DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip - Day 3 Revisited

My batteries had died and I had brought the wrong charger for our other video camera, so I was unable to post these videos on the day of occurrence.

On day 3, we began the day at Walmart picking up some additional drinking water and some toys for the 10 children that lived in the house we were working on. After a full day of work, our team stopped to share the toys and candy we had bought. Here is some footage of our basketball antics and of Doug assembling the new soccer goal.

The narrative:



Another look:



And finally, the soccer goal (maybe we should have read the direction!?!):



What a great way to end the work day!

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 4 Final

These are the last three videos from our work site today. It is amazing what can be accomplished working together! I encourage you to check out the videos from the first day on our site and compare them to these on Day 4 to see just how much we were able to accomplish!

Here is #1:



Here is #2:



And here is #3 for today:



While we know that there is much more work to do, we are certain that the groups that will follow us will complete that which has been begun. Our particular family will have workers from Americorp and other groups over the next couple of months until all of the work is complete.

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 4 Continued

These next two videos are of our liaison to the family and the family themselves as we say goodbye after our time in the Las Penitas community.

This first video is our liaison, Clemente:



This video is of the family we helped...to give you an idea of the the circumstances, there are 12 people living in the house we worked on this week:



What a huge blessing it was to be a part of their lives!

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 4

Today was our last work day and we had a great time. Working extra hard and extra long, we were able to finish what we set out to do and some extras that couldn't be over looked! The following videos are from Tommy Earl who did a walk through mid day.

Here is the first:



The second:



and the third:



You can't begin to imagine how grateful I am for such a talented and committed team while working here near the border. Two more postings will follow shortly, including a final goodbye to the family and final walk through of the project. Be sure and check those out as well.

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 3

Today was a very busy day full of a lot of work and fun! I have just two videos to share with you right now (the battery is dead on one of the cameras with footage, so I will upload those at a later date after we get home).

Our first video is a morning walk through of the house that my particular team has spent the week working on. You will see that a lot was accomplished today after I post tomorrow morning's walk through video, but here it is for now:



This second video is rather dark, but after dinner a few of us went over to a wings place next to where we are staying and watched the end of the Yankees/Rangers game and here is Melissa leading us in celebrating the Rangers' victory:



Check back tomorrow for more updates. And if you know and follow Bill, Tommy, Doug, myself or others on this trip who are on Facebook, don't forget to check out their pages...there are some amazing pictures there.

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 2 Continued

Every day has been an adventure! We have trained hard, worked hard and found time to have some fun along the way. One of the more jovial times we have is every evening at dinner. We get a chance to eat some really good food, recap the days events, and spend some quality time getting to know one another.

Here are just a few clips from tonight's dinner time together at Applebee's:





The all important Tommy Earl Burton interview:



And just a couple of more:





Crazy fun times here in the valley! I am looking forward to what tomorrow brings.

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 2

Today we got to our job sites and had the opportunity to begin our work. The videos that follow show you the three sites that we will be working on through the weekend and the types of damage we are repairing.

Here is the first site:



And some other shots for that site:



The second site:



And the third site:



An outside look at the roof of our third site:



Each of our 3 sites had its unique challenges and opportunities. All three teams rose to the occasion and made an excellent start on repairing these homes today. I will post more updates on our progress tomorrow!

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 1 Continued

As we continued our afternoon training, we checked out a couple of houses at or near completion. Here are Jeff and B.T. in one of those houses with me narrating part of the video:



This next video shot was a snippet showing all of the houses that were under construction...notice how they are built on blocks like some of the Habitat houses we have built over the years...this allows for them to be loaded onto skids and moved. It was an amazing thing to see so many under construction:



Our next stop was to the tape and float house where we got some more training and of course more hands on experience! Here is Diane hard at work:



This next piece is a little part of the training we received regarding mud:



And finally, our friend Mary tapes and floats her first seam:



Stay tuned tomorrow as we will share more video and images from our time here in the Valley!

DCM/Cabinet Mission Trip Day 1

Here are some video feeds of the work being done in training by one of our teams.

These first two videos are of John as he jumps right in and begins working:






Robyn was next up in training:



Then it was Melissa's turn:



Finally, our very own Bishop Huie stepped up to the plate to have a turn at the power tools!



Check out our next post to see our taping and floating practice and keep checking back through the weekend as we show you more of what we are up to in the valley area of Texas!

Mission Trip with the Cabinet

Today we traveled to Mission, Texas with the Bishop and other members of the cabinet, to begin a 5 day trip to repair houses that had been damaged by hurricanes and tropical storms. Many of us arrived in time to catch an 8:45 a.m. flight out of Hobby Airport in Houston, while others met us in Harlingen as we arrived or later in the day.

Our first course of action was to get settled into the hotel and grab a bite to eat. After lunch and another trip to the hotel, we went to get our training for the rest of the week.

Here is one of our gracious trainers making the installation of sheet rock and the cutting out of the window look easy:



More videos coming shortly!

Reflections on the Past 4 Years - Part II

Much of my time in Edom over the past four years has been related to school and ordination.

