 He was working in the maternity ward at that time, and I was doing a clinical pastoral education. I was doing a pastoral education in Parkland. And I'll never forget how he assisted me in sharing compassion and leading parents who have just experienced tragedy through the grieving process. And we developed a friendship then. Desarriamos una amistad ahí, and I have really appreciated him, respected him, and loved him ever since. Tengo mucho respeto, la admiración y amor por él. He has served churches in Rio Grande Conference. He served churches in the North Texas Conference. Am I missing any other conferences? Just North Texas and Rio Grande. Rio Grande and North Texas. When I post pictures of him on Facebook, I have a lot of pictures of him. I often put the caption with the man, the myth, and the legend. And people always comment, you got that right. Y yo, give a welcome to our speaker of the day, the man, the myth, and the legend. Mi amigo, el tijito, el tijito, el tijito, el tijito. My friend, Isabel Chabelo Gomez, let us welcome him. Thank you. I have a great appreciation for Owen. What I remember, the conversation, the meeting that I remember most is around 2000, We were both attending a Christmas cantata or something at the Episcopal Church, and he told me that he was going to start a new church. And he was asking, trying to find out, how do you start a new church? And he said, he ran into a evangelist and asked him, how do you start a new church? And the evangelist told him, he said, three things, you got to do three things. Number one, pray. Number two, pray. Number three, pray. I remember visiting Owen when he was in the housing project, beginning that ministry, and he invited me to come and speak to the group that he was gathering at that time. As I remember, it was about ten children and about five adults. And I said, I don't know where this is going to go. But what a job, what a great ministry, Fundación de Cristo, with Owen now with Amy, been a blessing. I so much admire Owen. I ran into Owen again regularly. We meet here and there a couple of months, well in December, early December, but in November, I had taken some tests. I'm sorry if I get a little sentimental here, but having some issues, los doctores me diagnosticaron que tenía cáncer y que me quedaban unos seis meses. And I was diagnosed with cancer and that I had about six months. That was back in November. And one of the doctors asked me, me preguntó la doctora, what would you like to do? Like, you know, don't wait too long, no te spared mucho tiempo. At the moment, I couldn't think of anything. I didn't want to jump out of an airplane. And I didn't want to go on a long trip, no quería ir en un viaje largo. I like to sleep in my own bed. So I don't want to do anything. After thinking a while, después de pensarlo bien, más bien, deje, you know, que, I would like to share with you, los pastores de la North Texas Conference en el Ministerio Espano, algo de la conferencia Rio Grande, porque yo amo, I love the Rio Grande Conference. I don't know what your feelings are de la conferencia North Texas. I don't know if you love the conference, pero I love the Rio Grande. The North Texas Conference, la conferencia del norte de Texas, cubre aquí Dallas alrededor. Armando Cristian Fort Worth en la central Texas. In Houston, it's called the Texas Conference. In El Paso, the Rio is the West Texas Conference. And I sinkle, there are five conferences in Texas, geographical conferences. You belong to the North Texas Conference. I belong, todo mi ministerio, to the Rio Grande Conference. The Rio Grande Conference, not geographical, no era geográfica, era una conferencia de idioma. It was a language conference. And the Rio Grande covered all of Texas and New Mexico. So the bishop de la conferencia was in San Antonio, pero a mí me tocó servir Iglesias del Nuevo México, Ticamcari, en el río, en la frontera, en El Paso, en Houston, todo en la conferencia Rio Grande. So we were spread out, estamos esparramados, sobre todo en el estado de Texas y Nuevo México. Did we keep together? How did we work together, cómo trabajamos juntos? Y una de las razones era que teníamos, where's the blue hymnal, que me da el blue hymnal? Teníamos un himnario y este era nuestro himnario. This was our hymnal in the Rio Grande Conference. All of my ministry was in the Rio Grande Conference, and this was our hymnal. So it didn't matter, you know, si estabas allá en el Paso de Texas or in Houston or in Dallas, we all sang from the same hymnal. Todo