to people affected by Hurricane Helene, Beard had connections in North Carolina who helped identify lack of heating as a serious concern heading into colder weather.

Propane tanks were available in North Carolina in the area the association planned to serve, but the contact noted they did not have access to heaters.

Beard pinpointed a specific type of propane heater that is safe to use indoors and affordable. The association would need to purchase the heaters and hoses to adapt them to the propane tanks for $150 per unit.

The association put out a call for heaters, allowing three to four weeks to collect the contributions before delivery. Blanton set a goal of 30 units for the association, believing it to be a reasonable goal for a small association comprised of small rural churches. With Grace of Giving contributions, they hoped to provide 100 heaters in all.

God had other plans

But the churches responded quickly and generously, providing enough funds for 118 heaters. Grace of Giving collected enough for 104 heaters.

“I know God is in this because every little piece has just fallen into place,” Blanton noted.

Because the initial hoses they purchased didn’t work when they came in, the hoses were exchanged for hoses that were $12 cheaper, reducing the cost per unit to $148. And a donor had offered to close the gap if there was a minimal shortage on the full cost of one unit.

In total, the association collected enough funds to purchase 240 heaters and hoses, the exact maximum number of heaters the trailer could hold. Additionally, the gooseneck of the trailer can fit exactly the number of milk crates needed to hold and transport the individually packaged hoses.

One hundred heaters were delivered to Plumtree Church in Plumtree, N.C., where Ryan Bridgeo is pastor. Fifty of these heaters will be shared with a local Baptist church, Roaring Creek Baptist Church.

One hundred and forty heaters were to be delivered to Matthew Toney, a deacon at The Ark of Western North Carolina, a nondenominational church in Spruce Pine, N.C.

But Blanton explained that while packing the trailer they discovered they could fit 10 more heaters. A last-minute donation to fill the trailer came through, bringing the Spruce Pine donation total up to 150 heaters and hoses.

The heaters will be distributed to those in the greatest need in the local tri-county area, including the local Hispanic community, Blanton noted.

At-risk association

This ministry might not have happened just a couple of years earlier.

On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dwindling association considered disbanding.

Bosque Baptist Association, comprised of 19 churches from several small towns in Bosque County, near Lake Whitney, particularly was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Keith Blanton director of missions and pastor of Cedar Shores Baptist Church in Morgan, explained.

The rural churches sorted out how to adjust to the constraints the pandemic brought in the way each church felt worked best for the particular needs of its congregation.

The association cancelled its first meeting of 2020 in response to the COVID threat. Then in April of that year, the director of missions resigned to take a pastoral role in one of the churches in the association, Blanton said.

The association attempted to fill the open role, but with limited interest from applicants, struggled to find the right person for the job.

The association continued to hold annual meetings, with officers agreeing to continue their leadership during the interim. But in October of 2022, at the Bosque Association annual meeting, the future of the organization was up for discussion, Blanton explained.

The small group who came to the meeting considered options to “keep going along like we were at the time. One was to perhaps join with another association. Another was to just disband completely.”

The association decided to form a committee to explore ways to revitalize the association and encourage churches to become more active as an association again. Blanton said he wasn’t on that three-person committee but asked to meet with them, because he had some ideas.

The upcoming holidays delayed the start of the new committee. But one committee member, who is a music minister in the association, went ahead and planned for February 2023 an annual music festival the association holds.

Turn out for the festival was good, with 10 of the churches in the association participating, Blanton noted.

The church where the festival was held can hold 210 people, and it was packed, he explained. “So many of our churches came.”

People were singing and worshiping. “It was clear to everyone that was in there that the Holy Spirit was present. And it was really a good time of worship and fellowship between the people in our association,” Blanton said.

When he got up the next day at 5 a.m. to drive his school bus, Blanton said he was still “pumped” from the uplifting associational meeting the night before. As he was driving his bus, he thought to himself, “This association is not dead.”

“We thought as recently as October that we’re on life support, and it’s just not functioning,” he added. “[But] the people are here. The people are enthusiastic. The people can get excited. If only somebody would step up to lead them, we could do some really great things in ministry.”

When “somebody” is you

Blanton recalled how he’d raised his girls not to be the person who walks past a piece of trash on the ground and thinks, “Somebody ought to pick that up.” But instead, be the person who stops to pick up the litter or do whatever it is that needs doing.

He said it occurred to him: “You are somebody. If you volunteer to lead the association, maybe we could do some really great things in ministry.”

So, Blanton called the secretary of the association and asked to meet with the committee to discuss his willingness to be considered for the director of missions position.

