A Legacy of Hope

Message Transcription

SUMMARY

Rudy Reyes, representing the Children's Home of Lubbock, delivers a sermon on creating a legacy of hope and service. He begins by discussing the concept of legacy, using personal anecdotes about family traditions to illustrate how legacies are built and passed down. Reyes emphasizes that creating a legacy requires intentional planning and effort.

The speaker then focuses on hope, citing scriptures such as Romans 15:13 and Isaiah 40:31 to underscore that our hope comes from God. He shares personal stories of receiving hope from mentors, particularly Dr. Hines, who believed in him and offered support during challenging times. Reyes encourages the congregation to be that source of hope for others, especially for the children at the Children's Home of Lubbock.

Lastly, Reyes discusses the importance of serving others, particularly the vulnerable. He shares his father's dedication to street ministry and his own experience of vulnerability after a car accident. He relates these experiences to the vulnerable children served by the Children's Home, urging the congregation to support their mission through various means of service and contribution.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Good morning, Broadway Church of Christ. Bear one another's burdens.

You have a burden too heavy. You just can't carry it alone. If you have children, that's a whole burden in itself, right? You're looking for babysitters. You're hoping that school is back in session.

When you have a burden and you need someone to help, you know that you're not alone. This is a community, and I'm so grateful to be invited into the community of Broadway Church of Christ and the community of the Children's Home of Lubbock. But my road wasn't traditional here, and I'll get to share a little bit more about myself and who I am and how I got here and the mission that we're on at the Children's Home of Lubbock. But I'd be in trouble if I didn't take time to introduce my family. So let me take time to do that.

I have with me today my wife, Lisa, and my two children, Gavin and Isela.

It s just so hard. I'm so used to walking around. Oh, I should have had a headset. That would have been very, very 90s of me. Very boy Ben.

Then y'all would have seen me dancing. You don't want that. So thank you for not letting me have a headset. But my two children are with me today. Just so you know a little bit about them.

They're teenagers. That's all you need to know about them. There's plenty there. We came back from San Antonio and my wife and my daughter took off shopping. One direction, I went with my son another direction, and we ended up at a sketcher store.

And I started trying on these shoes that I liked. And I told Gavin, I say, what do you think about these? And he goes, u I wouldn't wear them.

And I go, why not? He goes, well, first of all, we're in a sketcher store. I was like, oh, my gosh. I was like, but they have memory foam. And I was like, who likes memory foam?

You know you like memory foam. See, Gavin. See? Yeah. He was like, well, first of all, we're in a Skeccher store.

But he goes, but if your goal is to look more dad, I guess that works. So that's a teenager for you. My daughter is not very far behind him. She's also a teenager. And where she does all the teenage things and everything we do is embarrassing.

And that's how that works. But we enjoy them. At one point, she had a YouTube channel that I couldn't even like, could t I couldn't even comment on the YouTube channel. I thought she was doing great work. So I commented.

I was like, hey, good job. That was funny. Great. She was like, please don't comment on my YouTube channel. That's so creepy.

I'm like, why is it creepy? She was like, because you're like a grown man on the kids'channel And I'm like, I'm your dad. She's like, nobody knows that. You're like, perv. I'm like, and then when I thought it that way, I thought, you know, that's kind of true.

I was like a 40 year old, the only 40 year old commenting on the teenage girls channel. I was like, you know what? Will you delete that? Can you block me? Cause I don't trust myself.

But having teenagers, what a burden, right? So I need a community of people. And the Bible says, bear one another's burdens. So I come before the elders of the church. They are re my children.

Bear them, please.

You know, today I want to talk to you about creating a legacy of hope. You know, my wife, I would be amiss to not mention my beautiful wife. And I have stories about her, but they're all perfect. They're all perfect stories. Nothing crazy.

But last night we spent some time visiting and she made the comment, she we've created a beautiful life. And it warmed my heart to know that my wife is happy and we're where God wants us to be. But I told her it wasn't by accident. It takes a lot of prayer. It takes a lot of planning.

