One of the first articles that I had published (by the Baptist Standard) began with the words, \u201cI walked the dusty streets of Lull again today.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I was the Baptist Student Minister and Bible Instructor at Pan American University (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and as such served with the staff of the Rio Grande Valley Baptist Area.\u00a0 We were looking for places to start new churches, and I was searching for a place in this migrant community of Lull, north of Edinburg, Texas. More than fifty-five years have come and gone since then.\u00a0 I\u2019ve traveled, and in some cases prayer-walked, in all fifty states, every Canadian Province and in fifty-nine countries of the world. Two and a half years ago, following my second attempt at retirement, I was invited to return to the Rio Grande Valley to teach pastors and church leaders, some of whom had come from Mexico and Central America.\u00a0 We began with twenty-five. Over the months we\u2019ve trained several hundred in person, a few more via Zoom, an additional several hundred via Podcast, and thousands via live-stream. This week we will graduate another eighty leaders. On my free afternoon, I will drive through Lull again, thinking to myself, \u201cYou\u2019ve come a long way baby,\u201d but then focusing on Ephesians 2:10, \u201cFor we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.\u201d\u00a0 As I drive out of Lull, I will be singing an old spiritual:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve Come This Far By Faith,
\nLeaning On The Lord.
\nTrusting In His Holy Word.
\nHe\u2019s Never Failed Us Yet.
\nOh, Oh- Oh- Can\u2019t Turn Around,
\nWe\u2019ve Come This Far By Faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the first articles that I had published (by the Baptist Standard) began with the words, \u201cI walked the dusty streets of Lull again today.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I was the Baptist Student Minister and Bible Instructor at Pan American University (now University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and as such served with the staff of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3596,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3595\/revisions\/3596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}