37. The Move to Houston

© 2020 Daniel Yordy

August 2002 – July 2004

As I finished posting the last chapter, there arose in me the sense that our time in Three Way was much more important than I had understood, and that I will know more what that means as we go forward in our present lives. This makes me very glad, for we all loved our brief time there.

At the same time, as I have written this chapter, I realize that God gave me three years of peace and family happiness, from our arrival at Three Way to the late fall  of 2004, before He took me back into the press in preparation for the most wondrous word God has ever spoken into me. And so, a big part of my purpose in this letter is to give you a flavor and sense of the joy of our family. As I realize now, our time with our children growing up was the best time of my life.

School Begins 
As soon as Kyle and I had returned from our trip to Houston, we started loading our blue van with all my tools and anything else that would fit into it that was not needed for Maureen and the children. They would remain at Three Way until I had found a place for us to live in Houston. Now, we say, “Houston,” because that is our address, but the Sheldon ISD is outside of Houston city limits, which borders on the district’s west side. 

There was a training time for new teachers beginning several days before classes started, so I drove down in the blue van by myself as soon as possible. A tire blew out in the late afternoon as I was entering Waco. Since there were duals on the rear, I could keep driving, but I had several tons of weight and had to get the tire fixed. I found a truck shop open that was able to put on a new tire and thus arrived in Houston late that evening. 

I think on the second day of the teacher training time, I was visiting with some other teachers about my living situation, with my family remaining in west Texas until I could find a place. A lady sitting opposite from me perked up and offered me a room in her and her husband’s home for the interim. Their last name was Rogers; they lived north of Sheldon ISD in Atascocita.

I found a storage rental place and unloaded most of what was in the blue van before driving on up to Atascocita to spend the next several weeks staying with the Rogers. I felt very welcome and comfortable in their home and had a nice bedroom. It was not a long drive to the school, maybe twenty minutes with traffic.

I was now teaching English in a large public high school. My year began reasonably well; my experience at Three Way helped greatly to prepare me. I will share more of my new teaching experiences in a later section.

I really enjoyed my time with the Rogers; they were friendly and comfortable. I spent around five weeks with them. Besides teaching school, however, my first task was to find a home for us so that Maureen and the children could come. They continued living in our home at Three Way. When school started, Kyle began sixth grade at Sudan, while Maureen taught Johanna at home. Then, my second task was to find a church that was similar to what we had known in Lubbock.

I drove by the house for sale that I had first seen when I searched the Internet. It was located in a quiet neighborhood about a mile southeast of C.E. King High School. But I did not think we could get a loan to purchase the house, and I preferred something more in the countryside with a couple of acres. So I drove all around in my big blue van looking for a home. I found a nice double-wide on a large country lot north of Dayton. I found another empty property southwest of Dayton that I could easily purchase as the note was carried by the developer. I ended up at a mobile home seller in Porter. Then there was a lot of running around trying to find the right mobile home and to put it all together. Needless to say, none of it seemed right, but I was getting acquainted with northeast Harris county. 

I visited a number of churches, including a Methodist church with the Rogers, but even though I rejoice in worshipping with other brethren, none were like City View. I will share one experience, however. On a drive from Dayton to Atascocita, I passed an “Apostolic” church. I thought, “This sounds interesting.” And so I visited there one Sunday.

It was a Pentecostal church; it was also good that I sat in the back row. The praise was anointed of the Spirit, and then the preacher began. His sermon was “Jesus only,” that we are to be baptized in the name of Jesus only. I’m willing to listen to anything the Bible might say, so I paid attention to his verses. I could see his point, but I also knew the many verses he ignored. Believing something radical out from the Bible is no problem to me, but the heart of the speaker is. And it did not take me long to identify the heart of this preacher. He exulted with joy over the fact that all the millions of Christians in the Houston area, who imagine that they love Jesus, were all going straight to hell because they had not been baptized in the name of “Jesus only.” 

At this point I was ready to leave straight away, but I dared not, because it also seemed probable that he would nail me as an apostate before I could escape. So I endured the rest of his sermon and fled the place as soon as it was safe to do so. It doesn’t matter what his Bible verses were, his darkened heart against God’s precious people told me everything. 

I was not feeling successful in finding a home for us, and this was rapidly becoming a problem because, although I love some solitude, I love being with my family more. 