Takes a lot of sacrifice. The word create. The word create means to bring something forth that wasn't there before, to bring it into existence or cause something to happen that maybe wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the action that you took. And when my wife can say, we've created a life together, I can take pride in the fact that we made some choices along the way to create that life. And this morning, I want to talk to you about creating a legacy.

And while I'm here representing the Children's Home of Lubbock, and I want to invite you to help us create that legacy, I also would want you to reflect on what you're creating in your own life. What legacy are you creating for your family, for your children? Of course, at the Children's home of Lubbock, we want to invite you into our mission. But a legacy? Well, what is a legacy?

There are many, many ways you could look at a legacy. Of all the things that you talk About a legacy. What are some words that come to mind? Well, I created a word cloud because I'm a teacher. I spent about 23 years in education, and word clouds were, like, by far one of my favorite things to do.

Any educators in the house in Minan? Don't you love a good word cloud, y'all? At the end of at the presentation, there's a shaped word cloud. I know if you're looking forward to it, you are. You don't know it yet, but when you see it, you're going to go, how did he do that?

And I'll share my website later with you. Follow me on YouTube. No, don't. I'm sorry.

But when I think about legacy, there's other ways to think about legacy. Well, it can be a tradition, an inheritance, an endowment, a remembrance. And we start the holidays and we create our own legacies, you know, our traditions that we have in our family, our legacies that we live, that we leave to each other, we leave to our family. My mom makes holiday cookies. And she knows now because I told her to send them to me.

She wasn't doing that. She would wait t until I came home for the holidays, which was every other Christmas. And I was like, mom, but I really miss those cookies. She was s like, oh, you want me to send you some? I'm like, yes, I'm 40.

I can't cook my own cookies. What's wrong with you? And so my mom has these traditions where she makes these holiday crinkle cookies. That's just a tradition. And I come to look forward to them.

And one day when my mom's gone, I'm going toa miss the fact that she made those cookies for me. And I'll try to carry on the tradition, but it just won't be the same. That's what a legacy is. It's something that they leave for you to carry on, do the best you can to learn from it and move forward with it. The legacy.

The legacy continues. You know, my grandmother, her birthday was December 24th, and I shared this story in one in our recent newsletters. But her birthday was December 24th, and she hated it because what happens to people who share a birthday with a holiday? Well, they get snubbed. That's what happens to them.

They get snubbed. And she would make a point to say, do not give me a Christmas slash birthday gift. You don't get a Christmas slash birthday gift, do you? No. Oh, go then.

I don't want one either. I better get two gifts. She would Tell me I better get two gifts. I better have two cakes. That was my grandmother.

So you had to wrap her birthday present in birthday wrapping paper. It better not come with poinsettass or Santa Claus on it, because that counts as Christmas. She wanted it separate. Another thing about that birthday is that she wanted to spend it with her family. And they better have a birthday party, not a Christmas party, even though it's Christmas Eve.

And so we would all gather together and my grandmother would take us to my aunt's house, which was her younger sister. And every Christmas Eve we would take her for her birthday over there and we would cut a cake and we would spend time. And of course it was Christmas Eve, December 24, and everybody would gather around and we would sit and we would watch everything happen. And this was my grandmother's sister house and her family. So my, what, second aunt and my second and third cousins were there.

And we did this for years. For years. We took my grandma, we'd pick her up, we'd take her to go celebrate her birthday on Christmas Eve, we would spend Christmas Eve there with them, and then we would leave. Well, all my childhood I did that. All through high school, all through college, and then I got engaged.

And I said, you know what would be fun? If you, honey, came along with me. Because who doesn't want to go spend time at their fiance's third cousin's house? Come on. So I brought her along with me.

She was like, oh, where are we going? I said, every Christmas Eve, it's a thing. It's great. You're going to love it. So we got in my aunt's house, we said, hello, hello, hello.

We walked all the way down the line until we sat in our normal spot in the kitchen. And that was our normal spot. We sat in the kitchen, we had a little table, me and my family, and we stayed there for about two hours. And about two hours, my wife finally just turns to me and she whispers in my ear, do they know you're here? And I go, whooo.

