West Texas Missioner

Friday, March 24, 2023

From @FWMission ... Friday Story: “You Helped Make This Happen in February”

Founded in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to providing wheelchairs for the impoverished disabled in developing nations. Headquartered in Irvine, California, FWM works around the world in partnership with a vast network of humanitarian, faith-based and government organizations, sending wheelchairs to hundreds of thousands of disabled people, providing not only the gift of mobility, but of dignity, independence, and hope.

Friday Story: “You Helped Make This Happen in February”

Wheelchair Arrivals

Your generosity sent eight containers of wheelchairs to Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Eswatini, India, Nicaragua, and Uganda in February. Soon, 4,032 lives will be transformed by the gift of mobility in these places, thanks to friends like you.

Presenting at a Global Conference

Regional Program Manager Tess Stansbury (above) presented at the 2023 Virtual Global African Disability Conference, hosted by the African Association of Disability and Self Advocacy Organizations. The conference highlighted strategies for engaging and building partnerships with organizations of people with disabilities in Africa.

Training Partners in South Sudan

Regional Program Coordinators James Keitany (above, right) and Thatiana Morataya led a successful remote training session for our network of distribution partners in South Sudan. All of our partners receive training on how to assemble our wheelchairs, assess potential recipients, adjust the wheelchairs for a custom fit, and train recipients on correct wheelchair use.

Kids Transforming Lives in Hours

Lindsay Binder is a teacher and Free Wheelchair Mission ambassador in Louisiana. When her students at Saint Margaret Mary School heard about the need for mobility around the world, they wanted to do something to help. They set up a stand to sell lemonade and brownies, raising enough money for five wheelchairs in just two hours!

Would anyone you know like to start a lemonade stand fundraiser? Download printable signs and posters here ...

Save the Date: 2023 Miracle of Mobility

Important Change: September 2023 • In-person and Live-streamed

Miracle of Mobility, our annual event to raise funds to provide life-changing mobility in developing countries, features musical performances, interactive ways to participate, and heartening messages from friends around the world, including opportunities to virtually meet wheelchair recipients.

This year, Miracle of Mobility will be held in-person in Orange County, California on Friday, September 29, 2023, with other regional events currently being planned.

Miracle of Mobility will also be livestreamed sometime in September 2023.

Check MiracleofMobility.org for updates!

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Traditional doctrine points to a sin against God, an act of disobedience, not a sin against the neighbour. And certainly, if we are to hold the doctrine of the Fall in any real sense, we must look for the great sin on a deeper and more timeless level than that of social morality.

This sin has been described by Saint Augustine as the result of Pride, of the movement whereby a creature (that is, an essentially dependent being whose principle of existence lies not in itself but in another) tries to set up on its own, to exist for itself. Such a sin requires no complex social conditions, no extended experience, no great intellectual development. From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the centre is opened to it. This sin is committed daily by young children and ignorant peasants as well as by sophisticated persons, by solitaries no less than by those who live in society: it is the fall in every individual life, and in each day of each individual life, the basic sin behind all particular sins: at this very moment you and I are either committing it, or about to commit it, or repenting it.

• From The Problem of Pain
• Compiled in A year with C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is a daily devotional with 365 inspiring mission stories that come from next door and all across the globe. It inspires thousands of Presbyterians daily as they uphold the mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in intercessory prayer.

The Rev. Meredith Loftis

Today in the Mission Yearbook: March 24, 2023

JUSTICE KNOX - Opportunity knocks in most people’s lives, but in Knoxville, Tennessee, justice knocks.

The Matthew 25 work of Justice Knox was the focus of a recent “Being Matthew 25” broadcast, which can be viewed here. The guest of the Rev. DeEtte Decker, communications director for the Presbyterian Mission Agency, was the Rev. Meredith Loftis, associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

From Catholic Charities USA ... "Lent Daily Reflection" for March 24

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the Day

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34)

Those of us who have the privilege of serving in the field of immigration legal services know all too well what it means to be “close to the brokenhearted.”

Families needlessly separated for decades by outdated immigration laws. Mothers deported away from their children. Asylum seekers returned to countries from which they fled for their lives. And when our systems fail them, our hearts break, too.