On Labor Day weekend, Maureen flew down by herself, leaving the children with her sisters, in order to be part of choosing our new home. I was still with the Rogers, and it was nice to share my new experiences with Maureen. We did look at the several different places I had scouted. We wanted something larger, so that each of our children could have a bedroom, but it had to be within our price range. Larger houses in our price range, however, had something wrong with them. One was rotting. We also looked at that first house I had seen while still at Three Way, at 7914 Fernbank Drive. The problem with the house on Fernbank is that it had an incredibly poor interior design, though it was definitely big enough.

We finally agreed to pursue a loan, believing that this house was ours. After Maureen flew back, I connected with the listed realtor and applied for a loan. Because of my two-year contract as a teacher with Sheldon ISD, we were approved. We then went through all the steps needed to finalize the purchase.

Meanwhile, the Roger’s daughter was returning, and they asked me about finding another place so that they could use the room I was in. They were very kind and gracious. Meanwhile, Vicki Giles, the head of curriculum at C.E. King, had also offered me a short-term stay in a spare room in their home. Vicki Giles and her husband lived in a nice sub-division just northwest of Crosby. And so I spent the next two weeks in their home. They were a bit more formal and less conversational then the Rogers, but I was quite comfortable in their spare bedroom. 

I continued through all the steps of securing our new home. When those steps were in the right place, around the first of October, I moved from the Giles’ into that empty house with a foam mattress in what would become our bedroom. I continued to teach school every day, through this process.

Our New Home 
Our new home was still not ready for Maureen and the children to come, so I went right to work on it. I was feeling much stronger than I had at Blair Valley, and so I tackled the first part of a complete remodel with enthusiasm. On the next page is a rough floor plan of how it was when we bought it, followed by the front of our house nearer to the time we bought it.
 


As you can see, the previous owners had done a lot of work to it, first turning the garage into two bedrooms and then enclosing the patio as one large room added to the house. This made it large like I wanted, but because the resulting interior layout was so poor, it remained in our price range. Yet it was sound and comfortable. In fact, the owners had just installed new floor tile and bedroom carpets and gotten a new paint job in order to sell it. Of truth, they should have saved most of their money.

There were several big problems. First, the kitchen was tiny, and all traffic went through the kitchen. If you opened the fridge door, you could not open the oven and vice versa, and no one could pass through if either were open. Then, the “dining” area was narrow, with the step at the back of the garage running down the middle, even though they had tiled everything. Then, the two bedrooms still had the garage’s sloping floor, and the large backroom was cut off from the house by the back wall of the garage, which was still brick, with only a small door as passage.

I drew up a couple of new floor plans, and Maureen chose the one that I then built over the next three years. But the messiest job was removing the brick wall inside the house and opening up between the narrow and useless “dining area” and the large but cutoff back room. I did that work and then cleaned the whole house before Maureen and the children came.

I became quite eager to make everything as nice as I could before they came. One thing I did was to buy a large above-ground plastic swimming pool from Academy and set it up in the back yard. I told no one about it.

Then, when our new home was ready enough, I took a Friday off from school and flew to Lubbock. Maureen and the children met me there and we rented a large Penske truck. Brother Claude also flew into Lubbock to help us with the move.  After driving out to Three Way, I asked Canaan Heinrich and his younger brother, as well as Rigo Rodriguez if they would come help load our stuff into the truck. They were all farm boys, like the young men at Blueberry, and were energetic helpers. It was with sadness then, that we drove away from what had been a lovely place for us in Maple, Texas. 

But we were heading to a new home, and that was good. Little James was almost three years old. We put his car seat in the Penske truck with me. That is his first memory, riding with his dad to Houston in the big yellow truck. Claude, Maureen and the other children came behind in the green van. Of course, each of the other children also got their turn in the big truck. After a long trip down, we arrived at our new home on Fernbank Drive, around the middle of October. I had such fun enticing them into the back yard where the children immediately leapt into their new pool. We unloaded and returned the truck, and I continued with teaching school on Monday.

The First Year at C.E. King
There is not much to share with you concerning anything through the school year in the first two years I was teaching at Sheldon. I had the same students every day, around 140 of them, each of whom I saw only once a day, and things were pretty much the same all year long. And I taught the exact same thing, pretty much, several times in a day.

But I will give you just a sense of my first year of teaching.