He told the committee that director of missions was not something he’d ever aspired to be and assured the committee if they did not sense God was calling him to that role, “you’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

But the committee members all sensed God was leading that direction and Blanton added DOM to his pastor and bus driver titles in June of 2023.

He began the work with reestablishing connections between the association and the pastors of churches in the association.

In early 2024, the association hosted more opportunities to connect, with missions- and revitalization-focused workshops, than they’d held in a long time.

In the summer, the association worked together on a mission trip to Brownsville to help a church plant. Fourteen people participated and made many beneficial contacts for the church plant.

Several families the Bosque Association team met in canvasing were willing to host Bible studies in their homes and to join in the work of planting the new church.

For the third consecutive year, volunteers from First Baptist Church in Garland will travel to eastern Europe to bring Christmas joy to Ukrainian refugee children.

Six volunteers from the church are scheduled to journey to Poland and Czechia—formerly the Czech Republic—Dec. 5-15.

As in past years, they will serve in partnership with Hope International Ministries and its director of Eastern European missions, Leonid Regheta, the Ukrainian-born pastor of River of Life Church in Plano.

“We follow the lead of the people who are on the ground,” said Jim Witt, minister of missions mobilization at First Baptist in Garland.

The volunteers expect to deliver 850 Christmas gifts to a new orphanage serving Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, as well as four refugee church starts in the Prague area.

The gifts include stocking caps and other items made by members of the women’s ministry at First Baptist in Garland and cards made by Sunday school classes and other small groups.

“We also send money ahead to partners on the ground who purchase gifts,” Witt said. “That helps to stimulate the local economy where our team is serving.”

Those gifts vary from practical items such as insulated thermal bottles and winter gloves to treats such as toys and candy. Children always receive a Bible in their “heart language,” and the gospel is presented at every Christmas party, Witt added.

First Baptist Church in Garland has longstanding ministries to refugee groups that resettle in the North Texas area. However, the international component involving Ukrainian refugees in Europe was an unexpected blessing.

“We were looking for opportunities to continue our ministry to refugees here. We never dreamed we’d become involved in the international trips,” said Terri Carter, pastoral ministry assistant at First Baptist in Garland.

However, while on a Zoom call during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding ministry to refugees, Carter connected with Regheta and learned about his work with Hope International Ministries.

‘Demonstrate the love of Jesus’

That contact has led to annual trips just prior to Christmas. While the gifts the volunteers deliver are appreciated, the people they serve and the ministry partners who work with refugees year-around value even more the Texans’ willingness to travel around the world to be with them, Witt said.

“Our presence is a gift, as well,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus.”

As volunteers from First Baptist in Garland prepare to serve in Poland and Czechia next month, based on past experience, they also are “prayerfully expecting” to respond to “the Lord’s extras”—new opportunities they discover once they arrive in Europe, Carter said.

For example, in 2022, the missions team anticipated delivering 500 Christmas gifts in Krakow and Warsaw, Poland, and in Cluj, Romania.

“We found out that the Lord’s plan was greater than ours,” Carter said.

The team received an invitation to minister in two Ukrainian refugee schools and to send presents to a church in Ukraine.

They contacted Witt to let him know about the unexpected opportunity.

“God was out there ahead of us, and we were just able to step up to respond to the need,” Witt said.

The team serving in Europe discovered church members had continued to contribute financially to the mission trip after they left Texas, and the funds were available to respond to the newly discovered needs.

“The money kept pouring in,” said Teresa Brown, missions ministry assistant at First Baptist in Garland. “It’s all the church working together.”

Last year, the volunteers planned to give away 700 Christmas presents in Krakow and Warsaw and in Kortrijk, Belgium. In Krakow, they met a missionary who asked if they could provide gifts for children of refugee families involved in her small-group Bible studies.

“Again, we called Pastor Jim and found out that the donations given after the team left were just enough to cover the number of gifts she needed,” Carter said.

Ministries continue to expand

Beyond the Christmas mission trips, First Baptist Garland also has helped sponsor events where Ukrainian pastors and spouses receive trauma counseling, as well as similar events for the wives and children of Ukrainian soldiers who are serving on the front lines.

The church also provided seed money to help Ukrainian refugees in Romania start a small business, and they have enabled children from war-torn areas in Ukraine to attend summer camps.

Even while First Baptist Garland is involved in a major capital fund-raising campaign for a building expansion and renovation, members have continued to give generously to the ministry to Ukrainian refugee children, Witt noted.

People in the community also have supported the ministry, thanks to the efforts of John and Beverly Combs.