ha cambiado, ahora we don't even use hymns anymore. You know, now everything is up there. I don't know, me imagino, I imagine that every church has some hymns, and they put up on the screen. But I don't know if there's a hymnal somewhere that you can pick your Methodist hymns. The beautiful Coritos songs that we sang this morning, I don't know if they're in the hymnal. But we sang from the Methodist hymnal. Este himnario no lo produjo la Iglesia Metodista. This hymnal was not produced by the Methodist church, the leader of the Rio Grande Conference of Toda Alfredo Náñez, knew that we needed a hymnal, and he tried to get a hymnal for the Hispanic ministry, but the Methodist church wasn't able to have a hymnal for Hispanic ministries. So he had to have the Baptist, Los Vautistas, produce the first Methodist hymnal for the Rio Grande Conference. That's kind of funny. It had to be for the Baptist, but later on, the Methodist church decided, you know what, there is Hispanic ministry, and we need to recognize, reconocer, Ministerio Hispano, and we need a hymnal for the Hispanic ministry, remembering que Rio Grande was a language conference. So we worshiped in Spanish. We had to translate for the bishop so that he could understand what we were doing in the Rio Grande Conference. So I still keep in touch with people from the Rio Grande Conference. I love the Rio Grande Conference. I talk to people in El Paso, hablo con la gente del Paso, not much going on in Ministerio Hispano. I talk to people in San Antonio, not much going on in San Antonio, Ministerio Hispano. I talk to people in Houston, not much going on in Ministerio Hispano. I talk to people in Del Rio, not much going on, but in the North Texas Conference. We've got Hispanic ministry. En esta conferencia de la North Texas, el Ministerio Hispano está alive, and we'll, and I talk to Armando, Central Texas, not much going on in Central Texas, but in the North Texas, hay vida, hay obra, hay pastores, hay movimiento. That makes me very happy. Yo admiro lo que está pasando aquí en la North Texas Conference desde que hace como seis años. When did we merge about six years ago? Las iglesias se juntaron las conferencias aquí en North Texas and Texas and West Texas and Central Texas, y aquí en North Texas is donde hay más actividad en el Ministerio Hispano. Pero lo que yo quería compartir, what I wanted to share, is that before North Texas, Hispanic ministry, Rio Grande was already here. La iglesia en la cual yo me crie, church I grew up in, today we are Casa de Manuel, era Ante's Heinz, era Ante's Emanuel, was established in 1924. My church, the one that I grew up in, you know, was started in 1924, Reverendo, Genio, Vidauri, Pastor, and that's the church that I grew up. I believe, creo yo, maybe with the exception of Marta, she'll have to confirm, I'm probably the only pastor aquí que nació in Dallas. Is that right? Marta, where were you born? Here in Dallas. Yeah, I think you're the only one. So me hace sentir muy contento que ahora tenemos un grupo nuevo de pastores aquí en esta área. Apenas, well, today we're going to celebrate the Tiffany, pero apenas acabamos with Christmas. We just finished Christmas. And I believe that everybody has a Christmas story. And I want to share mine is the, let me tell you first, la gente mexicana de México, people from Mexico started moving in more regularly into Dallas around 1910. Pancho Villa was on the rampage in Mexico and people were getting out of Mexico and coming to the U.S. Y venían porque había revolución en México, pero también porque había trabajo aquí en Dallas. Y en 1910, my paternal grandparents se cruzaron en 1910 en mi amá, la familia de mi amá, en 1919, y se juntaron el barrio de los hispanos, era cerca de downtown Dallas, donde está American Airline Center. Everybody know American Airline Center? En el tiempo cuando yo, I grew up two blocks from American Airline Center. En ese tiempo esa vecindad era la más pobre en Dallas. The American Airlines site, when I grew up, was the poorest part of town. Today it's the most expensive part of town, but there's no little Mexico there anymore. Pero ahí fue donde nos creamos, nosotros, y ahí es donde se estableció la Iglesia de, en aquel entonces Heinz Boulevard Methodist Church en 1924. Todo ha cambiado. So much has changed here in Dallas and I've come to meet more de los pastores hispanos aquí. I want to tell you that I told Rosdani, I remember when we met the first time, it was in 1917, and Perkins, we had a, Perkins was having a