And she goes, your family? I go, yes. She goes, we haven't moved in two hours. And I go, this is what we do. She goes, why?

Because that's. This is how we spend Christmas Eve. And she goes, you're not getting any presents. I go, well, it's not for us. Goes, well, who's here?

I'm like, it's for them. And it was in that moment that I realized, like, we were just going through the motions. We had carried on this tradition. And even after my grandmother Passed away. We tried it a couple of years to carry those in tradition, but the tradition didn't mean anything to me.

It meant a lot to my grandmother because it was her family, it was her sister, and it was her birthday party. But that legacy didn't mean anything to me. And when she said, do they know you're here? I realized that we hadn't developed a relationship. As many times I had gone to that house, as many times as I had participated.

I'm going to put that in quotes in their traditions. I really hadn't developed a connection.

And a legacy is about a connection. That wasn't my tradition. That was my grandmother's tradition. And so it was time for us to break away. And thanks to the inside of my fiance at that point, I talked to my parents and I said, why are we going back at this point?

Grandma'already passed away and we're still going. Why aren't we doing Christmas Eve on our own? Let's try something different. And then we broke away. I was, you know, in my late 20s, and my parents had just decided, you know what?

That's a good idea. We had never thought about creating our own legacy, about creating our own tradition, about doing something that we could call our own. And my dad began the tradition, like many other families, reading from the Gospel of Luke. And he'does it every year now. At one point, he brought up puppets, but we won't talk about that.

It was unfortunate. That was unfortunate. But it was. He tried, but he read from the Gospel to Luke. And it became our tradition.

And now we look forward to something that we can call our own. But that's a legacy. Something you build, that you plan, you make an effort, you carve it out and then you pass it on. And the hope is that on Christmas Eve that his children will read Luke to their children and his grandchildren will be able to read the Gospel of Luke. Because that's what they have built.

That's how the inheritance that they received from their grandfather, that's the remembrance that they'll have from my father. Not sitting in the kitchen, being ignored, being told, don't touch the rumbless. Right? That's the inheritance, the legacy. So what legacy are we leaving?

Well, you have something that you have to plan for. And we invite you at the children's so of Beloveub, we invite you to be part of the legacy because we're building a legacy. I know that I stand in the shadow of giants before me, and I don't take that lightly. But what the children's Home of Lubck is doing is loving and serving and creating space for these children. And that's the legacy that we're leaving, and that's the legacy that will be here long after we're gone.

The next thing I want to talk about, after you create a legacy is creating a legacy of hope.

The Bible says that our hope lies in the Lord. And before I do that, I do want to make sure I read these scriptures because the legacy that we live in. 2 Timothy talks about the faith that's passed on from grandparents to grandchildren. And two Timothy one, five says, I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Louis and your mother Eunice. And I am persuaded now lives in you.

Also in Psalm 7, 8, 4, says, we will not hide from their children. We will tell to the coming generations the praises of the Lord and the wonders he has done. In Proverbs 13:22, I love this one. Says, A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous. I read that thing three times before I realized man what he's basically saying.

The Bible is basically telling us that all things work together for good. And at the end of the day, even those things that belong, that are being controlled by evil, God will turn it into good. Because at the end of the day, the world is his kingdom, the inheritance is ours. Our father owns a cattle on a thousand hills, and it all belongs to the Lord.

Hope. We build a legacy of hope because our hope is in the Lord. And I got another wonderful word cloud for you. But our hope is a dream. There are many words that you could look at that are syding in for hope.

A dream, a vision, a wish. Something you can anticipate for back in 1954, when the children's home of Lubbock first broke ground and opened its doors to the first set of children, what did they anticipate it would become? What was the hope? What was the vision? What was the dream?

Well, I invite you to dream with us today. Dream with us. We have a hope. We have a hope that we're going toa continue on for years to come. But we also have a hope that we're going to be able to offer more opportunities for our kids.

Right now we're in the works of creating an animal therapy center, which will not just be for equine therapy, but other agricultural opportunities as well for our children to connect with. We have a hope that one day we're going to be able to offer an apartment complex of units that would be available to those children who have aged out into the system that are now young adults. We call it the Supervised Independent Living Program. We know that there is a need and we have a dream.

