Teamwork!

Unity is so important in the Body of Christ. As we Christians work together in harmony, the Lord is glorified and our testimony is strengthened. As we each use our gifts, skills, and abilities, the results are beautiful!
In February, the missionaries pulled together and held the dedication for Taylor Community Center. We even had the blessing of having 5 people from our WGM Headquarters in Indiana travel down to help us out and celebrate wtih us!
It was a team effort and we had many committees leading up the event to help with preparations. The food committee did a phenomenal job of planning the menu, buying the groceries, and preparing the spaghetti dinner that was served to 120 guests!
The decorating committee planned, shopped, and transformed the TCC gym into a beautiful banquet facility!
Everyone worked hard, using their gifts, to make the evening special for all our guests.
Many wore several "hats," pitching in wherever needed, giving selflessly when a need arose. . . even if it was for another committee!
It took everyone. Some gave by building a stage. Some gave by donating sound equipment. Some contributed by setting up tables, chairs, and multimedia for the presentation. Everyone pitched in and gave of themselves to see Christ lifted up!

What a joy it was to see Helen Moon honored for her and her late husband's contribution to seeing TCC finished.
What a challenge to hear retired WGM missionary Tim Hawk encourage us to invest in eternity.
What an inspiration it was to praise God through special music.
My prayer for the evening was the God would be glorified and that everyone would feel His love as we served them and worshiped together.
I believe the Lord honored our united spirit and answered abundantly! Praise the Lord for His goodness!

Unusual Tools

Through God's faithfulness and the generosity of His children, we now have a beautiful soccer field on World Gospel Mission property here in McAllen!
The spring soccer season has arrived and Gerson is in his element coaching. He is overseeing 4 teams who are using our soccer field to practice. Games will begin on Saturdays in a few weeks. Currently two teams practice on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The other two teams use the field on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
What a joy to see the "cancha" filled with kids playing soccer!
The community has responded with enthusiasm and the are made up of children from 3-12 years old. Some of these athletes are from Taylor Christian School. Some are home-schoolers. There is also a number who are from our very own neighborhood and community.

Many of the kids are not from Christian homes. They are looking for hope, purpose, love.
And Gerson's primary goal is to show them Christ's love and train in the His Word as they also play and learn the game of soccer.

Do we use unusual tools to evangelize? YES! But need is great. The response is enthusiastic. The work is hard with long hours. And we do it because we know the ANSWER to the kids' needs and questions.We also know it is WORTH IT ALL.
Will you join our prayer team? Pray for Gerson as he works with the kids almost every afternoon. Pray for us as we try to connect with the parents who come and watch the practices, hear the devotions, and sit on the sidelines for 1 hour and half. We are hoping I (Betsy) can begin building relationships with the mothers who stay during the practices. Pray for us as share the Gospel using a simple soccer ball.

TCC Moon Chapel

What have been up to during the month of February? I assure you, we have not fallen off the planet. Rather, we have been busy preparing for the dedication of Taylor Community Center. One part of the dedication was the dedication of the our chapel, which we have named "Moon Chapel" after Bill and Helen Moon. (Helen is pictured above with Gerson.) Bill and Helen were instrumental in the construction of TCC. The chapel always held a special place in Helen's heart. She desired that it would be a place of prayer.
When Helen retired from World Gospel Mission about a year ago, the chapel was pretty bare. It had the basics: chairs and a borrowed podium. Helen wanted to see the chapel have an altar and look like a prayer chapel!

The Lord provided! He sent Mike and Jan Cummings (who happen to be related to my father) from Southern Illinois. The arrived in the Rio Grande Valley for a month-long stay. We put them to work! While they were here, Mike made an altar, a podium, and a cross for the chapel. What a blessing!
While Mike did amazing things with the wood, Jan was his handy helper and stained it all. She was also an extra set of hands to hand him tools and help in whatever way her husband needed.
Meanwhile, Mom and I began working on making the chapel look warmer. After brainstorming, we decided to make banners based on the Fruits of the Spirit. We designed the banners on paper, then began looking at fabric and putting the banners together. Thanks to my mom's expertise with a sewing machine, the banners turned out fabulously!
Love ------ The greatest sacrifice and example of love --- Jesus dying for us on a cross.
Joy ---- Based upon, "Joy comes in the morning."
Peace --- "I've Got Peace Like a River!"
Patience --- We're all under construction. Praise God He's not done with us yet!
Kindness ----Eeveryone united to help one another, regardless of race, age, or economic status.
Goodness --- Comes from pure motives from a pure heart.
Mike installed the altar and the cross and moved the podium into place.
Then he hung the banners on the wall. Now the chapel looks like a prayer chapel! What a joy it was to see Helen see the chapel for the first time and realize her dream of a quiet place to pray had become a reality!

Dear Praying Friends,

February has flown by! I haven't had the time to post as much as I would've liked. It has been a month full of planning and preparing for a super special event.

This Saturday, the 25th of February, Taylor Community Center will be celebrating its 10 year anniversary since the ground-breaking in 2002. We will be serving a spaghetti dinner and having a worship service afterwards, praising God for His faithfulness.

I was asked to be the chairperson of the committee planning this event. I have never been in charge of planning an event to this scale and it has been overwhelming. Yet, in my weakness God has shown Himself to be all sufficient and has extended His grace and help over and over again.

One way the Lord the Lord has shown us His goodness is by sending us many winter Texans who have volunteers and have spent many hours helping us get ready for this celebration. He continues to surprise us with His provision and help.