We are comforted by our faith in God’s nearness to those who are deeply suffering. We do our best to express that nearness through our work supporting community-based organizations serving low-income immigrants across the United States. We see our work as demonstrating the love of God by extending a hand of welcome and support to vulnerable immigrant families, whenever possible, and to accompany them on their journeys.

The additional two readings from today also reflect an important truth from which we draw hope: that, despite all the horrible things going on in the world today, the truth, goodness, and love of Christ has the final word. In the first reading, the “wicked” plot to kill the “just one,” but they don’t account for the “hidden counsels of God.” In the Gospel, Jesus’ life is threatened as he performs his miracles and proclaims the truth of who he is. His enemies try to arrest him, but “no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.”

God’s ways are mysterious; we are often unable to perceive how his way of love triumphs amid so much suffering and brokenness facing our immigrant brothers and sisters. But, as we approach Easter, our hope increases, and we pray for the light of faith to guide us. We pray that we can reflect that light to others through our work of welcome.

Anna Gallagher is executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC.

The mission of Catholic Charities is to provide service to people in need, to advocate for justice in social structures, and to call the entire church and other people of good will to do the same. Catholic Charities is a network of charities with headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The organization serves millions of people a year, regardless of their religious, social, or economic backgrounds.

Thursday, March 23, 2023

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On disagreeable, nasty people; and on avoiding obsessing about their bullying.

10 March 1954

I am sorry things are not better. I am very puzzled by people like your Committee Secretary, people who are just nasty. I find it easier to understand the great crimes, for the raw material of them exists in us all; the mere disagreeableness which seems to spring from no recognisable passion is mysterious. (Like the total stranger in a train of whom I once asked ‘Do you know when we get to Liverpool’ and who replied ‘I’m not paid to answer your questions: ask the guard’). I have found it more among boys than anyone else. That makes me think it really comes from inner insecurity—a dim sense that one is Nobody, a strong determination to be Somebody, and a belief that this can be achieved by arrogance. Probably you, who can’t hit back, come in for a good deal of resentful arrogance aroused by others on whom she doesn’t vent it, because they can. (A bully in an Elizabethan play, having been sat on by a man he dare not fight, says ‘I’ll go home and beat all my servants’). But I mustn’t encourage you to go on thinking about her: that, after all, is almost the greatest evil nasty people can do us—to become an obsession, to haunt our minds. A brief prayer for them, and then away to other subjects, is the thing, if one can only stick to it. I hope the other job will materialise. . .

I too had mumps after I was grown up. I didn’t mind it as long as I had the temperature: but when one came to convalescence and a convalescent appetite and even thinking of food started the salivation and the pain—ugh! I never realised ‘the disobedience in our members’ so clearly before [Romans 7:23]. Verily ‘He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it, hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart’ (or in his glands) [Matthew 5:28].

I shall wait anxiously for all your news, always praying not only for a happy issue but that you may be supported in all interim anxieties.

• From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis
• Compiled in Yours, Jack

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Rev. Yena Hwang

Today in the Mission Yearbook: March 23, 2023

"EVERYDAY GOD-TALK" PODCAST - “I really felt it was a call upon my life to be a pollinator of God’s love,” says the Rev. Yena Hwang, a latest guest on “Everyday God-talk,” a video series from the Office of Theology and Worship of the Presbyterian Mission Agency ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

From Catholic Charities USA ... "Lent Daily Reflection" for March 23

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the Day

How many times have you asked for a sign from God? I know I have on occasion. “God, if you just give me a sign, I will know what to do.” People ask for signs from God because they want to use it as a tangible example of how the divine is working in their life. But what happens when we cannot see the signs, even if they are right in front of us? We become like the Israelites in today’s first reading:

“They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it.”

God gave the Israelites multiple signs throughout their exodus from Egypt, yet still, they lost their faith in the divine presence. I know I can relate to that. We get so caught up in searching for signs to prove that God is working in our lives that we forget to recognize how much God has already done for us. Jesus was saying the same thing in today’s Gospel reading:

“You search the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf.”

God the Father gave us the ultimate sign: his only-begotten son, Jesus. For those of us working in social ministry, it is easy to get caught up in the daily ‘to do’ list that we lose sight of the divine presence. How many signs do we really need? When will enough be enough?

