Category Archives: Ministry report

Weekend conference in El Paso

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Me, Pete Vega, Carlos, Nathan and Isaac Gonzales

I spoke at the Eastwood Church of Christ in El Paso, Texas, this past Saturday, doing three sessions on “All Things To All Men.” It was a bilingual seminar, and the majority of those in attendance were Latinos.

The singing group Voces was there. The group was started by Carlos, Nathan and Isaac Gonzales, and their dad, Paul, is a minister at the Eastwood church. Pete Vega now sings bass with the group. Carlos has helped me a lot with music for my radio program; Voces even recorded the opening song for the program. They sang on Saturday afternoon, which was a huge attraction, especially for the younger crowd.

I also spoke to the congregation on Sunday morning. I really enjoyed my time with them.

Not all the weekend was good, though. On Thursday, I could tell that our 10-year-old Lab, Jasmine, was sick. She had been losing weight over the last few weeks; Thursday she didn’t really want to get up. Friday she seemed weaker, and she died Friday night, while I was in El Paso. I really hated that Carolina had to deal with that by herself.

Our son, Daniel, who is the true writer in the family, wrote a nice tribute over on his blog.

Ministry Update

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Wanted to offer a quick update of what I’ve been doing with Herald of Truth over the last few weeks.

Three weeks ago, I went to Managua, Nicaragua, as part of an ongoing project we have there. I was interviewed on two radio stations, got to visit a few listeners from my radio program, did a mini-seminar on marriage for the couples at one church, and preached a two-day campaign. It was a very profitable time. I daresay that of all the places we’ve done projects over the last few years, the brothers in Managua have done the best job of reporting on the progress of the effort. And they did a great job of organizing the weekend’s activities.

The next week I was at the Global Missions Conference at the Legacy Church of Christ in North Richland Hills, Texas. I spoke on “Social Networking for Kingdom Advancement.” It was a great conference; I was sorry that I wasn’t able to attend the entire program.

Then last week I flew to Princeton, New Jersey, for a “Christ and Culture” seminar. Despite the earlier-than-usual snowstorm, we had a very good turnout and an excellent response to the material presented. The Princeton Church of Christ is a healthy church that is working hard to reach out to people in their area.

That’s what I’ve been up to. How about you?

Back from Baxter

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I was invited to speak at the Seminario Baxter, sort of a lectureship, at the Baxter Institute in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I wish I could say that I returned with words of great wisdom, but the main speaker I heard was me, and you know how little wisdom comes out of my mouth.
There were brothers there from Panama, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Perú, Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras (I probably missed a country or two). Dan Coker, one of my professors from back in the day, was the main speaker. I was a lowly class teacher, but teaching four two-hour sessions on Thursday and Friday (two each day) was enough to wear me out. Add to that the fact that Baxter is built on the side of a hill, and I was one tired puppy as I dropped into bed each night.
I will mention that I found the living conditions to be fairly uncomfortable: hot, no air conditioning, no hot water several days, lots of noise, lots of mosquitoes, constant diet of tortillas, beans and rice. I was having a minor pity party, then I realized that these were my living conditions for 5 days; most of the brothers endured such conditions (and much worse!) all of the time. I was rather frustrated with myself for being so spoiled.
I’ll admit to not always being a fan of preacher schools, but I was very impressed with the guys I met there. We had a wonderful time together. I look forward to going back sometime in the future.

I have to share this…

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I’ll interrupt our discussion to share something that happened at work. Most of you know I work at Herald of Truth, a non-profit Christian media ministry. Yesterday we were having a sad discussion. Due to warehouse storage problems, we need to get rid of a large amount of material that we are no longer using. Much of it has a “dated” look to it that makes it hard to use. We were facing the sad fact that we were having a terribly hard time finding anywhere to send this material and might possibly have to dispose of it.

Today a couple walked in and identified themselves as members of the church in Australia. They said that they had received materials from Herald of Truth in the past and wondered if we might have, in their words, “some obsolete material” that we could give them. Wow! I was so happy that I hardly knew what to do.

I refuse to believe it a coincidence. Our God is alive and well.

www.hopeforlife.org

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We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to bring you this special announcement…

I haven’t been mixing in my ministry stuff on this blog, but I decided to make an exception. We just revamped our www.hopeforlife.org website, and I wanted to invite you to take a look. Take a moment to listen to a video or two and read some of the stuff there. Then let me know what you think.

Of course, I’d appreciate it if you’d pass the site address on to others. Thanks!