speaker, era un DACA, a young man in his twenties I guess was a speaker, and he was telling us his story, and he started somewhere outside the United States, his family came to the U.S. and he moved to some town somewhere south of Dallas, and then he moved to Dallas, and now he was living in California. And I remember it was 17 because Hurricane Maria was going to visit Puerto Rico in a couple of days, and when I found out that Rosdani was from Puerto Rico, I said, oh my goodness, that's not good, but Rosdani wasn't worried, I thought I remember. She said, no, we'll be okay, you know, because we didn't know Hurricane Maria was going to be that hard, but anyway, as I heard the DACA student, he was born in another country, then moved to Texas, then moved to Dallas, and then he moved to California. I felt sadness, because I was born in Dallas, I grew up in Dallas, I still attend the church where I grew up in Dallas. Dallas is where, you know, hometown. So I had to ask, what do you consider your hometown? What do you consider your hometown? And you know his answer, because you all understand wherever I'm at, that was his answer. That's my hometown. So many things have changed, and I still meet monthly, mensualmente, junto con otros amigos que se crearon a little Mexico village. I still meet with them. We meet every month at Ojeras, acordándonos de cómo era el barrio in the way, you know, 50 years ago, 60 years ago. I still talk to people that went to elementary school with me. So my experience, you know, is very different than, you know, today's church in society. In my day, mis amigos, compañeros grew up, got a job, and they stayed with that job all their life. And most amazing, they stayed married to the same woman all those years. So wow, you know, that's the way it used to be. But I'm sure that, you know, you're going to keep the same one. The Rio Grande Conference, ¿Qué es la Memoricía de Puerto Rico de la Conferencia? Oh my god. El diferente, la asociación es diferente con el Iglesia Monodito Unido. La Conferencia de Rio Grande, at one time, had 18,000 members. That's not a whole lot of members, but, and we were spread out 18,000, and then it started going down and down. And finally, you know, we had to merge. But even though we were not big in numbers, some really good things happened because of the Rio Grande. You know that there are three schools in Dallas named for people from the Rio Grande. Did you know that Maria Moreno, the founder of this church, has a school named Maria Moreno. Maria Moreno, que estableció esta Iglesia, ayudaba a establecer esta Iglesia, ahora tiene una escuela que, en su nombre, este, hay otra escuela que se llama Moisés Molina. Anybody know that school? Moisés Molina was a choir director, Ere Manuel. We love it, this great man, reconocido, and there's a school also named after Moisés Molina. And, todos nos conocen a Trina Garza, miembro de Buen Samaritano, Salem Wood, una escuela en el nombre de Trina Garza. I think that's pretty good. I want to tell you that you are helping people find the way to salvation, but you are also preparando gente, to be good people here in Dallas, people in the community, people that help to make this a better place. We still have a children's sermon, is there some of you have a children's sermon? But I believe that in a children's sermon we need to say, did you make good grades in school today? Were you paying attention? You know, porque la educación es tan importante para nuestros niños ahí. I want to tell you that, de la Conferencia Rio Grande, han salido tres oíspostes, 18,000, but three bishops have come out of the Rio Grande conference. Did you know that? Joel Martinez, my college mate, is a bishop, a retired bishop de la Conferencia Rio Grande. I'm sure that muchos conocen a Minerva Carcaño, bishop, civic and bishop, ahora es a bishop allá en California, y ahora comenceó en mando este roman signs, también salió de la Conferencia Rio Grande to serve como bishop de la Iglesia General. Sometimes, yo oigo a mis colegas que queremos más representación en la conferencia de los hispanos, pero en la Conferencia Rio Grande pues todos éramos hispanos, los superintendentes. But we have about at least a dozen or more personas de la Conferencia Rio Grande que llegaron a servir como staff, members de las agencias generales. On the board of missions with the discipleship. I want to mention Dalila Cruz, I don't know if anybody knows who is Dalila Cruz, pero Dalila Cruz serve as a staff member, the commission on religion