Closing celebration tells the story of Texas missions
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___CORPUS CHRISTI--Texas Baptists closed their annual meeting with a reminder of the impact of missions and ministry work across the state and beyond.
___The program illustrated how Texas Baptists are "helping people know the love of our Lord Jesus," said Charles Wade, executive director of the

ALBERT REYES (right), president of Hispanic Baptist Theological School, introduces his parents, Gus and Gloria Reyes, who told about their work as Mission Service Corps volunteers in Kentucky. (BGCT photo)

Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"We've come to the reason for all that we have done" during the two-day meeting, Wade said in introducing the missions program narrated by native Texans Bill and Dellanna O'Brien.
___The O'Briens introduced a succession of Texas Baptists who, either in person or via videotape, told about their work.
___Jack Calk, director of missions for Del Rio-Uvalde Baptist Association, told the story of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the border from Eagle Pass. The church now reaches 1,000 people each week through 94 cell groups. After a study of the book of Acts, Pastor Israel Rodriguez determined buildings are not necessary to reach people for Christ.
___In another ministry connected to the Rio Grande River Ministry, messengers heard about mobile medical clinics that are assisting 67 mission and preaching points.
___Much further north, Cowboy Church in Waxahachie is an informal congregation targeting rodeo cowboys. It's a "blue jean church," founding pastor Ron Nolen said in video presentation.
___Many who come to the church say they have never before been to church, Nolen reported. "We are truly focused on reaching the cowboy for Christ."
___Bill Tinsley, executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, retold the history of Southern Baptist work in the region. In 1956, Texas adopted the seven churches in the two northern states. They eventually grew into a larger fellowship of churches and then into a convention of churches.
___"Daughters, of course, do leave home," Tinsley said, "but they stay close to parents."
___Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptists are emulating Texas Baptists' commitment to missions and ministry, he said. "The family you started continues to grow."
___A video highlighted mission trips by Challengers and Acteens Activators. Boys in the Texas group worked in Nicaragua to help map unreached tribes for missionaries. Girls traveled to Australia to help construct a tent city near Sydney during the Olympics.
___Ophelia Humphrey told how First Baptist Church of Amarillo has participated in international ministries in the Panhandle city. It all started when they reached out to a "large number of foreign-born wives of American servicemen" serving at a local military base, she said.
___Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth has become a "church without walls," said Pastor Michael Bell. The church had to rethink its idea of church membership, he said, and as a result decided it had a responsibility to all of a member's immediate family. "We consider them a part of our community."
___Chris Richey, minister to youth at First Baptist Church in Deer Park, told how his grandfather was shot down over France in World War II and taken to a German concentration camp. Then Richey told how that family history inspired him to travel to Germany to lead baseball camps. At the first camp, 15 teenagers gave their lives to Christ.
___A video told the story of the youth group at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco taking the gospel to prison inmates. One teenage girl said that when the teenagers begin to sing, "the atmosphere completely changes. ... It's just like God completely fills the room."
___Jeanne Law, outgoing president of Texas Woman's Missionary Union, told how women from First Baptist Church in Lubbock traveled to Romania to minister to orphans. Law said she still sees the faces of the children in her mind and prays for them.
___Mission Service Corps has given Gus and Gloria Reyes an avenue for ministry after retirement, they said. The couple are the parents of three boys who now are in vocational ministry, including Albert Reyes, president of Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio.
___After retirement, God led the Reyeses to Kentucky, where they started seven churches in three years. "We felt it was never too late to be a blessing," Gus Reyes said.
___Bill O'Brien closed the presentation by reminding messengers of the far-reaching scope of Texas Baptist missions.
___"All are in Texas, and Texas is in all them," he said.
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