The school itself was large and sprawling, housing around 1100 high school students. A former elementary school on one side had become part of the high school, even though it was two separate buildings. Down the street, on the other side of the student parking area, was the large junior high school, also called C.E. King.

This first year I had both tenth and twelfth-grade classes, regular English. I also had a group who needed special help to pass the state tests. And most everything is oriented towards passing those tests, all year long, because there is no other option. Yet the skills of test-taking, which are different from the skills of reading and writing, are skills never used in any other life activity.

I connected with two fellow English teachers in particular. One was Mrs. Wilson, a kind older black woman who was a Christian. I was always welcome in her room when no students were around, and I often went to her for advice. The other was Mr. Leahy, not Christian, but very friendly. Mr. Leahy shared with me all the places we could enjoy as a family in the Houston area, including the Thanksgiving fireworks near the Galleria and Dickens on the Strand in Galveston.

I began the development of my writing course in earnest with my seniors. I used the assignment I had watched Greg Reeves take his students through, a “Remembered Event” paper, which I now call “Personal Narrative.” The difference for him and for me is to have them write, then mark and comment, then re-write, and re-write again if needed. Most teachers just assign a paper, mark it, and go on, without the students continuing to work on that paper until it’s right and until they know how to make it right.

In Texas education, the state mandates the objectives for student learning, everything a student must know or must be able to do for each grade level in each subject. These objectives are universal and sound. The content, including how those objectives are to be met, is left to the discretion of each individual teacher. In fact, at C.E. King, we were encouraged not to teach the textbook, but use it only as a resource. Developing one’s own teaching material was normal. This was the same philosophy that had been in the Blueberry school. It’s also the only way I think.

I had around two dozen students per class. My teacher’s desk was in the front corner of the room. I stood in front of the whiteboard as I taught – I like using the board, but I sat at my desk where I could observe everyone while the students did their work.

When I was in high school in the early seventies, we did not talk while the teacher was talking. It was just not done. At the same time, if a policeman had been stationed inside our school, most of us would have refused to come. We were Americans and independent, yet, even though we were worldly, being quiet during instruction was normal respect.

By 2002, students not talking while the teacher was giving instruction was an unknown. At the same time, because of the false reaction to 9/11, police with guns patrolled the school. It was a completely different world. The one thing I lack is the ability to keep students quiet. For the first three years with Sheldon, I did manage to keep a relative flow between my teaching and their chatting. And I do like a lively class. The one thing I do not allow, however, is disrespect. For that, Texas law backed up the teacher. If a student cussed or spoke with disrespect, they would be taken into custody by the police and a judge would fine their parents $500. The students knew that, and so things typically remained smooth.

My first days with any new group of students are always stiff, because I am stiff outwardly. They soon learn my respect and care for them, however, and things become much smoother. I did make a huge mistake, though, with one of my seniors, a girl. I sometimes made thoughtless pre-judgments, a defect I did not lose until in my first semester teaching college several years later. The seniors had written the first draft of their “Remembered Event” paper, and I was marking them. One girl had written many pages more than I had required, a wordy and sentimental account of the death of her best friend. I was feeling tired and frustrated when I got to her paper and so I wrote, without thought, “This is way too wordy, cut it down.” (If I faced the same situation now, I would explain to the student very gently how her story would become so much more powerful and real if she was able to say the same things, but with fewer words.)

Needless to say, my comment greatly angered this girl, and rightly so. She kept a glaring hostility against me until the end of the semester, and then got transferred to another teacher’s class. Overall, however, I had a decent relationship with my students through the year.

Family Life & Home Schooling 
Because my pay was nearly adequate, Maureen homeschooled the children. Kyle continued his sixth-grade year, Johanna was third grade, and Katrina was in kindergarten, learning to read. Maureen is a superb teacher of first-reading. Little James busied himself with pestering his sisters. 

We had started using a reading-based curriculum while still in Lubbock, called Son Light Curriculum, a system I would definitely recommend for homeschooling, especially in the primary grades. This approach to schooling made use of a large number of books in every subject for each grade level. We purchased all that we needed for the children.

I continued to read lots of books to the children, school-based stories or others. Our evening time was always special, gathered in our new living room, with either me reading a book out loud, or us enjoying a good family movie together. I read the entirety of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to them through this time.