Our hope is in the Lord, and we invite you to dream with us. What dreams do you have for your family and what steps are you taking in? Romans 15:13 says, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Psalms 42:11 says, why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior, and my God. Lamentations 3:21 through 22 but this I call to mine, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end, and they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

Isaiah 40:31 but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall walk and not faint. You know, there was a time in my life and I told you I to tell you a little bit about how I got here. The very first time I came to Broadway Church of Christ, I was with Dr.

Hines. And Dr. Hines was my choir teacher, my mentor, my friend and inspiration to me. I didn't grow up in the Church of Christ. I didn't really know a whole lot about Lubck Christian.

But when I graduated high school, I knew that being in a body of Christ was going to be important to me because I was a believer. My father was a pastor, and I wanted that to be part of my experience, to be part of a Christnian university. And so I opened the pamphlet. It s said, loveubbo ITK Christian. I said, hey, brothers and sisters in Christ, sign me up.

So I showed up, and one of the very first things that I signed up and one of the very first things that came in the mail was an invitation to a choir camp. All right. I didn't know anything about choir camp. I don't know anything about Loveubard Christian. I really didn't know anything about the Church of Christ.

But I said, I like to sing. I've sung sometimes. Every once in a while I could do that. My mom said, it'be good for you. You can make friends.

They said, yeah, I'll sign up. So I signed up for the choir camp. They said, the bus leaves on this day. I got on the bus. I Didn't know anybody.

They all knew each other. That was weird. I was like, how did they know each other? We just got here. Then they all start singing songs together in four part harmony.

I was like, what the Muppet van is going on here? And I was looking around. I'm like, okay. Not only do they know each other, they all secretly practiced. And I do not know how I got here.

So we ride all the way to Canyon, Texas and they are bopping along and singing their songs. And I'm just like, don't look at me. I'm like, I really signed up for a real choir. I thought we were just going to like fake it till we make it. No, this was the real deal.

So I was like, well, how long till I can turn around? Well, I got there to Canyon, Texas. We all get in our rooms and they all come together and all of a sudden they start passing out these papers with these scribbly lines on them. And I'm looking at this paper and I'm looking at the guy next to me and they're like, if you're a tenor, go over here. If you're an alto, go over there.

If you're a base, go there. I'm like, what is he saying? I don't know what he's saying. And they're like, are you a tenor? I'm like, I don't know.

Are you a bass? I'm like, I'm not sure. Are you baritone? I go, that sounds worse. I don't know.

And they'like what do you see? High or low? I go, what does that mean? I'm like, I still don't know what he's to me. So finally some guy is like, I think you're a tenor.

I'm like, okay, come with me. So I go, okay. I just fake it. I just fake my way through the whole stinking week. I don't know what I'm doing.

I keep staring at this paper. I'm still singing. Whatever. The guy is next to me singing. And then Dr.

Hin starts announcing auditions. I'm like, auditions? This was a camp. I just wanted to make like a turkey handprint and some macrame. I didn't know what we're doing.

Why are we auditioning? This is not make sense to me. Why are we auditioning? So he's like, auditions are going toa be on this day and this place and please report to it. I don't know what we're talking about.

Make sure you have this song to sing. I'm like, I Don't know what that is. And so I'm panicking. I'm like, I don't know what aud audition? This is my very first audition ever, by the way.

And so I just get to the front, and then they start realizing. I start realizing he's calling people in just four at a time. You're only getting, like, one tenor, one bass, one baritone, one alto, one soprano. He'only like, calling, like, a very small group. So then I couldn't fake it anymore because now was the only person.

And Dr. Hin, he was so nice. He saw that I was struggling and everybody would sing. And finally he just stopped. And he was like, rudy, do you need to practice some more?

I'm like, yes, sir. He goes, do you need somebody to sing it for you? I go, that'd be great. And so he got one of the officers to come and sing in my ear. So he sang in my ear while I sang out loud.