Lent is a perfect time to take an extra deep breath and look for the divine right under our noses. We do not need a burning bush or a sea to part to know that God is living within us and among us. God always has been there and always will be there, we just need to take the time to recognize it.

Catherine Orr serves as Coordinator fof the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors and as Pastoral Associate at Lumen Christi Parish in Mequon, WI.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

From Synod of the Sun, PC(USA) ... March 2023 Newsletter"

The Synod of the Sun is is a network of Presbyterians from 11 Presbyteries, approximately 700+ Congregations, in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. Over 150,000 members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Synod of the Sun of the serves Christ by connecting, equipping, and empowering Presbyterians for Christ's mission within and beyond the Synod's bounds.

Synod Assembly Selects Rev. Dr. Steve Shive as Bridge Interim Synod Leader/Stated Clerk

At the Spring 2023 Assembly of Synod of the Sun, the Rev. Dr. Steve Shive was unanimously affirmed to become the Bridge Interim Synod Leader/Stated Clerk of Synod of the Sun. Steve comes to us having finished his call as Interim Presbytery Executive for Grace Presbytery and will begin his ministry with us on March 15th.

“His current relationships with the other Presbytery leaders, his previous work with the Synod of the Sun, and his background in interim ministry make Steve an incredible choice for Bridge-Interim,” said Rev. Jeff Cranton, Moderator of the Synod’s Personnel Committee. “We are blessed to have his expertise as we move into the future God has planned ...

• Click here to read the rest of this report ...

A Collective Lent

By Kathy Lee-Cornell
Director of Partnership for Disaster Recovery

I’ve always loved the honesty of Lent. When else but on Ash Wednesday can you remind everyone, no matter how young or old you are, you are dust and to dust you shall return. Period.

This year, as I was considering what things I might give up and practices I might take on, it dawned on me how individualistically I have often approached Lent. One of my most important tasks in leading the Synod Partnership for Disaster Recovery is helping individuals to connect with something that often feels enormous and too overwhelming for one single person to feel like they have a place in the world of disaster ministry ...

• Click here to read the rest of this post ...

The Plight of the Southern Border

By Hill Kemp
Director of Partnership for Disaster Recovery

As the sun sets over south Texas, Caly Fernandez looks out over the tent city holding 9,000 people and sighs knowing that the desert night temperature will soon dive and those people face another night of misery. This Matamoros tent city is but one of many she advocates for as Director of Puentes de Cristo (Bridges for Christ). She knows the lucky ones have a blanket to cover themselves and their kids to try to keep warm. But the unlucky ones might have only a towel or their threadbare clothes.

Just two decades ago there were dozens of churches and hundreds of volunteers to look after the hapless migrants on both sides of the border ...

• Click here to read the rest of this post ...

Mo Ranch Launches Summit46

Mo-Ranch is launching a BRAND-NEW Conference this summer just for tweens! During Summit46, youth who are entering 4th through 6th grade come together to be inspired to grow in their faith by learning and living the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ. Youth participants will gather together in the Hill Country for an unforgettable Mo-Ranch experience that’s filled with new friends, spiritual enrichment, worship, study and recreation.

Activities and recreation will include everything from taking a challenge on the Mo ropes course, games, energizers, vespers and popsicle parties, to sports, evening movies, swimming in the beautiful Guadalupe, singing God’s praises and more! Join us June 19-22, 2023 for this inaugural event!

• Register now at moranch.org/attend-a-conference. We can’t wait to see you!

¡Reserva le Feche/Save the Date!

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Letter to Dom Bede Griffiths, O.S.B.: from Magdalen College

16 April 1940

The practical problem about charity (in our prayers) is very hard work, isn’t it? When you pray for Hitler & Stalin, how do you actually teach yourself to make the prayer real? The two things that help me are (a) A continual grasp of the idea that one is only joining one’s feeble little voice to the perpetual intercession of Christ, who died for those very men (b) A recollection, as firm as one can make it, of all one’s own cruelty wh. might have blossomed, under different conditions, into something terrible. You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures.