For several years, the couple had been involved in First Baptist Garland’s ministries related to refugee resettlement, working particularly with people from Afghanistan and Central America.

Then in 2022, they journeyed to Eastern Europe with the first mission team who ministered among Ukrainian refugee children.

Since then, the couple have become advocates and local ambassadors for the people of Ukraine, and particularly the refugee children.

As a retired schoolteacher, Beverly Combs had seized opportunities to talk about Ukraine with several school classes and assemblies.

John Combs—who often wears a Ukrainian bracelet, hat and shirt around town to spark conversations—has made 40 presentations to local civic groups and other gatherings in the last three years.

“It’s become our passion,” Beverly Combs said. “It’s in our hearts.”

WACO—Messengers to Texas Baptists’ annual meeting soundly defeated a motion affirming the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, the Southern Baptist Convention statement of faith that limits the role of pastor to men.

During the Nov. 12 business session, messengers debated a motion by Jeff Williams, pastor of First Baptist Church in Denton “that the Baptist General Convention of Texas affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.”

North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell raised the issue of the Baptist Faith & Message in response to a question from a Texas Baptist pastor at the SBC annual meeting in June.

Ezell said NAMB will not fund church starts within Texas in partnership with uniquely BGCT-affiliated congregations and suggested Texas Baptists change their statement of faith. He said NAMB’s “longstanding commitment” is to start churches in partnership with state conventions that affirm the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith & Message.

“I cannot and will not change that standard,” Ezell said. “But I would love for you to consider and for your state convention to adopt the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.”

Williams was one of several Texas Baptist pastors involved in an Aug. 15 meeting in Dallas involving BGCT and NAMB representatives.

Speaking in favor of his motion from the floor of Texas Baptists’ annual meeting, Williams said his intention was not for the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message to replace the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message as the BGCT statement of faith, but that it would stand alongside it.

Williams pointed out statements in BGCT Executive Director Julio Guarneri’s report noting the rapid population growth in Texas.

“I think we’d all agree we need hundreds—if not thousands—of new churches here in Texas to reach those people with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Williams said.

“I believe we need to give our churches every opportunity—every resource available—to help them to start those churches in the decades to come.”

Williams voiced his belief NAMB has done “a wonderful job in the last couple of decades in helping churches start churches, and I think we need to do all we can to help our churches work with NAMB to start those churches.”

Debate for and against the motion

Long lines quickly formed at each microphone on the floor of the convention center hall as pastors and other messengers prepared to present arguments for and against the motion.

Randel Everett, former BGCT executive director and messenger from First Baptist Church in Waco, noted he has spent the last 10 years with 21Wilberforce advocating for believers globally who are persecuted for their faith.

As his organization stood alongside persecuted people of faith, he noted, members of the persecuted church globally asked for prayer, but they never asked about a statement of faith.

“I pray that we’ll not be distracted by debate over a 25-year-old controversial statement of faith but that we’ll focus on what we’ve focused on here this week—the Great Commandment and the Great Commission,” Everett said.

Pete Pawelek, pastor of the Cowboy Fellowship of Atascosa County, spoke in favor of the motion, saying it honors the principle of local church autonomy by leaving the decision of a statement of faith up to individual congregations.

Currently, the BGCT includes churches that affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message, the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message and the 19th century New Hampshire Confession of Faith, he noted.

“While our convention has affirmed these other confessions in various ways at various times in our history, we—to my knowledge—have never officially affirmed the 2000 BFM,” Pawelek said.

“Since we accept it in practice and allow our churches to adopt it, it only stands to reason that we would affirm it on this day and put on paper what we practice.”

He further asserted: “A ‘no’ vote on this motion will put our convention in a very challenging and precarious position. If we proclaim to the world that we do not affirm the BFM 2000, we risk distancing ourselves from many of our Texas Baptist churches that not only affirm it but that have adopted it as their confession.”

Brent Gentzel, pastor of First Baptist Church in Kaufman, spoke against the motion, saying his church encourages its members to exercise the kind of gifts named in Ephesians 4:11-12 for the building up of the church. For a quarter-century, he noted, his church has used the term “pastor” to refer to people who are doing the work of a pastor, without regard to gender.

“So you can imagine my surprise when three of the women of our church staff found their names and faces plastered on the SBC blacklist that was blasted out to tens of thousands of churches across America a year and a half ago,” Gentzel said.

The SBC has been “weaponizing” the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message to declare that no woman can pastor in any capacity in any church, he said.