I really did fake it, and I just. I winged it. I was like, I'm going do the best I can. Well, lo and behold, I don't know how those auditions work. They're a scam.

But I made it in the choir. I don't know how I made it in the choir, but I made it in the choir. I was like, well, joke's on you, buddy, because I don't know anything that we just read. So I'm making to the choir. And I loved every minute of it.

And I bring it up because he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. He had a vision for me that I had no clue. I had no clue about. And he offered me some hope. A hope to find fellowship, to find a connection, to create a family.

I became a very active member of that choir. And the very first time that I stepped foot into the Broadway Church of Christ, I was on risers doing a sermon and song with Dr. Hines when he flipped his lapel and there was a little smiley face on it.

But he saw something to me. He offered me that hope. And it wasn't the last time, because about a year and a half, maybe two years in, I ran out of money. My family was not the family that saved for college. I didn't have anything set aside for college.

And it got expensive really quick. And I was going to quit, and I was saying my goodbyes. So I had told all my friends already, hey, this is my last semester. I'm just not going to be able to get it back in here. And I told Dr.

Hines and I was in his office. And I said, Dr. Heinesz, just so you know, I'm not coming back next semester. I'm going to have to quit. He said, why?

So I started telling him my situation. And he offered me a scholarship. And it wasn't a scholarship that was going to rescue me from student debt. It was a small scholarship, like 300, $500. But I remember crying and thinking, you don't even know me.

Like, I'm not even that good. I don't know why you'd be giving me a scholarship. And he said, I don't want you to leave. And if I can help you stay, even for a semester, I want to do that. And he offered me the hope.

Hope is something that we can offer others because Christ offered it to us. And he saw something in me, and he reached out his hand and Dr. Hinesz gave me that hope. And even though it was a small scholarship, I stayed because of the spirit in which it was given. And I said, if he believes in me, then I can do this.

And so I did. And I made it work. But had it not been for him reaching out, I probably would have quit and not finished college. Not going back to get my master's in administration, not been on the road right now to get my doctoral degree. I certainly would be standing before you as the president of the Children's Home of Lubbock.

But he offered hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trusted him. So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm so grateful for those who have gone before us, who have offered hope to us. There's been a time in your life where somebody has believed in you, where somebody has offered you hope when you were hopeless. Who has dared you to dream when you didn't believe in yourself. Who has spoken life into you. Be that person for somebody else.

And today we invite you to be that person for the children at the children's home. For us to be the hope. We're there as a beacon of light. We're there as a salt of the earth. We're there as a city on a hill.

We are the hope.

Because they don't have anybody else know. Recently we had a tragedy out at the children's home. And one of our young men was hit by a car. Passed away. And one of the things I asked Jimmy on the night he passed was, who's going to go to the funeral?

And Jimmy said, well, sometimes it's just us, man. The reality to Know that that young man, his whole life in the system that became his family. And those are the people who are going to rally around him. His former staff members, his former caretakers, his former house parents, his former caseworkers who have created a family for him and they hoped and dreamed for him even when he couldn't.

But that's what it takes. When you build a legacy, you need to be willing to put in the work. When you create something, you'be willing to put in the work. And if you're going to offer hope to someone, it may cost you.

It costs the son of God everything. But he gave you hope.

So it's not asking too much.

Serving our legacy is not just offering hope, but serving others. Know my father grew up in ministry and I told you that as a briefly, I was a minister's son. He dedicated his entire life to serving the outcast, to serving those who were less fortunate. He knew that it was going to not be a financially rewarding job to do street ministry. And this was door to door.

Go find him. In the highways and the byways type of minist industry, he was looking, seeking the lost. He would wake up in the morning with a name on his heart and he would say, you know what? I'm going to look for Raul. I'm going to go look for Becky.

I'm going to go look for so and so. Because people had put them in their path and said, hey, pastor Richard, my son is on drugs, Pastor Richard, my daughter has run away. Would you please go find them? Would you please go minister to them? And he would go in his car looking for them.