• From Letters of C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Rev. Dr. Ed Newberry

Today in the Mission Yearbook: March 22, 2023

CATAWBA PRESBYTERY - Fresh off his appearance in a 12-minute video explaining the historical importance of Catawba Presbytery, the Rev. Dr. Ed Newberry told “Leading Theologically” host the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty he’s been enjoying his retirement in part “to have the leisure time to explore what I’ve been curious about” ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

From Catholic Charities USA ... "Lent Daily Reflection" for March 22

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the Day

For the past 5+ years, I have served in the Office of Living Justice with Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Green Bay. During this time, I have often marveled at the people I have encountered who are living the mission of peace and justice in their own lives and challenging me to do the same in mine. Whether through direct service, advocacy, works of mercy, or promoting justice, you bring the words of the Gospel to life for the people you serve ...

• Read the rest of today's reflection ...

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

From @austinseminary ... "The Reed" for March 2023

For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip people for ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources for the nurture of the church; to practice and promote critical theological thought and research; to engage a range of voices and perspectives within and beyond the life of the seminary; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.

Stations

As you make your way toward Holy Week, you're invited to read Rev. Paul Hooker's Lenten poem, "Stations," HERE ...

MAYM student projects go public!

Stay tuned — two of the final projects completed by student groups in Professor Andrew Zirschky’s January course, “Partnering with Parents in Child and Adolescent Faith Formation,” are being adopted for development by outside organizations. Real Kids Real Faith (a Lilly-funded organization) will be working with one group of students to further develop for public release their project focused on “parent-child questions for wonder.” The Center for Youth Ministry Training (CYMT), which partners with Austin Seminary on the Master of Arts in Youth Ministry (MAYM) program, will be working with a second group of students to market their project focused on parenting curriculum. Dr. Zirschky says, "This opportunity for students to take classroom work and expand it for use in the field gives them great experience, exposure, and even the possibility of royalty income down the road."

Winsome Podcast

Austin Seminary's newest podcast, "Winsome," was conceived by two graduates who now serve in the the administration. Taking their cue from the most cherished word in our Mission Statement, Sarah Allen (MDiv’07, DMin’19), director of ministerial formation and advanced studies, and William West (MDiv’16), director of financial aid, converse with members of the Austin Seminary community about all things faith, life, vocation, and the beloved Polity Bowl.
• Listen here or on other podcast platforms ...

President Irizarry on TheoEd

On February 5, President Irizarry took to the TheoEd stage in downtown Austin to give a talk, "The World We can See: On Discerning God's Vision."

• You can watch the presentation here ....

Support Our Students

Your gift to our Annual Fund supports the formation of Christian leaders.

• Click here to support our students...

Teaching Borderlands

April 24-25, join us for a panel presentation and discussion about Latinx theological education from the perspective of a team of Latinx educators who will offer insights on the context of "teaching borderlands." Using their own embodied experience in the classroom, they will discuss a multivalent pedagogy which seeks to uncover the racialized logic that currently prevails in seminary classrooms. Our goal is to work en conjunto (together) and reimagine Latinx learning by thinking more ethically, courageously, and critically about the U.S. borderlands.

• Learn more and register here ...

Get the latest news from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in their digital monthly eNewsletter. Features on events, students, faculty, and alumni can be sent directly to your inbox.

• Subscribe to the Austin Seminary Reed

From Catholic Charities USA ... "Lent Daily Reflection" for March 21

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the Day

And it will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live... and will grow all kinds of trees for food ... whose fruit will be for food and whose leaves for healing.
Ez 47: 9

In today’s Gospel Jesus is persecuted for healing on the Sabbath. He encounters a man suffering from a lifetime of crippling infirmary and tells him to take up his mat and walk. A miracle by anyone’s standards! However, people don’t see the miracle but only the breaking of the Sabbath laws. And when they learn it was Jesus who did the healing, they persecute him, seeing not mercy but only violation ...

• Read the rest of today's reflection ...

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

Screwtape encourages confusion and pride:

The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we must keep them doing so. Much of the modem resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they ‘own’ their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another! It is as if a royal child whom his father has placed, for love’s sake, in titular command of some great province, under the real rule of wise counsellors, should come to fancy he really owns the cities, the forests, and the corn, in the same way as he owns the bricks on the nursery floor.

We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun—the finely graded differences that run from ‘my boots’ through ‘my dog’, ‘my servant’, ‘my wife’, ‘my father’, ‘my master’ and ‘my country’, to ‘my God’. They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of ‘my boots’, the ‘my’ of ownership.

