Sponsoring the Future

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“My goodness, how you have grown!” How many times have we said those words to others whom we knew yesterday as small children? Days melded into months and years so quickly, and it seems overnight that the child has become a young adult. We have experienced similar moments with our sponsored Samuel’s Fund children, especially during the mission trips this summer.

It seems only a short time ago that we carried food and resources to the home of a Samuel’s Fund child. How their eyes widened and glowed at the sight of bread and milk, and special treats like peanut butter and cookies! Now some of these same children, grown into young adults, have joined our mission teams as translators. They assist in delivering food and resources to other sponsored children and their families and help with construction projects, orphanage ministry, and VBS classes.

Recently we asked Harold to share his testimony with a missions group. He is married to Sara, a lovely Christian girl, and works for Fed Ex. He expressed his gratitude for the sponsorship that paid for his schooling and allowed him to learn English. Today he is a leader in the IBQ church and pastors another “daughter” church during his off time.

“Samuel’s Fund sponsorship enabled me to get an education and learn English. That is the reason that today I have a good job and can support my family and my church,” he says.

Harold is just one of many examples of the impact of the Samuel’s Fund sponsorship program. It is an investment in the future of churches and families in the Dominican Republic.

Bailey Sets Record 42 Years of Service at Children’s Home

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Ginger Bailey set the record for the longest continuously serving staff member at STCH Ministries with a career of 42 years and counting. (Click to enlarge photo.)

PETTUS – In a time when median job tenure for professionals is 5.5 years, 42 years of service at the same organization is extraordinary. Ginger Glynn Bailey began her social work career as a foster care worker/case worker for the South Texas Children’s Home (STCH) right out of graduate school in 1976. July 12th is the anniversary of her employment with STCH Ministries and makes her the longest continuously serving staff member in the organization’s sixty-six years of history.

Equally remarkable is the fact that this distinguished career began as a dream in the heart of an eight-year-old girl while visiting a children’s home in San Antonio. While in high school, Bailey sent letters to children’s homes all around the state looking for summer internship possibilities and STCH responded. The connection eventually became a full-time position in which Bailey would touch the lives of thousands of children.

In 1985, Bailey moved into the role of Director of Social Services and continues to serve faithfully in that capacity today. In a career that bridges more than four decades, Bailey has witnessed many changes, ranging from technology to procedural polices and state standards. Bailey notes that the needs of children and families in crisis remain the same. The situations that bring children to the home may vary, but the emotional and physical requirements for personal healing are constant.

Bailey most enjoys building relationships with families and “being there” for former students needing support. “When a family has a concern about their child, they may be tearful or even angry,” she said. “They need someone to listen and to help them work through the process. I’m glad I can be there for those that are hurting.” Especially heartwarming for Bailey are phone calls from former students sharing good news, or alumni who drop by to show their own children the place they called “home.”

STCH Ministries is honored to count Ginger Bailey as a member of our team. We celebrate her steadfast commitment and exemplary service to children and families.

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STCH Ministries is a faith-based, nonprofit organization that has been caring for children and families since 1952. We provide homes, support, counseling, and life-skills training to those in need, and also reach beyond our borders through international missions. We provide all of our services regardless of an individual or family’s ability to pay for them.  We are 100% supported by private donations and do not accept any state or federal funding.

Germinating Seeds of Love

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For the last 10 years, every mission team has included at least one day of orphanage ministry in their busy schedules–providing training and needed resources, building needed projects, and sharing enrichment activities like an outing to the aquarium or the underground caves. Through every activity, our desire was to share Christ’s love and encourage the staff.

Over the last year, however, we sensed God drawing our attention to the ineffectiveness of our “hit-and-run” ministry to those children. Because our IBQ headquarters are between 1.5 and 3 hours distance from the orphanages, a “day” with the children actually consisted of 4-5 hours—a shared meal, a few games, and a devotional—and we were loading up the bus and saying goodbye. We realized that spending more time at the orphanages was a prerequisite for building a relationship, and a relationship was necessary to effectively share love and encouragement.

This summer we are grateful for the flexibility of teams as we have experimented with more time invested at the orphanages. This required packing an overnight bag, towels and a favorite pillow, groceries, and the all-essential coffee maker; loading up sports equipment, baking supplies, crafts and paint, saws, hammers, screws and nails. It also required spending several nights in unfamiliar situations, sometimes without air conditioning, and adjusting to a menu not quite up to the standards of the IBQ kitchen.

Each mission team came prepared for various activities. Bear Creek Baptist Church from Katy painted orphanage roofs and ceilings, added screens to windows, and shelves for clothes. University Baptist Church from Clear Lake built playhouses–a workshop complete with toy hammers, saws, and measuring tapes. And a kitchen with plastic fruits and vegetables, pots, and dishes. They shared training for caregivers in one orphanage and nurturing activities and Bible studies for the staff at another. All spent quality time with the children.

How can a mission team give value to a child who has been traumatized and placed in an orphanage? We can love. We can get on their level and make eye contact. We can listen. We can hug. We can sing and play and laugh with them. We can admire and affirm their “wins” in games or crafts. By faith we can plant seeds of love, and trust God to germinate in each heart. We may never see the results, but sometimes God gives us a glimpse of His work.

Jose sat angrily, arms folded on the sidelines, refusing to participate. “Can we talk together?” asked Emelin. “No, I don’t want to talk to anybody.” “Okay, can I give you a hug?” “No, I don’t want anyone to touch me!” Emelin affirmed him and the activity continued. The next day Jose approached Emelin. “Today, I would like to talk to you.” The conversation began and ended with a hug…which Jose initiated!

Spending more time at the orphanage created a relationship. Love germinated and sprouted a hug!