That Halloween night, Maureen’s Aunt Jenny was visiting with us. After I had gone to bed, they heard something bang against the front gable of our house. It was dark and after all, trick or treaters were coming by. The next morning, however, we discovered that some of my seniors had found our house and plastered raw eggs on the front and tee-peed our front yard and tree. While our own neighborhood has always been safe, the neighborhoods around the high school were not. Gangs were prevalent, of all three races, white, black, and Hispanic. Nonetheless, that was a one-time event. 

Still in October, we happened upon a fellowship that was meeting in rented rooms at a local high school called Fellowship of the Nations, with Johnny and Sarah Brady as pastors. We visited on Sunday morning. There were around a hundred people in attendance and we were very pleased that the teaching and outlook was similar to City View in Lubbock. We believed that we had found a church home. In that first service, we saw a black family sitting on the front row with a string of children the same ages as ours. Something inside Maureen said, “I would like to be friends with that lady.” We did not see them again in that fellowship, however.

And so we began attendance at Fellowship of the Nations where we continued for several months. Pastor Johnny had a good word; his wife, Sarah, led the praise. The praise was not at the level of worship we had enjoyed before, however, but the fellowship was good.

During Thanksgiving, we went to the fireworks just north of the Galleria. We hiked up with crowds of other people and enjoyed the display very much. By Mr. Leahy’s direction, we attended our first Dickens on the Strand in Galveston the first week of December. Inside a roped off several block area, everything is Charles Dickens and Victorian England culture. This first time we were not dressed in Victorian-like outfits, a mistake we never made again. The streets were filled with displays and entertainers and booths selling all sorts of cool things. The stores of the Strand were all open, providing their own fun family time. 

Maureen’s sister Lois often came down because she enjoyed our children as an important part of her life. She spent several days with us through our first Christmas in Houston.

In the spring we went to the large Harris County and Houston public library book sale in downtown Houston. This began a family practice we all loved, that of carting home boxes and boxes of used books at reasonable prices for our growing home library. Each of the kids got to fill their own box. Our back yard is larger than normal, with plenty of space for the children to build all sorts of different forts over the years. There was a large tree in the middle that the children loved, especially Johanna. You see, all through her growing up years, Johanna believed that a tree had one purpose – for her to climb to the top. We also hung a swing from one of its branches. That Christmas I got each of the children their own different-colored large rope to swing in the tree.

Right from the start, I was determined that we would have a garden in our back yard. I love to garden, but I also wanted my children to know where their food comes from and to know the meaning of gardening. I chose a space in the back yard that had decent sunlight and created two rows of raised beds around 3’ wide and 12’ long, a total of eight in all. I use the principles of “square-foot” and “no-till” gardening, and will only garden with those approaches. We purchased a truck load of “compost” for our new garden. Of course, it turns out the ‘compost’ was only half-composted wood waste that would take a few years to break down. I also created a small herb garden and a garden bed just off the back porch along the fence. There I put in a nice lattice work using metal posts for pole beans and cucumbers. 

We would garden for several years, but all through, our garden here did poorly. I don’t know fully the reasons why. Green beans, sweet potatoes, okra, and cucumbers grew well. But carrots or beets or squash produced nothing at all. And none of it did as well as my gardening in Oregon and in British Columbia. This was sorrowful to me because I had so longed for abundant gardening through the long winters in the far north.

In January we found a local home school group and went to one of their meetings. There were some whites there, but most were black. We were pleased to see that the family we had observed at Fellowship of the Nations was part of the group. Their names were Joe and Kim Rideau. They lived not far from us and our families became friends all through our children’s growing up years. Their oldest daughter, Joy, was Kyle’s age, their oldest son, Byron, was Johanna’s age, their daughter, Faith, was Katrina’s age, and their younger son, Josiah, was James’s age. They would later have another little boy, while we stayed with four.

There was another couple with their four children, Henry and Delia Dibrell, who also lived not far from us. While they were watching their kids at the YMCA, Maureen found herself in conversation with Delia. They both felt a connection of deep friendship. I’m not good at maintaining relationships over years, but Delia and Kim have continued being Maureen’s best friends here in the Houston area.