All the regular joints where people would be hanging out, where drug addicts might be hanging out, where alcoholics might be hanging out. He would go to see if he could find them. And he would look around, hey, have you seen Becky? Have you seen Raul? He would go look for them, but he would do that instead of going to work.

And so financially it wasn't a rewarding job, but he was building the kingdom, actively seeking out the lost. And my mom and I and my brothers and sisters, we supported him in that. And he served wholeheartedly, served, no matter the cost. And I watched that happen. And he would bring them into our home.

When he would find Ra. When he would find Becky. There were people in my house that I didn't even know their real name. I knew one was Tear Girl. I don't know why she was Tear Girl, but there was a guy named Goat.

I don't know why his name was Goat. But they called him Goat. And he would say, we're here for them. You know, there was times I would walk into my house and he would say, hey, don't go to your room. I got somebody in there.

And he was giving away my bed. He would give away our rooms because people needed a place to stay. But I was serving wholeheartedly, and I got to watch it firsthand. And because he did that, I also watch people serve us. And as a community, they wrapp their efforts around that cause.

Because what we were going toa eat, how were we going toa pay for vehicles, how did we keep the light on? And people in the community believed in what my dad was doing. And while they may not be able to serve in the same capacity that he did, because that wasn't their gift, they knew that they could serve in other ways and support him. And the Bible talks about Moses when he parted the Red Sea, and who came to his aid when his hands were getting tired.

Moses couldn't part the Red Sea all alone. God moved through him. And then God brought support to him.

And he had one on each arm, holding his arms up.

That's community.

That's community. And when we'out at the Children's Home of Lubbock and we're doing the work, it may not be your calling, it may not be your gift. That's okay. Can you hold our hands up?

Because God's working through us.

We're just asking. As we serve together, as we serve together and we put into work, as we build a legacy, as we create a dream, we're excited to be able to join with you and our wonderful Lubbockt community that reaches far beyond the South Plains. Because we believe in what we're doing. We know that the serving that we do, we do because God has put that order in front of us. And when God says go, you go.

Amen.

There's many ways you can serve. I told you I love a good word Cloud. There's many ways you can serve. You can contribute, you can assist, you can offer, you can provide, you can minister, you can attend. We invite you to do any of those things if it speaks to your heart.

If you find a way that you can serve the children at the Children's Home of Lubbock, if you find a way, you can serve your church. If you can find a way you can serve your community, it will invite you to do that. Because our call is to be the light of the world, to be the salt of the earth. We are kingdom builders. Sometimes that Means we get calluses on our hand.

Sometimes that means we have to get on the ground. We're kingdom builders and it's a call to action.

We're serving the most vulnerable. And the last thing I want to talk to you about is being vulnerable.

Not even six months into my marriage, I was in a near fatal car wreck. We had just got married. I was driving into work and I rolled my Ford Explorer four times across the Tohoka Highway. I rolled it from one end of the highway straight over the median to the opposite end of the highway into that ditch. I went one and two and median and three and four lanes and ditch.

And I don't remember a lot of it. I remember that the first because I was told that the first three cars that stopped were all nurses on their way to work. I was a godsend.

But I remember that my very first taste of vulnerability came when I woke up and I was in a neck brace. I was in a wreck on Friday and Sunday morning. I was well enough to sit up. I had broken my neck in two places. I had detached my ear.

They had to reattach it. I had glass still all over my scalp and it was like coming out every time I'd wash my hair. And my wreck was on Friday and on Sunday morning they said, you're being dismissed. I said, no, I'm not. And I fought.

I was like, no, I'm not. No, I don't want to go home and go, no, you're good. You can go home. I said, no, I'm in a neck brace and he's telling me I'm good. I'm like, I'm not good.

I don't feel good. We're just missing you. And I went home and my wife started taking care of me. My parents had come in immediately since the wreck. My parents came in, my wife was taking care of me.

And before my parents left, I had gone through being fed, being bathed, being helped in and out of the car, in and out of the restroom. It was such a vulnerable place to be.