Stitched with Love

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“Gifts of handmade quilts wrap people in God’s love and symbolically demonstrate that Jesus and His disciples care;
the quilts represent the ultimate security blanket.” – Stitches of Love Quilting Ministry vision statement

For nearly as long as European immigrants have been on our soil, American patchwork quilts have represented comfort, security, and a place to belong. For more than sixty years, STCH Ministries Homes for Children has provided the same for children in crisis. For thirteen years now, the quilting ministry, “Stitches of Love”, of University Baptist Church (UBC) in Houston has partnered with Homes for Children to create unique quilts for each graduating class. These handcrafted gifts ensure that the assurance of comfort, security, and a place to belong continue long past high school graduation for the young people in our care.

Erin DeCola has lived at STCH Ministries for almost three years, and she is one of the five high school graduates we celebrated at Homes for Families this spring. After receiving her quilt, Erin tells us, “I really love my quilt and it means a lot that these ladies made it. It is something that I can pass down for many generations to come.”

Kyrenda Lambert grew up watching both her grandmother and mom quilt by hand. She remembers the wooden quilting frames that hung from the ceiling at her grandma’s home where the women gathered and worked together. When she and her longtime friend Donna Bennet saw the opportunity to take a quilting class at San Jacinto Community College, they were hooked. Stiches of Love is the result of that class.

“It’s about fellowship and living life together. We minister to each other as we sew, “ Kyrenda says.

Stitches of Love functions as both fellowship for believers and an outreach ministry for the church. The group is described as “women of all ages (early 30s – 93 years old) who enjoy quilting, coming together for learning, sharing experiences, working on their own quilts, and working on quilts that will be donated as an outreach to those within and beyond our walls.” Kyrenda and Donna wanted the group to have a purpose, to create ministry quilts for people experiencing difficult moments in life.

Every year, UBC quilters create a personalized quilt for each of the high school seniors who graduate while in care at Homes for Children. Each blanket is personalized to showcase the teen’s interests and favorite colors. In 2018, the graduating class received their quilts during a special graduate celebration of “Senior Chapel” at Wednesday night Chapel on Boothe Campus.

Isaiah, Haley, Erin, Joshua, and Mary we here at Homes for Children are proud of you. Our prayers and support go with you, we hope the quilt is a physical reminder of that support as you move forward to the next step God is showing you. Ezra 10:4 states, “Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.”

Volunteer Spotlight

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Julie Strayer has a passion for teaching money management, and she can’t imagine not doing so.

As a volunteer teacher for STCH Ministries Faith & Finances, Julie helps individuals, couples, and entire families learn how to make a spending plan, manage debt and loans, live more simply, and set goals for saving.

“Faith and Finances is the best title in the world to me,” Julie explained, “because I’m sold out on people getting their finances in order and I’m sold out on faith.”

“Julie Strayer is one of the most passionate and high energy volunteers we have ever met!” said Jimmy Rodriguez, Director of Faith & Finances in Corpus Christi. “She is a busy and successful businesswoman who finds time to follow her calling to help others, and she also recruits business colleagues and fellow church members to help out.”

Julie’s conviction that wise money management is the key to a successful life runs deep. She and her husband Stewart both grew up in homes that modeled how to spend and save wisely. Their habit of always setting aside reserves enabled them to survive three-month stretches without a paycheck as they built a small business and raised their family.

It stirs Julie’s heart to hear students’ stories about the consequences of poor money management.

“One sad situation is people taking out payday loans to hold them over until their next paycheck,” Julie shared. “God says the borrower is slave to the lender, and these six-month payday loans are charging 60 to 70 percent interest! We’ve got to do something to help people overcome the obstacles that keep them trapped. Faith & Finances classes are a beginning.”

“I love that you don’t have to be brilliant to learn about personal finance,” Julie continued. “You can be normal and average and become financially secure. Managing finances is a basic life skill you have to learn, just like driving a car. It burdens me that people aren’t learning it. The world is broken, and it encourages us to be broke…to spend every penny we have. When you are financially broke, it is easy to get beaten down. Before long, every aspect of your life gets broken. But, when a person is willing to look at their finances and begin getting them in order, other areas of their life start falling into place. I truly believe that!”

STCH Ministries is grateful for volunteers like Julie who serve others through the things they are passionate about. What is your passion? To learn how you can serve, visitwww.STCHM.org/Ways-to-Help.

Loving the Functionally Fatherless

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Living in the light of God’s Word is convicting. James writes that religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27).

Many of our kids come from functionally fatherless situations; it may be that there was a divorce, a death, absentee, or situational fatherlessness. The children’s home does not receive the parental rights to the children when they come into care. The individual placing the child remains the one with rights to the children. We are called to come alongside, ministering to the family and children with the love of Christ, being family-like.

As Father’s Day came this year, as in previous years, my phone received many text messages of “Happy Father’s Day!” As I age, I can gauge the era in which the sender of the text lived at the South Texas Children’s Home. If the text refers to me as “Greg”, then the sender lived here during the 90’s; and if they call me “Mr. Huskey”, then they were from the 2000’s. I am grateful for having all these kids in my life. Whether in church, at school, or at the home, I have never tried to be a father to the students. However, I have tried to be “father like” to all.

Thus, that brings me back to why we are called. We are called to love. Love is what God did for us to the point of the death of His son. No greater love than a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Love is more than words, it is a call to action, a call to love “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40), to show the love of our Heavenly Father. He is our Daddy, Abba, and Father to the functionally fatherless.

And a final thought: without receiving God in our lives, we are functionally living, but spiritually fatherless. Let us freely give what we have freely received.

Submitted by Greg Huskey
Boothe Campus Administrator
STCH Ministries Homes for Children