We met formally with the homeschool group once a month, but did many different “educational things” and field trips together regularly, especially through the summer. We went together to the Museum of Natural History, the Houston Zoo, and PE. The children were able to present their different projects at the formal group meeting. Kyle got involved in learning to cook international cuisine, and of course, Johanna and Katrina have never ceased loving to make costumes and dressing up in different cultural expressions. Because the girls were studying China, we visited Chinatown at one point, and Jo and Katrina persuaded me to buy them Chinese outfits for their presentation to the homeschool group. 

There is a park in north Harris county, just outside of Humble, on Spring Creek, called Jesse Jones Park. They were putting on a Texas Pioneer Day that Maureen had discovered in her search for activities. As we enjoyed the heritage events and walked the paths of this park, we felt such peace. Recreating how settlers lived in the 1800’s included many things we were accustomed to in the wilderness communities. We knew this was something we wanted our children to be involved with. It would not be until a few years later, however, that we became part of the volunteer group at Jesse Jones Park and participated in the historical reenacting. 

It was always important to me that my children experience many different things, and even more than that, that we experience them together as a family. Not long into our time in Houston, we signed both Katrina and Johanna up with a local ballet school, and we found a young lady named Bethany Millican, who attended a Baptist Church just down the road, who gladly taught piano to Johanna. 

Working on Our Home
I worked on remodeling the house part time through the school year, but with school out during the summer months, I spent most of my time on that project. The biggest deal was a new kitchen, which I built in the spring and early summer of 2003.

During this time, while Kyle had his own room, Johanna, Katrina and James shared the other room, all in the older part of the house, which I did not yet tackle for remodeling. Kyle’s permanent bedroom would be in the front corner of the house, and therefore it was the first room that I finished.

I could not build a new kitchen, however, until I had put a level floor across the whole area that had been the garage. And I could not build a level floor until I had placed a steel beam to carry the heavy weight of the back side of what had been the garage roof. I bought a long slab of steel nine inches wide and sandwiched it between two 2 X 10’s and bolted them together. This was more than enough to carry the weight across a twenty-foot span. I remember Brother Claude helping me install that steel beam after he had driven with us to Houston, before returning to Bowens Mill. 

Here is a rough sketch that shows the new rooms of our home.



Through the winter months of 2002-2003, I removed a lot of the ceramic tile from the sloping floors of the two “bedrooms” so that I could have extra tiles for later needs. I then framed in a level floor at the height of the step-up at the back of the garage, just a bit higher than the adjoining former kitchen. I widened that floor, then, into the large room at the back, with a step down to the continuing tile floor. 

This area now turned into a larger dining room and kitchen, and a bedroom for Kyle. I made the floors out of white pine boards we purchased at Lowes. They were all white pine, but the kitchen boards I chose were softer – which was a mistake. Although I glued them down, they shrunk and the glue broke and from then until now, we have squeaky floors. I had made it my mission while living in northern BC to eliminate all the squeaks in all the floors upon which we lived. Now, however, I find the same squeaks strangely comforting, a reminder of “home” to us.

By early spring Kyle was moved into his new bedroom, Johanna now had her own room, the space for the new kitchen was ready, and so I began to build it. There is a covered porch on the back side of our house, where I set up my shop tools, and I had the large space that also served as our “school room” in which I could assemble the cabinets. Because the front bedroom of the “garage” had contained the washer and dryer, there was plumbing already to the space, which I could then use to connect the kitchen sink. We moved the washer and dryer to a “utility” space near the back door. 

Because I had only low-grade shop tools, I crafted the kitchen out of white pine boards, which were soft and easy to work with. At the same time, Lowes had nice wide-paneled boards made of white pine glued edge-to-edge. I would use these for the cabinet doors. I designed my own style for the kitchen, drawing from all I had learned previously. It is a style that I would definitely use again. 

The kitchen was finished and ready for use by the middle of the summer, everything except the doors and drawer fronts. As we moved into our new kitchen, we then moved the former kitchen cabinets to just inside the back door for the utility area, with a deep utility sink installed in front of the washer and dryer.

Because I had a solid decent-paying job and thought that we could fold the cost of remodeling the house into a future re-finance, all the purchases for the remodeling work were put on credit cards. This was the time when obtaining further lines of credit at low interest rates was easy. I’m sure you can guess at how all that turned out.

With the old cabinets gone from the central passage room of our home, I was then free to turn that space into our library. And this was really cool, because if one were to draw house plans from scratch, one would not place the library at the main junction of the house. Since this was the only reasonable use of that space, our library now became the center of our home, something I have loved immensely. 