Taylor Lassiter, pastor of College Heights Baptist Church in Plainview, spoke in favor of the motion on the grounds of “biblical clarity and gospel cooperation.” Affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message would strengthen Texas Baptists’ clear commitment to Scripture and to partnerships that advance the spread of the gospel, he asserted.

“Let’s do what it will take to link arms with other Baptists committed to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment,” he said.

‘It wasn’t written for us’

David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Decatur, spoke against the motion. While he identified himself as a Southern Baptist pastor, he noted a significant minority of churches affiliated with the BGCT are not related to the SBC.

“Many of our brothers and sisters cannot in good conscience affirm this Baptist Faith & Message,” Lowrie said. “It was written by Southern Baptists for Southern Baptists. It represents well many of the values of Southern Baptists, but it wasn’t written for us. It doesn’t represent us.”

Regarding the issue of cooperation, Lowrie noted, the BGCT forwards more money—about $72.8 million—to the SBC than the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. NAMB willingly cooperates with SBTC in church planting, but not with the BGCT.

“How do you define cooperation if $72.8 million does not represent a good faith commitment to the mission of the Southern Baptist Convention?” he asked. “Our Texas Baptist Southern Baptist churches are being treated as second-class citizens—even as stepchildren—and that is simply not appropriate.”

Daniel Perez, pastor of First Baptist Church in Los Fresnos, spoke in favor of the motion, saying churches that allow women to serve as pastors are departing from “God’s design.”

“You’re not helping the kingdom. You’re not breaking chains and setting women free to serve as pastors. You’re breaking God’s heart,” he said.

Failing to limit the pastorate to men is a “downward spiral” that leads to compromise with “clear” biblical principles in other areas, Perez insisted.

Ross Chandler, pastor of First Baptist Church in Marble Falls, spoke against the motion, saying Texas Baptists have “thoughtfully and prayerfully” not adopted the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message on biblical and theological grounds.

He noted the 2000 version of the statement of faith removed an important sentence that was part of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message: “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.”

At the same time, the 2000 statement of faith added language limiting the pastorate to men as if biblical teaching about the role of women is beyond debate, he said.

“It’s not that clear,” he asserted, citing New Testament verses that could be used to support women in ministry, alongside others that are used to place limits on women.

“The SBC has gotten it wrong. The SBC and NAMB are hurting the kingdom of God,” Chandler said. “It’s not biblical or right to push that on us.”

2000 BF&M ‘fundamentally different’

After a motion to stop debate failed, the chair recognized Matt Snowden, pastor of First Baptist Church in Waco, who spoke against the motion, saying it would “draw a circle” that would exclude many churches, as well as exclude institutions such as Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

“That represents a fundamental shift in our identity, our culture and our purpose,” Snowden said. “I ask you, I plead with you, don’t do something unnecessary and potentially devastating. It doesn’t make much sense.”

Jordan Velazco, pastor of Lone Oak Baptist Church, spoke in favor of the motion, insisting it would not infringe upon local church autonomy. He also said the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message affirms other important matters not dealt with in the 1963 statement of faith.

Bruce Webb, pastor of The Woodlands First Baptist Church, spoke against the motion, saying Texas Baptists have opposed the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message on the basis of their commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Earlier confessions of faith made it clear they were simply expressions of commonly held beliefs, not a binding creedal statement, but the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message is “fundamentally different,” he asserted.

“I have PTSD from serving on a committee with God-fearing Southern Baptist missionaries who were fired 25 years ago because this document was used to fire them,” Webb said. “It was written by a group of partisan Baptists with the purpose to control and divide.”

Texas Baptists intentionally have rejected the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message for more than two decades, and they should continue to do so, Webb asserted.

They did, by a clear margin.

In other miscellaneous business, messengers approved without opposition a motion by Steve Vernon of First Baptist Church in Belton to grant the BGCT Executive Board authority “to review and act on its behalf regarding the change of Baptist University of the Américas status from a single-member corporation to a nonmember corporation.”

During the morning business session, messengers also elected Bill Arnold of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas as secretary of the corporation and Michael Evans of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield as registration secretary.

EDITOR’S NOTE(11/13/24): Lone Oak Baptist Church’s pastor’s name was corrected from John to Jordan Velazco.

“Can God trust you?” if you are called upon to pay a social or financial price for following Jesus, an American pastor who spent two years imprisoned in Turkey asked students and faculty at Dallas Baptist University.

Andrew Brunson spoke in chapel at DBU as part of a global gathering to pray for persecuted religious minorities, Oct. 25.