During this time I have been working on (and completing) my MDiv at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. That means that I logged about 624 hours (that is 26 days folks!) on the road between Edom and Dallas for classes. That does not count the hours to Longview for internship or any of the hours on the road to Houston or Lakeview for conference related work. Add to the travel time the amount of time that it took to write all of those papers, complete all the projects, do all the reading (and I am still not done with all the reading...are you?), etc., and you will begin to get some sense of the insanity that has been my life these past four years.

I have been frequently asked about my choice for seminaries and what I thought of others. My seminary choice had a lot to do with family relationships and having enough money to go to seminary. Needless to say, the package that Perkins/SMU offered me was the best deal. It allowed me to stay and serve in my current conference and kept me close to family ties that we have here in Texas. Although I would say that I am more conservative than many folks at Perkins, I faired well with my grades and studies. My experience with seminaries is that no one school has it all. Some have phenomenal preaching teachers, while others are noted for their biblical scholarship. I have learned in my seminary career to temper everything. I have spent a great deal of time reading from authors and professors of other seminaries to keep my education as balanced as possible (or as unbalanced as possible...depending on how you want to look at it); and this has served my own spiritual growth and education quite well.

While there are areas of disagreement that I have with some professors at Perkins, I have been blessed to learn from some folks that I truly consider great in their fields. Some of those include Dr. Bassler, Dr. Howard, Dr. Heller, Dr. Abraham and Dr. McKenzie; just to name a few. I have been well served by the works of others outside of Perkins including Dr. Ray Anderson (Fuller Theological Seminary), Dr. Joel Green (Asbury Theological Seminary), and Dr. Darrell Bock (Dallas Theological Seminary). So the point of all of this, I guess, is to say that your education is quite literally what you make of it (regardless of who is at the head of the class teaching it).

Perhaps the best feature of Perkins was the mix of students that were there. Because of that mix, I have been able to have meaningful and thoughtful debates and conversations with ministers (and future ministers) in the Catholic, United Methodist, Anglican, Episcopalian, Greek Orthodox, Nazarene, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, African Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and many other denominationally affiliated and independent churches. Add to that the ability to worship and study with folks from all over the globe (Iran, Russia, Africa, Australia, and many other places), I have been blessed with a deeper look into the cultures and practices of Christians everywhere. This has been, by far, the deepest blessing.

One of the realizations that I have had, now with more than 8 years of recent schooling, is that I am a student. I love to explore and to learn. And I love to share those explorations and lessons with others. While I am planning on returning to school to get my Doctorate of Ministry (DMin) degree in a couple of years, I realize that learning and education are just a deep part of who I am and how I am wired.

On the ordination side of things, I reached a milestone during my time here in Edom. At this last Annual Conference, I was commissioned as a probationary elder in the United Methodist Church. This process has taken 9 years to accomplish...and if all goes well, in a couple of years (the Annual Conference of 2011) I will be fully ordained as an elder in the church. There are/have been a lot of hoops to jump through and it has been an excruciating process at times. I am, however, better and stronger for having stayed the course. I look forward to the opportunities that I will have in the years to come to work with others to revise and improve upon this process for those that will follow me into ordained ministry.

I do want to say, that by and large, the commissioning interview (the big board) was one of the most affirming experiences to date in my process towards ordination. I have had several of the members of the Board of Ordained Ministry come along side me in the past few weeks and speak encouragement and blessing into my life. It is as if I have finally made it out of the wilderness and am truly becoming a part of something that is much larger than I could ever be on my own.

The highlight of Annual Conference for me this year, was the moment that Bishop Huie placed her hands on my shoulder, smiled, said my name, and spoke those historical words of the commissioning liturgy over me and prayed. It is a moment that I don't think will soon be forgotten.

So while at times, my journey has seemed tenuous and tedious, I am grateful to have completed these two huge milestones in my life and career as a minister within the United Methodist Church.

Graduation from Seminary

There is a lot going on in life right now. Illness, truck replacement, packing and fire calls have slowed my posting down a little, so I thought that I would do several posts to catch up.

Last Saturday was the culmination of more than 9 years of hard work. 9 years ago, I experienced a call to vocational/pastoral ministry. Within my denomination, a master's degree is required for ordination. Since I hadn't had any college, I had to start from scratch. So in the fall of 2000, I began my higher education career. I first graduated with an Associates in Arts degree from Houston Community College, then a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston, and finally with a Master's of Divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.

Here are some pictures of my and my friends celebrating along with several folks who have been supportive in so many ways these last 9 years (don't you just love those little hats!):



I have already determined that I will get a Doctorate of Ministry degree; though I will have to wait a couple of years to begin that one. Congratulations to all of my fellow graduates and to all those that will be graduating over the next couple of weeks from other schools across the country.

Constitutional Amendments for the United Methodist Church

I recently received an email with links to these two videos by Maxie Dunnam regarding items that will be voted on at our upcoming Annual Conferences as possible constitutional amendments.

I thought I would repost the videos here. Here are the videos:





I am curious what you all think about the amendments. Should we pass them? Why or why not?