I built a set of display cabinets with doors and a counter, of the same style as the kitchen, but with attached bookshelves on top. Then I built nice bookshelves on the two other walls of the space. I would guess that these shelves hold around a thousand books, the heartbeat of our home. But, I built lots of bookshelves elsewhere as well; we had bookshelves filled with books in every room of the house. I do like books.

Following are pictures of the kitchen and library before the doors were installed.




At the same time, we turned the large room in the back corner of our house into our “school room,” with bookshelves as well. In the far back corner, I had my garden center. I built a lovely little gardening bench where I grew starts for the garden in the spring.

I planted a concord grape vine where an old tree had been cut down and the stump had rotted. We built a nice trellis for the vines, which grew well enough and have produced grapes each year ever since. It’s too hot here in Houston for Concord grapes, but I wanted my children to know the joy of eating grapes off the vine and so have insisted each year that they all go out and eat to their fill. I taught them to swallow the grapes the same way I had done when a boy, pop off the skin first, and then swallow without biting into the seeds.

Meanwhile, Maureen had found a job with a care-giving business, who placed her with an elderly lady in Pasadena, named Ruth Fleming. Although she filled in full time through June of 2003, from then until the summer of 2004, she worked only on weekends for most of the time. Miss Ruth was a larger lady, warm and loving, whose husband had made his money in the oil business.

A Transition of Fellowship
In March of 2003, Maureen and I attended a Retreat with the brethren from Fellowship of the Nations. This was a time of wonderful spiritual renewal and fellowship for us. At the same time, this church had the same style of cell-group meetings we had known in Lubbock, and so we had joined one and met with them weekly.

During that spring, the church had signed an agreement giving them an option-to-buy on a large property not far from our home. This was a large monthly payment that did not yet pay on the principle. Pastor Johnny knew that I was a builder and designer and so he asked me to walk the property with him to look at possibilities for construction of the fellowship’s own church facilities. 

I drew up some possibilities for them, but then I saw the new “plans” for the church complex drawn up by an architect. My vision and the Brady’s vision for the new property were worlds apart. I was designing a community of Christ. The official new plans were nothing more than a grandiose church complex, something I wanted no part in. In the end, it was all too expensive, and they had to drop the option to buy and lost the money that had already been paid.

One day in July, I woke up with the realization that Fellowship of the Nations was not God’s place for us. The word was going nowhere, and I was not connecting with God in the praise. I don’t believe in going to a church where I experience no personal connection with God. I had shared with Pastor Johnny that I had a vision of God fulfilling His Word in our lives. He asked me what I meant. I pointed to Ephesians 4 – Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He challenged me with a hard forehead, “What are you claiming that means?” 

I am not able to give answer to such hardness, and so I went my way. Even those who know the Spirit of God are typically hostile to the idea that God would fulfill His Word in our lives now and not after we “go to” heaven.

I received an email from Pastor Johnny saying, “I thought you were with us for the long term.” I replied by saying, “I thought we were too, and I was surprised myself when the Lord showed me that our time with Fellowship of the Nations was over.” I did not receive a reply.

Meanwhile, Henry Dibrell, the husband of Maureen’s good friend, Delia, had gotten a post as assistant pastor at the Assembly of God Church in the Heights. We visited there in July and liked it. We attended regularly for about a year. When I look for it now on Google Maps, however, I discover that the church is entirely gone and the space where it sat is filled with high-value new homes. 

I received more from the pastor at this Assembly of God church than I had at Fellowship of the Nations, but the praise services remained a disappointment. I do expect God to speak to me inside the flow of the anointing in every service I attend. If that’s not happening, something is missing. But – for these months, the Lord did speak to me occasionally through this pastor’s teaching and it was a good place for the children.

In May of 2003, on Mother’s Day, we attended a service with the move of God fellowship group here in Houston. Their meeting place was just inside of the interchange between I-10 and Beltway 8 on the far other side of Houston. We had known family members of some of these brethren in the farms in British Columbia. It so happened that John Mancha, one of my students at Blueberry, who had also been in Lubbock while we were there, attending Texas Tech, had also just moved to Houston and was visiting this move fellowship that morning as well. 