Would you pray for us as we finish off all the details in this final week leading up to Saturday? We have a lot of work still to do. Our desire, above all, for this event is that God to be glorified and for HIS name to be lifted high!

Thanks, praying friends. We love and appreciate each of you.

Busy, Busy, Busy?

My intention was to update this ministry blog every week. Recently, I've realized what a lofty goal that was! Life continues to busy, busy, busy, but we desire with ever fiber of our being to not just be BUSY, but to be PURPOSEFUL in all we do.

Our pastor has been challenging us with this. So often, those of us in Christian ministries feel we need to be BUSY and fill our days being BUSY for God. We have the misconception we are working "for" God, but in reality we should be working WITH Him. For if He is not WITH us as we work, we accomplish nothing but empty busyness. OR we can be still, listen to His voice, follow His instructions, and move mountains!

God is doing great things in us. It must begin in US. Will you continue to pray for us --- that all we do is purposeful and God-centered? That we will listen to HIS voice and HIS plans and say goodbye to any busyness that is not effective? We don't want to be busy for the sake of being busy. If we're busy, we want it to be a busy that is anointed by God and makes an eternal difference.

Fun, Food, Fellowship

Many of you prayed for the Christmas Ladies' Tea Debbie and I hosted before Christmas. It was so much fun to plan, prepare and decorate! Debbie and I hoped to have a big turnout and planned for about 25 women. We baked, decorated, and prepared with much excitment.

The night finally arrived and only 6 women showed up. We soon realized we were going to have a small crowd and decided to make the best of it! First the ladies ate of the bounty we had prepared. Then we played several fun games.

Our theme for the night was "The Gift," so our games revolved around that theme. One game involved wrapping a woman up as a gift and we gave prizes for the most creatively and the most elegantly wrapped lady.

There were 2 teams of 3 ladies, and they really got excited about this game! It was joy to see them giggle and laugh as the wrapped their friends.

As you can see, their creative juices flowed freely and two of the ladies became lovely wrapped presents!

These two ladies were great sports and allowed their teammates to have total creative license! They giggled as much as the rest of us!

After the games, I shared a short devotional with the ladies. As it happens, all the ladies who showed up are Christian women, so I changed the devotional from being evanglistic in nature to one the challenged us as Christian women to humble ourselves as Jesus humbled himself to come to this earth as a tiny babe. It was a special time for all of us.

Although I was disappointed that there were no "new" ladies who attended, during the evening I was reminded that even Christian women need to time to be pampered, loved on, and encouraged in the Word. Although we had planned on this event being evanglistic in nature, God used instead to build up the body of believers who are working alongside of us in many different ways.

After the devotional, it was time to clean up. (This cafeteria and kitchen are in TCC and used by Taylor Christian School for lunch.) The ladies quickly jumped in to help the clean-up go quickly. All six ladies helped Debbie and me make food baskets to take to ladies who couldn't come due to sickness or other conflicts. Then they cleaned off the tables, folded tablecloths, and brought plates/baskets of food into the kitchen. What a blessing to have such help! (Debbie is the lady on the right! She was my co-host!)

And these two ladies were an extra-special blessing. Treasure Berens (L) and Carol Wonch (R) are two retired WGM missionaries who were instrumental in ministries of Taylor Christian School for many years. They stayed and washed dishes, took down tables and moved chairs! What troopers! Although we kept saying they go home and rest, these two ladies stayed until Debbie and I were ready to walk out the doors with everything cleaned up. What a joy to work with such servants of God!

Thank you for your prayers. Continue to pray for us as we look for creative ways to get to know the women of this neighborhood. We won't give up or become discouraged. Little by little, we're trusting God to open doors for seeds to be planted and for His Kingdom to expand here in this little corner of McAllen.

A New Beginning

Happy New Year!

As we were about to enter 2012, I looked at my brother (who was visiting us) and said something to the effect of, "When did the New Year cease to be as exciting for me? Rather than waiting anxiously to see the Ball drop in Time Square, I'm more excited about midnight hitting so I can go to bed!" (That is probably because I have two little ones who don't sleep through the night!)

Although I no longer get excited about the ball dropping in New York, I AM excited about what 2012 is going to hold. We serve a BIG and AWESOME God, and I have no doubt He has some wonderful surprises for us around the bend.

At times it easy in my humanity to begin to stress and worry about some of things we are anticipating in 2012. I look at our list of responsibilities with the ministry, and sometimes I'm exhausted looking at the needs and demands. Sometimes I'm tempted to be tired before I even begin!

ut then God has a funny way of reminding me of WHO HE IS. Today Jayden fell asleep on the couch as he was watching a video. I looked at him and was amazed at how quickly and easily he fell into a sound slumber. He didn't care where he was as long as he was comfy. He didn't have a care in the world! He didn't worry about what would happen when he woke up, about whether or not he would have food to eat, or whether or not someone would be here to greet him when he did wake up! He was resting peacefully.


God nudged me at that point and gently reminded me that I should be like Jayden. Why do I need to stress and worry so much about the future that I'm unable to sleep? Just as Jayden trusts his daddy and me to take care of him, I need to trust my Heavenly Daddy to take care of us. I need to trust Him and rely on HIS strength to get me through 2012. I need to trust Him to care for our needs in 2012, just as He took such good care of us in 2011. I need to trust completely in His love for me and my family and REST in His tremendous care.

Join us in RESTING in 2012. May we be like Jayden ---- without a care in the world. For we serve a RISEN SAVIOR who is MIGHTY and FAITHFUL.