and race. She worked with the women and also with the general council of ministries as associate executive secretary. So la Conferencia Rio Grande has produced people that have served the church in general all over the nation, over 18,000, but some good people came out of the Rio Grande. Out of my church Emmanuel, at least half a dozen received the call, the ministry out of my Emmanuel, at least six people answered the call to ministry including myself and my brother, Mary Lou Bard, is the Raul Quintanilla. So out of this this church, so no éramos muchos, pero some really good people that came to serve the church in general. I want to tell you my Christmas story, I believe everyone has a Christmas story. Usually the focus is on the birth of the baby Jesus and we recognize him as the savior of the world, but he wasn't actually the savior already. The birth of the savior, even though he wasn't the savior yet, but he was destined to be the savior, pero éramos el énfasis en el menio. Lego ae, the focus is like today epiphany, de los reyes magos. We also celebrate epiphany in the visit of the Magi. We can focus on that, following the star looking for the savior, all of us, but there's one person that I think gets overlooked. You remember the innkeeper? Put his innkeeper in Spanish. If it hadn't been for the innkeeper, did you ever think of that? If it hadn't been for the innkeeper, what was he going to be born? It was a family, a familia, José y María, que estaba para dar a luz. They were looking for a place to stay, but there was no place for them in the inn. Anybody ever been there? I think all of us have, but we didn't know how am I going to survive this. But there's an innkeeper somewhere that comes to provide for us. I'm going to tell you kind of a sad story that my father, my father had a number that had a lot of problems. He was a troubled man. My father was a troubled man. He was an alcoholic and he was an abuser. He used to beat up my mother. Terrible. And one night he came home drunk and started, got mad and started beating up my mother. That was a little boy like that. And my mother told me, she thought she was going to die. My mother said, I thought I was going to die. My brother suffered with him and that night she thought she was going to die. But fortunately my father passed out before he could finish the job. My mother and my mother decided that she had to get out, get away. And I still remember walking in the middle of the night, we left the house in the middle of the night, walking in the middle of the street, looking for a room, looking for a place, a sanctuary. In those days, if your daughter was with a man, she couldn't come back. Anybody remember those days? My grandmother didn't accept my mother because she had gone with my father. The only place, the only inn in town was the Wesley Community Center. Everybody knows Wesley Community Center. It's not an inn. It's not a hotel. It's a community center. And they took us in. Keeper took us in. After my mother informed me that we stayed there for a few weeks. Community centers are not supposed to do that. That's not what they're for. But Wilina Hendry, the mayor of the center, took us in. For me, she was the innkeeper. I said it was covering in a place here. I think, just my own calculation, there's at least three people in heaven. Is that right? Who's the first one? The guy that was next to Jesus on the cross, I think he's supposed to be there. And I think the second one is Wilina Hendry, the one that took us in. I'm going to tell you the third one when I finish. Community Center for the Conisa-Welina Hendry. We approached the Methodist Church and the Rio Grande Conference. I saw what came into contact with the Rio Grande Conference. Because I had no father, my mother, my mother became my father. And the church became my mother. That's where I was guided, sustained. When I was growing up, probably different from your experience in Dallas, elementary school, la primaria y la secundaria, I never had a Hispanic teacher. All of my teachers were white, Anglo. So, I grew up thinking that the smart people were white, and the others, us, we're not quite that smart, we just got to follow the, you know, them. But I imagine that those who stay there, most of you, had teachers that had your skin colored. Is that right? You had role models. But I didn't have a role model until I came to the Rio Grande Conference. And we got a pastor. His name was Pablo Calderón. And he had been to seminary. He was educated. He was