Brunson and his wife Norine spent 23 years in Turkey, starting churches, aiding refugees and providing religious training. An evangelical Presbyterian, he served as pastor of Resurrection Church in Izmir, Turkey, until he was falsely accused of terrorism in October 2016.

Preparation for persecution

Almost 10 years prior to his imprisonment, Brunson said he felt compelled to begin praying for God to draw him so close to God’s heart he could “make waves.” So, he began to pray in a different way than he had before.

He and his wife had a relationship with God for years, he explained, but they became much more focused on pursuing his presence and his heart.

“God, I don’t love you with all my heart, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, but I want to. Help me to love you more,” he prayed.

Brunson noted he wanted to pant for God like the psalmist said the deer pants for water, “but I don’t.” So, in 2007 he began to pray: “Make me thirsty. Make me hungry for you.”

As he and his wife prayed, they became hungry for more of God, and they started to long for his presence.

“And this pursuit of God began to change us,” he said. “It’s the pursuit that forms us, that shapes us. And it also positions us to receive assignments from God, including the prison assignment.”

He noted he does not believe God put him in prison, but rather that God was fully involved and intended to use the “assignment” for his purposes.

Brunson said his first year in prison he “broke emotionally, physically and spiritually.”

He noted he almost didn’t survive imprisonment, spiritually or physically. The second year was also very difficult, but in the second year, “God rebuilt my heart.”

God knew how difficult imprisonment would be for Brunson, he noted. God knew how he would break, how much he would suffer, and how close he would come to failure, yet he still went to prison.

When he was in prison, Brunson questioned why God allowed it to happen. It was after his release Brunson was able to come to view his time in prison as God trusting him with a difficult assignment.

“And that changed the way I evaluated my prison experience,” he said.

Brunson recalled thinking when he was in prison: “God, people say you don’t make mistakes, but in this case, you really did make a mistake. You chose the wrong man for this, because I can’t handle this.”

But he came to believe God knew that in his darkest, most difficult times, Brunson would turn toward God, not away from him. He believes God trusted him with this assignment because the love and intimacy they had built up would be sustained, “because love doesn’t quit.”

When Brunson initially was imprisoned, his wife was jailed, too. She was released after two weeks, at which time pastors in the United States urged her to return to the safety of the states. But she said, “I’m not leaving my husband.”

He pointed out she stayed because she loves him. Norine was the only one allowed to visit during his imprisonment. “She put herself at risk because of her love for me … So yes, a lover is willing to suffer for the one she loves. An admirer may not be so willing.”

God has many admirers and servants, but few lovers, Brunson said. “So I want to encourage you today to determine that you will be a lover of God—that you will run after his heart.”

Love fueled faithfulness

Brunson provided examples of how his love for God fueled his faithfulness in prison.

He had a Bible while he was imprisoned and noted Philippians 2:4—which refers to not looking to one’s own interests—spoke to him.

He realized he was looking to his own interests—wanting to get back to his wife and children—when he began to question whether God’s interests might be best served if he remained in prison, he said.

So, while it was a daily struggle to put the interests of Jesus above his own, Brunson made doing so his mission.

When Brunson was moved to a high security prison, his “heart was wounded toward God,” because he wasn’t seeing God’s faithfulness in prison. He didn’t feel like singing, but Brunson said he made it a daily discipline to worship God through singing despite how he felt.

“It was very precious to God,” he asserted, because the worship was an act of love toward God during Brunson’s “dark night of the soul.”

Because Christians are commanded to rejoice, Brunson also began to dance as a spiritual discipline, which he admitted was somewhat strange. But, it served as a helpful act of obedience and love for him to dance when he least felt like dancing.

Brunson said though he prayed for God’s presence, he didn’t feel it when he was imprisoned. It’s harder to find feelings of love when the sense of God’s presence is missing, he noted.

His love for God was “severely tested,” but he determined to “lay aside all the conditions” and respond even to God’s silence with simple love and devotion.

When he was placed in a solitary cell, Brunson felt he was starting to break again. But when he opened his mouth to question, “Where are you, God?” the words, “I love you, Jesus,” spilled out instead.

Then Brunson knew he had passed “the test of silence,” he said. He had passed “the test of the wounded heart.” There’s an intimacy that only comes with testing, he said.

Brunson asserted the most important thing Christians can do is love God. And they can begin to build this into their lives right now by spending time with him.

Despite how difficult his imprisonment was, Brunson noted he misses the Turkish prison conditions because “they taught him what was really important.” He said, “I miss the desperation with which I ran after him.”

“You don’t have to be unprepared,” to face persecution, Brunson noted.

Daniel 11:32 says the one who knows God will stand and take action. Get to know God well now to be ready for any future test, Brunson urged.