And I don't know if you've ever been that vulnerable. I'm sure you've been vulnerable in other ways. But for me, it was debilitating to be that vulnerable. And I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

I didn't like knowing that I couldn't do things for myself. I didn't know what my future was going to hold. All they could tell me, by the way, was, we don't know if you're ever Going to be able to get mobility in your neck. We're not sure you're ever going to be able to walk like you used to walk again, but we're going to send you to therapy, and we'll see. So I didn't know what the future held after you break your neck and they send you home with, we'll see.

It's not very promising.

And I told my parents, take me home with you. Go back. I want to go back to San Antonio with you. And they said, you're married. I said, oh, yeah?

I said, well, she needs to divorce me. And they said, why would you say that? I said, because this isn't what she signed up for. I don't know how long I'm gonna be like this. I don't want her taking care of me.

I'm supposed to take care of her. My dad said, you're with your wife. You're gonna stay here. So then I switched gear and I told my wife, honey, my parents aren't gonna take me home as long as I'm married. Divorce me.

And she said, you're crazy. I'm not divorcing you. I said, well, you didn't sign up for this. And I don't know how long I'm going to be like this, but I don't like being this vulnerable. I don't like having to be lifted up and taken here and my hair washed and my teeth brushed, and I don't like it.

I don't like being that vulnerable.

But it was a point in my life where I needed other people, and a lot of it was pride because it wasn't going to last. But even in that short moment, I couldn't sacrifice my pride. I didn't like it. And I think about that and how my situation was temporary, albeit devastating. It was temporary, but I look at the children that we serve, and I realize that for a lot of them, they're vulnerable their whole life.

They've been vulnerable since birth.

Their living situation is at the capacity of their parents, of their grandparents, of the home they came from. And I don't know what their situation is, guys, but when they end up at the children's home of Lubbock, there were strangers in a strange place, maybe in a strange city, and they're defenseless.

They are at the mercy of their caregivers. I didn't like it, and it was just that fast for me. Within a year, I was better. But for a lot of them, this is their life as a children's home of Lubbock. We are working with some of the most vulnerable children who have some of the most horrific stories.

Maybe they've come from abuse, maybe they've come from neglect. Maybe they're a victim of sex trafficking. But they're with us now. And you would think that would make everything better, but the reality is you've taken them from the only thing that they ever knew, and now they're defenseless and vulnerable. They may have known how to survive where they were before, to live within the rules and the confines and the constraints of their situation.

Maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe it wasn't healthy, maybe it wasn't safe, but it was theirs. And now even that's been taken from them.

And they're exposed because now everybody knows their secret. They're exposed because everybody knows what their parents have done, where they came from, their story.

But I don't want it to be a story. I want it to be a testimony. I want their story to be a testimony of God's goodness, of his graciousness, of his strength, of his healing power.

Because although they may be fragile, although they may be hurting, God is a healer.

And I ask you, when you join us, whether it be in your financial giving or in your prayerful considerations or in your time that you spend with us at the Children's Home, however you can give, however you can partake, however you can create that legacy alongside of us, know that you're serving the most vulnerable. Bear one another's burdens, for in this way, you serve Christ. I thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to share the mission and vision of the Children's Home of Lubbock.

I know that together we're making a difference.

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 22:6, Start children off on the way they should go. And even when they're old, they will not turn from it. Our goal at the Children's Home of Lubbock is to plant a seed. They may be with us for six weeks. They may be with us for six months.

They might be with us for six years. However long they're with us. Our goal is to plant a seed, and that's all we can do. We plant the seed, God will water it, God will grow it. We pray that when they find their own congregation, as they grow older, they will remember the congregations that they were part of as children.

Fond memories of going to church and feeling safe and feeling loved, knowing that scripture was a part of their daily life, that it was a healing part of one of the most traumatic moments of their life. But we're going to train up a child.

We're going to start them off strong, and we do that with your help. Immediately after service. We would love for you, if you've already RSVP to join us. We would love for those who joined us at the luncheon to ask questions, learn a little bit more about the programs that we offer, because there's a lot going on at the Children's Home of Lubbock, and then you can get involved. We would really appreciate your help.

There's a lot to do. There's a lot of people to serve, and we're going to be doing it for many, many years to come. Thank you.