articulate. He was interesting. He was funny. He inspired me. The pastor inspired me. And I said, I want to be like him. He was a good role model. Later I found out that not all white people are smarter than me. Actually, some of them, I don't know. But because of the Legres a Metodista, I was supported, guided, went on to school. My father actually did do one good thing. He did several good things. But one good thing was that one night, we were in La Casa. And he wasn't home very much, but he came. And we were looking at some encyclopedia that we had found. And we looked up a word. When you go to college, he spoke good English. He went to high school. He said, Palavras, when you go to college, when the Vayasal Collegium went into my head, like a nail. When I got to high school, I had to fill out a registration card. And I went to closer technical high school. He had to mark college preparatory or technical. And I put college. Because the words of my papa had gone in there. And the teacher was fuller. But I took a seat back of the room. And the teacher up at the front went like this. You know, that little finger is very strong. It'll pull you all the way, you know. And she said, I think you made a mistake on your card. Yes, ma'am. What? You put college preparatory, but you go into college. It's a good thing. And nobody could go how or where. Because I had no idea, but I knew I was going. The best friends I have had been blessed with were people from the Rio Grande. Past stories that, as I mentioned, I still keep in touch with. Keep in the fellowship, still serve as my community. Even now, a new community here in Trinosotros is there. I'm not here to tell you how to do ministry. I'm from another time, another place, another age. But we have some things in common. The church was going through a great change when I came into the church. The ministry, 63. The United Methodist Church was coming into existence because there were different norms. There were different changes, very large socials in the society and in the church. But I would say that today, you are going through the same thing. Our church is going through a big debate, division, different views. It's a great time. It's a good time. How are we going to navigate a way through? In the Rio Grande Conference, we have a characteristic. I'm not recommending it to you, but I'm just sharing it with you. We had a real social awareness, social consciousness. In the 70s, somewhere in the 70s, the Rio Grande Conference passed a resolution that we were in support of the farm worker movement. Anybody remember Cesar Chavez? Anybody know who is Cesar Chavez? Cesar Chavez was the chairman of the farm worker movement. Cesar Chavez spoke at our church. He was our guest speaker. He was Casa Emanuele. One of my best friends, Leonietto, worked with the Board of Missions. They had an office in New York at 475. Everybody knows what is 475. Are they still there? They're not in 475 anymore. But that was the headquarters of the La Iglesia Metodista. My pastor, Luis Fajoel Martinez, and his wife Raquel, Raquel is the editor. She's the editor that produced this seminar. Twenty-five years ago, the La Iglesia Metodista recognized that there was worship in Spanish. Unfortunately, we don't use hymns anymore. But it was for the project, the effort of the Rio Grande Conference, that we have this hymn. Various people, it was the Methodist church, different people, but led by the Rio Grande Conference. In those times, there was also the movement of the Cauques in La Iglesia Metodista. The Black Methodist Church, we knew the Asian Cauques, the Indian Cauques, and we also had the Cauques of the Spaniards, Marcha. Marcha, in great part, was the result of the Rio Grande Conference. It was established, it began to be treated and organized in San Antonio. I was in part of that group. In the year 1970, they chose me, they named me to serve as a staff member of the Church of Religion and Race. Anybody know what is the Commission on Religion and Race? The United Church had just been established in 1968, and one of the results was the Commission on Religion and Race, with a new understanding of how to deal with minority groups. And in the Commission of Religion and Race, they gave them four million dollars to distribute in minority groups projects. So, I had money, and we received proposals of projects of groups of the Church and of the community to help minority people, and in part I served to evaluate and also distribute the money, a million dollars a year. So, I