God calls His people to serve locally, across the nation and to the ends of the earth. Featured below are stories of how Texans on Mission volunteers answered God's call to deliver help, hope and healing to thousands of people all over the globe.
In the early morning hours of July 4, Will Britt got out of bed to flood waters already head-high at his glass front door. As he turned to get his wife, Ann, the door exploded and water rushed through.
Jenny Patrick’s daughters love to set up a lemonade stand on their front porch during the summer. This summer they recruited other girls, enlisted moms to do some baking and set up a stand at Llano High School. They did it to help the people of nearby Kerr County, which had suffered the deadly July 4 flooding of the Guadalupe River. The girls led their community to give $4,095 to the Texans on Mission’s disaster relief effort.
Sometimes we just need a little reminder to go. For Danielle Cisco of Fort Worth, that reminder came when her grandparents stopped by unexpectedly with a graduation gift. What began as a quick visit became an invitation to a life-changing week of disaster relief work alongside her grandmother, Debby Cisco, in flood-impacted San Angelo.
Things can change quickly in disaster relief. Because of this, Texans on Mission trains its volunteers to be flexible. Expect the unexpected. So when 13 new volunteers showed up to serve in Hunt, the TXM flood recovery team from Marble Falls welcomed them aboard, and the new recruits went to work.
One searcher after the flood in Kerr County came across personal items with the names of four children on them. Those items are now being returned to those families with a special touch from Texans on Mission volunteers.
The recent floods have now impacted many communities – Kerrville, Ingram, Hunt, Menard and San Angelo, just to name a few. The physical impact is significant, and the challenges are many.
Yesterday, I was in Kerrville. The air in the Hill Country remains particularly heavy, the memories of those lives lost or missing weighing on the hearts and minds of the community. Reminders are commonplace here. Green ribbons are on nearly every tree. Piles of brush lie here and there. First responders are scattered across the region.
This is where your Texans on Mission teams are working. More importantly, this is where they're ministering.
When volunteer Matt Enriquez called his 89-year old grandfather, Dr. Ramiro Peña, to tell him he was deploying to Kerrville with the Texans on Mission flood response there, he ended the call with a surprise proposition: “Why don’t you deploy with me?” Even more surprising? Peña, a retired Temple surgeon, said yes.
John Vlasek stands in the middle of his home, stripped bare of furnishings, walls, ceilings and flooring. Even his rock fireplace is gone. It’s testimony to the height and depth of the floodwaters that destroyed the house July 4. The waterline of debris can still be seen just below the ceiling. Surrounding him, Texans on Mission volunteers continue to scrape floors and remove nails from studs.
Behind the walls of one home, on the wood of every doorframe, are Bible verses.
The day after the July 4 Hill Country flood, one of Community Life Church’s founding pastors reached out to Texans on Mission about what the organization was doing and how the congregation could help. Over the next few days, members added to their normal giving and raised $30,000 for TXM’s disaster relief effort centered in Kerrville.
What looked like an ordinary laundry delivery was actually an extraordinary act of kindness: the clothes were all items recovered from flood debris from Camp LaJunta. The clothing is destined to be donated back into flood relief efforts.