• From The Screwtape Letters
• Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

Photo courtesy of the National Transportation Safety Board

Today in the Mission Yearbook: March 21, 2023

PRESBYTERIANS RATTLED BY TRAIN DERAILMENT IN EAST PALESTINE, OHIO - A recent train derailment in northeastern Ohio traumatized some residents and exposed a subject that many people don’t think about from day to day: What hazardous chemicals are traveling through my community? ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.

Monday, March 20, 2023

From @chinaaid : "ChinaAid Applauds Politicians’ Call to Action for the Mayflower Church"

The ChinaAid Association is a non-profit Christian organization - based in Midland, Texas - with a mission to uncover and reveal the truth about religious persecution in China, focusing especially on the unofficial church. They do this, they explain in their website, by exposing the abuses, encouraging the abused and equipping the saints to advance the kingdom of God throughout China.

ChinaAid Applauds Politicians’ Call to Action for the Mayflower Church

ChinaAid Photo

Distributed by ChinaAid, February 2023 ...

WASHINGTON, DC – Prominent politicians from the United States and Taiwan called for the resettlement of Shenzhen Reformed Holy Church, also known as the Mayflower Church. ...

• More on this story from ChinaAid ...

From @mmm_water ... "St. Louis Cardinal tickets benefiting Marion Medical Mission!"

Sharing the love of Jesus by providing safe, clean, sustainable sources of drinking water to the extreme poor in sub-Saharan Africa, Marion Medical Mission is one of our mission partners at Grace Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas, and we STRONGLY encourage you to read the following to learn more about - and pray for! - their mission.

Tickets must be purchased by April 7

JOIN US MAY 2nd as the St. Louis Cardinals play the Los Angeles Angels ...

... AND to raise money to build wells and bring clean water to the extreme poor in Africa! These Infield Pavilion seats are only $25 each (face value $40), and a portion of each ticket will be donated to MARION MEDICAL MISSION!

GAME DATE: MAY 2 at 6:45 p.m.

ALSO: May 2 is "T-Shirt of the Month" night, so 15,000 fans ages 16-and-up will take home a one-of-a-kind Cardinals T-Shirt!

Email info@mmmwater.org for tickets or call (618) 997-5365.

Tickets must be purchased by April 7.

Looking for Easy Ways to Help?

Follow us on social media! Liking, commenting on, and sharing our posts helps increase our exposure so that new supporters will find us! Writing a quick, 5-star review on Google or recommending us on Facebook are also great ways to share our mission!

Visit Our Website ...

From Catholic Charities USA ... "Lent Daily Reflection" for March 20

Solemnity of Saint Joseph

Readings of the Day

Over the centuries, Saint Joseph has been known by many names and titles: Patron Saint of the Universal Church, of Workers, of Fathers, of the Unborn, and of a Happy Death, among others. Yet on this Saint Joseph’s Day 2023, his role as Patron of Migrants takes on particular significance.

We know little from the Gospels about Joseph. Despite this, one thing is certain ...

• Read the rest of today's reflection ...

C.S. Lewis Daily - Today's Reading

Presented by Bible Gateway

Today's Reading

“We are told,” said Camilla, “to pray to his image, and then he himself will come from behind us and lay his hundred hands upon our heads and breathe into us the greater life so that we shall live no longer with our own life but with his. No one has ever dreamed it was the Unicornman. We were told you bore stings not for us but for our enemies.”

“But do those who have been through it never tell?”

“How could they tell?”

“Why not?”

“But they don’t speak.”

“You mean they are dumb?” said Scudamour.

“They are – I don’t know how it is with them, “said the girl. “They go about their business needing no words because they live with a single life higher than their own. They are above speech.”

• From The Dark Tower

Today in the PC-USA Mission Yearbook

The Rev. Fred Rogers

Today in the Mission Yearbook: March 20, 2023

MR. ROGERS DAY - “Frankly, there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard their story,” Fred Rogers once said.

The Rev. Fred Rogers was a PC(USA) pastor who built his ministry around teaching us to share our stories, listen to one another and then go out into our neighborhoods ...

• CLICK HERE to read more.