was popular, all over California, Florida, Puerto Rico, to distribute money to different minority groups. So, I served for four years with Religion and Race in Washington, D.C. I served as a director of a community center in Houston for the last 15 years, as a chaplain in the Parkland Hospital. I served for 43 years in the ministry under my name. After I retired, I was looking for a pastor part-time in St. Luke's Lafille, and I had to serve there in St. Luke's Lafille for a couple of years under the authority of the North Texas Conference. So, I did serve in the North Texas Conference for a couple of years, and I love the North Texas Conference. And one of the reasons I love it, I appreciate it, is because you all have an annual retreat. You all have been to the annual retreat de los pastores. Algunos han asistido al retiro de pastores de la conferencia. Cuando teníamos retiro en la conferencia Rio Grande, we prayed and we worshiped and we did spiritual things, but we're not in the North Texas Conference. You have a good speaker, you have workshops, but you also have an afternoon free, and in that afternoon free, you can do whatever you want. You can go boating, you can go horseback riding, you can go fishing, or you can play golf. So, I play golf. And met the coach, he said he was part of the forces with Ben Shin. Anybody know Ben Shin? He's one of the best putters in the world. Oh man, he's a good putter. And I was hitting the ball, the way that ball was burning, when it landed it was smoking. We won first place in the tournament. I got a certificate for first place in the golf tournament. It was kind of a humorous certificate. It indicated that I had been in the same church too long. It was really what it said, because you had too much time to play golf. I appreciate your indulgence, your work, your service, your ministry. You know, the people that I was talking about were actually third, I'm actually third generation Rio Grande. So, those people that have become bishops and, you know, superintendents and staff members, most of them were third generation, but you were first generation in the North Texas. Someday, somebody will stand up here and say, do you remember they were the first, you're the pioneers, you are the ones that are going to be up in the first paragraph in the history of the Ministry of the North Texas Conference. You're establishing the base, you're setting the path, you're producing the leaders that are yet to come to serve the Methodist Church. I appreciate you, and I wish you every blessing that God can give you. God bless you. Thank you. I'm sorry, let me tell you the third person in heaven. Fleece it down. We are the spiritual leaders. You already know that there are some people in your congregation that are more spiritual than we are. There are some pastors, but there are people in the congregation that are more, we recognize that they have that sanctity. And I'm going to tell you about one of them. I think she's in the heaven, and I usually refer to her as la viejita. She was 80 years old. I'm 85, but I'm calling her la viejita. But anyway, I went to visit her, la viejita, and when I got to the door of Elmana Zamarrón, she greeted me. She said, gloria a dios. Sí, hermana, gloria a dios. Hermana, gloria a dios. Gloria a dios, hermana. Hermana, gloria a dios. Hermana, qué pasó, qué? Ah, hermano, gloria a dios. In those days, there were food stamps. I don't know if anybody knows, but it's food stamps. A gente que no tiene mucho dinero, el gobierno de ya es tampía, so they can buy food. And ella tenía su libro de food stamps que apenas había recibido, estaba completo. Y fue a la tienda, the first fiesta store was right there around the corner from where we used to live in Houston. Y dijo, fui a la tienda, hermano, gloria a dios. Sí, hermana, hermano, no compré muchas cosas. No. Dije, para qué voy a quebrar este libro, why am I going to break up this book? I didn't buy that much. Gloria a dios, hermana. Sí, hermana, hermano, se me olvidó mi libro de stampías allí cerca de la cajera. I left my food stamp book there by the cashier. Gloria a dios. Gloria a dios. Sí, hermana, hermano, gloria a dios. Él que se encontró ese libro, hermano, gloria a dios. El que se encontró, the one who found that my food stamp book, gloria a dios. Sí, hermana, no se lo robó, hermano, se le encontró, gloria a dios. I can do that. I don't know when to do stairs again and I lost my wallet. Gloria a dios. I think she's in heaven. What do I say to you? Gloria a dios. Amen.