It was great to connect with John again. He soon after married Crystal Garner, a girl who had grown up at the Hilltop Community in BC. They have made their home in Houston, and we have visited with them occassionaly through the years.

That service was Mother’s Day. There was a traveling ministry of the move there for the service, an Hispanic woman whom I had never known. She was clearly anointed of the Lord in the way I was accustomed. The elder then called for a time of prayer for the mothers in the assembly. Except, he wanted to begin with all of us praying just for this sister who was ministry before praying for those mothers who were not ministry. She came up front and we all prayed a blessing upon her. The elder who led the service prayed a wonderful prayer of blessing and encouragement, honoring this “mother” in the Church and her years of faithful service.

Then it was time to pray for the “non-ministry” mothers, including the elder’s wife and Maureen. They all gathered in front, we laid hands on them, and the elder led the prayer. His prayer was all about their flesh, and how they needed to stop walking in the flesh and to start walking in the Spirit. There was neither encouragement nor blessing in his prayer. I was, to say the least, appalled. This was the normal way of thinking across the move, however, as I had seen. Making the ‘clergy’ a special group always brings forth such a false distinction.

The Second Year – Middle School
An eighth grade English teaching spot had opened up at the C.E. King Middle School, just down the street from the high school. The school administration asked me if I would like to fill that spot, which I agreed to readily. The truth is, I like teaching eighth graders the most.  

And so my second school year with Sheldon ISD was at the Middle School. Again, I had around 140 students, over six class periods and all eighth graders. I taught the exact same thing, then, six times in a day. This was nice in that it was much less prep work. I liked my students, and they liked me as well, mostly because I enjoyed and respected them, but also because I was the only teacher whom they ever had who apologized to them when I was wrong. 

I taught them reading and writing. I read two books to them through the course of the year, Holes in the fall and Bud not Buddy in the Spring. Both are great choices for teaching literature. I do not remember the name of the principal that year, but my oversight was Mr. Applegate, one of the assistant principals. It was Mr. Applegate who observed my teaching that spring, gave me a high mark and approved me for a second two-year contract at the end of that school year.

One amusing anecdote from this year was that I was standing in front of my classroom door as the next group of students were coming to class, chatting with a neighboring teacher, who was one of the coaches. Just as the bell started to ring, a larger young man, who was on the sports team, came running around the corner, dropped to his side and slid into the classroom like sliding into home plate. The coach said, very sternly. “Act your age.” This amused me tremendously, because, you see, that twelve-year-old boy was most definitely “acting his age,” something I always enjoyed.

For some reason, I had not connected much at a personal level with my students during the first year at the high school. I did connect with many at the Middle School, however. One was a young girl, of a similar brightness and personality as Kimberley Stevens at Blueberry, who suffered much in an inadequate home situation. Not long into the year she shared with me that she was hoping to find a non-abusive place to live. 

This need sparked something in my heart, and so Maureen and I signed up for the foster parent training program at Depelchin Children’s Center along Memorial Drive. We attended all of their training sessions and fulfilled all the requirements to be eligible for taking in foster children. In the training, however, it became clear to me that the state was an inflexible tyrant and had no thought of mercy or consideration. When we were told to discuss around the table why “spanking” a child was child abuse, I pointed out that when the same child turns 17, if that boy disobeys the state, they will punish him in horror and without care for  years. It’s called hypocrisy. A small amount of pain for disobedience now is far better than the shattering pain without mercy inflicted when one disobeys the excesses of the state. (For the record, I would never consider spanking any child not our own.)

Other similar things concerning the inflexible nature of the state were said, however, enough to give me pause. And so, as we considered the final step, having our home inspected for compliance with state requirements, I balked. We would have been required to change many things that were part of our own children’s growing up years. We were more than willing to take needy children into our home and hearts, but to allow the state to have jurisdiction over our home – Maureen and I both said no.

Nonetheless, going together to the full training to be foster parents, even though we did not take it to completion, was a rich experience Maureen and I shared together.

In January of 2004, because I was a teacher in the middle school, we enrolled Kyle there for the second half of his seventh-grade year. I did not teach seventh graders, who were on the other side of the building, so I did not see him often, but he had good teachers. In fact, when he told his English teacher, Miss Carroll, that he had come from Maple, Texas, she told him that she was from Maple as well. In fact, she was Marvin McCaul’s niece. Her husband was also a teacher and coach in the school, and both looked out for Kyle. Kyle also signed onto the theater program at the school and we attended his performance in the plays.

