Hispanic Community & Community Development

I taught a class in New Braunfels (near San Antonio) while I was there last week at one of the Hispanic community centers. One of my long lost (found again) friends from my early banking days runs the center and the medical clinic associated with it. She works with her cousin who is a medical doctor. They are both DEDICATED servant leaders of the community and community development masters.

Their small church of about 80 people raised over $750,000 to build the community center and open the medical clinic. I am only beginning to learn the many services provided at both facilities. I know that the medical clinic provides both medical and dental services to low-income people of all races but is smack dab in the middle of the Hispanic community on the west side of town.

It is so exciting that I have played with them in one of their two computer training rooms. These rooms are under utilized and I hope to work with them to provide a full range of courses. The center already offers GED courses but one of my cousins might help expand this program with career counseling. She is a master in this area.

Because my friend Rosie and Carlos are so active in the community, I can already see God working in our lives to do BIGGER things together. My husband, Stu and I, are expert coaches in community development and collaboration.

Stu even developed a course for Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) to teach affiliates and other community organizations about joining together to end substandard housing in their communities. Stu is also a master in identifying substandard housing (shacks) because the first step in No More Shacks as Millard Fuller wrote is identifying how many you have. Stu and I worked full time for HFHI for nearly eight years. One of us was usually a full-time employee and the other a full-time volunteer. We still do project work for them and are on the Subject Expert Team (SET). We are considered experts in teaching about financial matters at the HFH affiliate level. We even got to do two international audits while we were there. One in Fiji and one in England. Now that was serving the ministry and FUN. We were also blessed to go to the Jimmy Carter Work Project in South Africa and a few other times in the USA.

So, we love the Habitat mission and playing in outstanding community organizations with powerful community servants and servant leaders.

In joyful partnership,

Cathy

cathy.the.teacher@gmail.com