Brunson’s release came after two years with intense pressure and sanctions from the United States. Many around the world prayed for his release. Upon his release, he and Norine returned to the states where they run the ministry WaveStarters.

When 2019 saw a surge of displaced people at the United States’ southern border a Waco church with connections to missionaries in Latin America and a close relationship with the pastor of an asylum-seeker-minded Mennonite church in San Antonio didn’t see a problem with the people.

The problem the members of DaySpring Baptist Church saw was in claiming fidelity to Christ but turning away from the needs of those people, explained Dennis Tucker, church member and professor of Christian Scriptures at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Getting there was a process, but in August 2022, Dayspring Baptist Church invited its first family who had been granted permission to seek asylum to move into a new residential ministry—Naomi House.

Naomi House is a hospitality house that offers a “temporary place of refuge for families as they prepare for the next steps in their asylum-seeking journey,” the church website explains.

Dayspring Baptist Church had been working on the hospitality house concept since the spring of 2021, “because none of us had ever done this,” Tucker recalled.

“None of us were social workers. We were having to find out simple things like city codes for this area. What kind of insurance do we need?”

Tucker explained they spent “the better part of the year” researching, figuring out how to design teams and schedule transportation, and identifying the house—which they rent from a church member.

First steps toward Naomi House

The church had learned much from the experience of one church member whose family had agreed to a request in 2019 from Pastor John Garland at the San Antonio Mennonite Church. He is the son of former Truett Seminary dean David Garland and the late Diana Garland, founding dean of Baylor’s School of Social Work that now bears her name.

With a pledge of support from DaySpring members, the family agreed to help an 18-year-old from Honduras and her newborn infant son who had been granted asylum by housing them in their own home.

Housing the young family gave the church team who supported them valuable experience, but they still had more to learn before they would be ready to begin a full-fledged hospitality ministry, Tucker noted.

Coming out of COVID, the church considered whether a hospitality house like the one San Antonio Mennonite Church operates might be something they could support. Their successful teamwork with the first young family convinced church members they could.

The San Antonio ministry, La Casa de Maria y Marta, as well as most hospitality houses for asylees in Texas, was short-term oriented. But DaySpring members decided on a longer-term housing ministry model, providing at least six months’ residential assistance for families.

Six months is the minimum length of time individuals who have been granted asylum must reside in the country before they legally can work here.

The church had identified women and children as the most vulnerable group among migrants.

While men who cross over the border often find ways to support themselves, it is not always easy for the women. They are vulnerable, particularly to exploitation or trafficking, Tucker explained.

So, at Naomi House, the congregation thus far has housed only women and children—offering safe housing, transportation assistance to work, school, appointments and ESL classes, and additional services as needed.

Because the church has several Spanish-speaking members, the congregation decided they best could support women from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. A common language also helps in learning how to live together, when housemates previously were strangers.

The house is five bedrooms with three bathrooms and is set on about an acre of land. The women who live there can garden, if they choose, and the children have a playset and space to be kids, Tucker noted.

Naomi House has provided housing and support to 8 mothers and 14 children in the two years since it opened.

Rewarding, challenging work

Tucker said the most challenging piece of the ministry is the amount of flexibility required. Every family has a different set of dynamics and trauma they bring in, “so it’s not like we can ever say, here’s our three-page manual on how to care for people in a hospitality house.”

The ministry requires constant adjustments to meet the actual needs of each new family who resides at Naomi House.

But, Tucker noted, the most rewarding aspect of the ministry is its mutuality—this is not a story of a well-heeled, mostly-white American church saving poor migrants.

Instead, there’s an intentionality to the relationships they are building between the church and Naomi House residents. “It’s sharing life together in the belief that this will animate our own faith,” and it has, Tucker explained.

“Most people go to church an entire lifetime, and they wish they could do something to change someone else’s life because it might change their own.

“And so, I think for those of us who are involved—you know, not every story works out perfectly [for] people who come in the house. Some find great jobs. Some don’t find great jobs.

“Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. It’s difficult work.”

But he explained for those who are involved, “it’s asked us to put our faith to work in a real way, and to allowed us to serve people who are vulnerable—not because we’re going to save them, but because that’s just what the gospel asks of us.”

They don’t have “a metric of success,” Tucker said ministry participants have to remind themselves.

“We have a metric of faithfulness. And we have to be faithful to what we’re asked to do, regardless of any particular outcome, good or bad.”

To measure success, the team asks instead, “are we being faithful to the ministry that God has called us to?”