Continuing with Home & Family
In August of 2003, Lois came down again to celebrate Kyle and Katrina’s birthdays. We had a big party in the back yard. The Rideau and Dibrell children were all there. In fact, our children spent much time at the Rideaus, and their children spent much time at our home, all the years of their growing up. 

Here is a picture of our children at Christmas of 2003, in front of the faux fireplace and brick wall of our living room.



After a year of teaching Johanna piano, Bethany Millican went on to college, and so Bethany’s mother, Chris Millican, became Johanna's teacher. We enrolled Katrina with Chris as well. In fact, Claude and Roberta helped us to pay for a nice little regular piano for the girls which we placed in our living room.

With this continued connection with the Millicans, we visited the Baptist Church a number of times. It was a good church, and all there knew and loved the Lord; Mr. Millican was the praise pastor. We took the children there for their Vacation Bible School, and Kyle also became friends with Samuel Millican, around his same age. In fact, Kyle often attended the Baptist Church functions by himself, just to be a part. It was only gradually, however, that he noticed a little girl growing up in that church, by the name of Shelbie Stephens.

I continued working on the house. I completed the doors and drawer fronts for the kitchen and library and began a remodel of the bathrooms. I got up into the attic and sprayed insulation all through it, thus lowering our air conditioning costs considerably. 

The garden improved somewhat across the seasons, and it continued to be a main feature of our family life. In Houston, we gardened three seasons, spring, summer, and fall, with fall being the most productive. Even in the slightly cold months of December and January, we were preparing for the spring gardens. Houston winters, that is, days experiencing slight freezing, last around two or three days, once or twice each year. 

The care-giving business Maureen was working for closed out in early 2004, and so Maureen was able to switch her working agreement directly over to Miss Ruth and her daughter, Sandra Wilson. Starting in May of 2004, Sandra Wilson asked Maureen to take the night shift, and thus she had a bed in which to sleep and got up through the night only when needed. Maureen took care of Miss Ruth for several years, and enjoyed working for her and her daughter. Because Maureen was at home during the days, needing only a nap in the afternoon, she continued homeschooling the children, slightly easier with Kyle no longer at home.

To be honest with you, I know of nothing more valuable to me in life than our times together as a family, going to different places and experiences together in our comfortable green van. 

Putting Things into Place 
As I conclude this two-year portion of my life story, I realize that it was almost entirely a good time, a time of healing and refreshing, a time for the re-awakening of the agony of Desire inside of me to know the living God and to know the meaning of His Salvation. The key that would unlock all that for me was still missing, however, and so from my point of view, I was still very much groping in the dark. 

“Thank you so much, Father, for the goodness of this time, for our new home here in Houston, and for our family life together. Thank you for the completion of this season of healing and for that time of the re-awakening of desire in spite of the agony about to come through which it would be birthed.”

However, in July of 2004, the pastor at the Assembly of God church in the Heights included in his sermon a rant against the Iraqi people, accusing them of being evil because they had met “our kind love and our true American desire to help” with violence.

The thing is, I was reading the personal accounts of Iraqis who had welcomed the Americans but had soon come to know the horror into which their country was thrown. I don’t know about you, but when I hear such lying from a pastor, such desire to wrap an ignorance of reality around one’s self in order to maintain blindness towards the wicked violence of the criminals who run the American state, it’s always Solomon’s words that come front and center to me.

“Do not consent to run with those who shed innocent blood…”

Ignorance of fact is no excuse. Many who give their agreement to the slaughter of thousands of innocent people and the ruin of millions of lives will find their time of giving an account to be far more distressing and confined than they expect. The forgiveness of God comes first, most certainly, but forgiveness cannot ever remove justice. 

Anyhow, the moral of the story is – that was our last service in that church.
Nonetheless, “I thank You, Father, even for the experiences of church in this world that were proving inadequate for the cry of my heart to know You. There is no question that Your answers come only in response to the great agony of THIRST that You also place inside our hearts. 

“I bless all those in the Fellowship of the Nations and in the Assembly of God Church in the Heights with whom we interacted. Fill them, Lord Jesus, with the knowledge of Your glory and Your tender compassion towards them.”