Tiffani Harris, associate pastor of community life at DaySpring, has been in talks with several churches around Texas and beyond who have expressed interest in beginning a hospitality house ministry.

She mentioned North Carolina has a network of Baptist churches who operate five hospitality houses in Raleigh-Durham alone.

This network is equipped to house refugees from background languages other than Spanish, so DaySpring and the North Carolina network have cooperated to provide asylum-seekers care.

But as a Texan, Harris expressed some ire that North Carolina currently has more hospitality houses. She would love to see at least five hospitality houses operated by Baptists in Texas, she said.

Reciprocity and cooperation

It is difficult work, she agreed with Tucker.

For Harris, it is most difficult to work with people who, having journeyed thousands of miles across dangerous terrain—including for many the Darién Gap—vulnerable to dangerous people, with nothing except their children—realize once they finally get here, just how difficult it’s going to be.

They have been lied to by the cartels who exploit them for money. They have been told the United States has great jobs and cheap housing, Harris noted.

With the dire living conditions they leave behind, maybe the truth would not have dissuaded their journey, she pointed out.

It isn’t easy to walk alongside asylum-seekers as they work through the shock of coming to terms with the reality of life in the United States for asylees, when they have no one and nothing.

But when asylees do find community through the ministry of DaySpring, they are so grateful and bring so much to the church, Harris said.

Other churches in Waco come alongside DaySpring to help with Naomi House, sponsoring some of the monthly expenses, encouraging and partnering with the church, because ministry to asylum-seekers is meaningful.

 “Once you step out in faith, when you feel that the Lord has led you to do something like this,” Harris said. “You will be surprised how many people will come around you in support.”

WAXAHACHIE—Carla Cochrane said she first felt a call to learn more about asylum seekers in May 2019.

She said it was a time when the news was paying quite a bit of attention to the increase of asylum seekers at the southern border.

“And for some reason, I remember that caught my mind,” she said, and she began to study and learn about it.

Her church, The Avenue Church in Waxahachie, was doing a Bible study on Gideon, Cochrane explained.

“I remember thinking, ‘What do I have in common with Gideon?’” she recalled.

When they finished the study, Cochrane said, “It was like, I felt God saying: ‘This is what I want you to do. You are to advocate on their behalf.’”

God opens doors

Though she was in her late 50s with grown children and grandchildren, once she said “yes” to God, and began to research and learn about refugee ministry, God began opening doors, Cochrane said.

“That’s why I say, ‘Just say yes [to God],’” she explained, noting no matter how old someone is when God calls, he will use and bless those who say “yes” and are faithful.

Cochrane visited the border for the first time in November 2019.  She visited refugee camps in Reynosa and Matamoros filled with asylum seekers. Her mission friend Sheri Short, who she credits for helping her turn the calling to action, accompanied Cochrane on this trip.

The women met migrants who were waiting for an opportunity to present themselves for asylum at ports of entry in McAllen and Brownsville. They went into Mexico with missionaries from Texas Baptists River Ministry, who took them to the migrant camps in Reynosa and Matamoros.

God continued to open doors, Cochrane said. And, she was able to return to those same camps in November 2020.

When Cochrane grew up in a Fundamental Baptist church in “small town Texas,” she explained, caring for immigrants wasn’t a focus of the church in that community.

She has stayed in “small town Texas” as an adult, so her environment has not shifted much in its lack of commitment to refugee ministry. She explained this has been one of the hardest things she’s faced in following this calling.

Cochrane thought when God gave her the heart for this ministry, the people she loves would be excited for her to have found her place in God’s mission, but that is not what she experienced.

Finding a team

While her family and friends support her involvement, their understanding of why it matters so much to her has a limit. So, she was glad to find a community, Women of Welcome, of like-minded women devoted to understanding God’s heart for immigrants.

It was in this community on Facebook where in 2021 she met a sister who would play an important role in the ways that God was leading her, Alma Ruth, founder and director of Practice Mercy Foundation.

Cochrane began to learn about Ruth’s mission work at the border through her nonprofit. And in May 2022, she joined Practice Mercy for an immersion trip to visit Senda De Vida refugee shelter in Reynosa.

Then in July 2022 she returned to the border with a mission group from her church. The group met Ruth on one of the days. Ruth took them on a boat tour of the Rio Grande River, where they saw a portion of the border wall that separates the United States and Mexico.

She and Ruth stayed in close touch, and in October 2022, Cochrane became a board member for Practice Mercy Foundation, serving as treasurer until January 2024.

During that time, an in-person board meeting in McAllen provided an opportunity to help with an eyeglass clinic at a Haitian camp in Reynosa in December 2023.

On that same visit, Cochrane met a young Russian pastor and his family staying in Reynosa, who had contacted Ruth for help when they fled Russia because their advocacy against the war in Ukraine made them targets.

God appointments

One evening, the group tagged along with a local reporter. Spending time with him allowed the group to interact with asylum seekers who crossed over “and turned themselves in to Border Patrol for a chance to claim asylum.”

Cochrane said about 50 individuals crossed the border that evening.

“There were teenagers, families, mothers and their children, unaccompanied siblings and several older men and women,” she said.

“They were processed to be taken to a detention center by bus. Border Patrol allowed us to speak with them, give them water and snacks, blankets and to pray over them.”

The group felt “this was a moment only God could have orchestrated, for us to have this amazing experience,” Cochrane recalled.

Cochrane went on two additional immersion trips with Practice Mercy in 2023. In May, they visited a Haitian camp in Reynosa, where they spent most of their time with the children. Then in September, they went to a refugee camp in Matamoros, where they conducted an eyeglass clinic, spent time with the children and provided personal hygiene items for the women.

“This trip was life changing for me,” Cochrane recalled, “because God had it planned out to the smallest detail.”

She explained her job was to put lenses into eyeglass frames, and she was struggling a little to get them to go in.

The world’s best hug

Juan, a 15-year-old from Venezuela, came and stood beside her to help with the glasses.

“He didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Spanish. But when God is in the middle of it, all that really doesn’t matter,” Cochrane observed.

Juan stuck around helping for about three hours, Cochrane wondering all the while, “Why would this teen boy want to spend so much time with a 61-year-old woman?”

After the eyeglass clinic concluded an interpreter came over, so she learned more about Juan.

Cochrane learned he and his 18-year-old brother were both in the camp “awaiting an appointment, through the CBP app, to present themselves for asylum at the port of entry.”

They were hoping to make it to their father, who was in New York. Their mother remained in Columbia.

Jaun told her he missed his mom. But the saddest thing for him was leaving his grandparents in Venezuela, because he likely would never get to see them again.

“It was at that moment that I knew exactly why God had brought me to this camp at this day and time” Cochrane said. Juan needed a grandmother.

“I asked if I could hug him, and that embrace will be a wonderful memory for me the rest of my life. I attempted to release our hug three times before he finally let go of me. Only God!”

Cochrane said she will continue to visit the border to serve, walk alongside and hear stories from asylum seekers to advocate on their behalf, for as long as God makes it possible.

“I always tell others that the greatest take-away for me is that God has allowed me to see others through the eyes of Jesus, and therefore my heart is forever changed.

“He has filled it with so much love, compassion and joy.”

 And, she said she heard from Juan’s dad. Juan was in New York City. Both boys made it to asylum and to family.

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn.—More than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit northeastern Tennessee, life slowed to a crawl. The floodwaters are gone, but destruction remains.

At least that was the case until Texans on Mission volunteer flood recovery teams began cleaning out homes affected by the storm.

Local residents viewed them as an injection of energy, help and hope across the region.

“I haven’t been happy since the flood—until today,” one homeowner told a Texans on Mission team as they worked on her home.

More than 25 Texans on Mission teams—supplemented by local volunteers and out-of-state church mission teams—have focused on meeting needs in parts of Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

These include chainsaw teams, flood recovery teams, mass feeding teams, heavy machinery, shower/laundry units, chaplains and more.

In all, Texans on Mission volunteers have served more than 9,000 hours. They have provided more than 30,000 meals. And they continue ministering today in Christ’s name.

Ray Gann, who is leading the feeding team in Port Charlotte, Fla., said volunteers are working together like a family. They help each other out. They focus on meeting needs and helping others.

It’s encouraging to see the body of Christ working together, he said.

“I’ve met many of my friends that I’ve worked with before,” he said. “I’ve met new friends. It’s the camaraderie that’s great. We minister together.”

The presence of Texans on Mission chainsaw teams is being felt across Rutherford County, N.C. One homeowner described the teams as being “like a breath of fresh air” after the oppressive storms.

“I prayed with three homeowners today,” David Wells, Texans on Mission disaster relief director said. “They’re so grateful we’re there. People are waving at us everywhere we go. They’re excited we’re here.”

Local volunteers and mission teams from churches have been a vital part in Texans on Mission ministry after the hurricanes. Local congregations are feeding the Texans and people from all over have jumped in to be part of the volunteer teams. New faces and new energy abound in this relief effort.

“It’s cool to see that spirit,” Wells said.