Posted at: 17 May 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 1 Comment

"I walked away from Jesus many years ago.  But I found Him again when I came to Dallas Christian Women's Job Corps.  He had been waiting for me all along."  These words, spoken by a DCWJC participant during her graduation speech last Saturday, made such an impression on me that I wrote them down in [...]

Posted at: 03 May 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 4 Comments

Faviola and her daughter, Allyson, enjoy working together in their garden. When I visited with them last week, Allyson pointed out to me a tiny green tomato growing on their vine.  They are also growing jalepeño and habanero peppers.  Faviola and Allyson live in a mobile home park.  They don't have space on their lot [...]

Posted at: 20 April 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

I've shopped alongside Muslim women dressed in traditional hijab. I've sipped tea with a Bhutanese family and eaten delicious momo (dumplings) served by a gracious Nepali woman.  I've sat cross-legged on the floor beside a Burmese grandmother, preparing skeins of yarn for weaving.  I've kicked a soccer ball with Ethiopian children.  I've done all these [...]

Posted at: 05 April 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 3 Comments

When the thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes hit the D/FW area on Tuesday, I was at First Baptist Church, Frisco, the site of DBA's Dallas Cup Hospitality Center.  When the sirens began sounding, we directed about 200 players, coaches, and volunteers to the church's interior halls to wait out the storm. A teen-aged soccer player from [...]

Posted at: 22 March 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

I am not a soccer mom, but every year I spend a week at the prestigious Dallas Cup international youth soccer tournament.  To be exact, I spend a week at First Baptist Church, Frisco, about a mile from Dr. Pepper Stadium.  I'm there because Dallas Baptist Association churches host a hospitality center for the coaches [...]

Posted at: 08 March 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 2 Comments

My husband, Roger, and I walked the Calatrava (Margaret Hunt Hill) Bridge last Sunday.  Sunday afternoon was the last chance for pedestrians to walk the bridge as part of the grand opening celebration. The weather was beautiful, and the bridge was beautiful, too. We chatted with people we knew from our church and the neighborhood [...]

Posted at: 23 February 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

A few weeks ago I received a phone call from a friend in ministry who directs a program that provides transitional housing to women who have just been released from prison.  Although these women were convicted of a variety of crimes that led them to prison, they have one thing in common:  they are illiterate. They are [...]

Posted at: 09 February 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

Last summer,  I spent an afternoon with a team from Cliff Temple Baptist Church that served free lunches to children living at a nearby apartment complex in Oak Cliff.  The lunches were delivered to the apartments every day in big coolers. One of the apartment residents kept them in her living room until serving time.  [...]

Posted at: 26 January 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

Recent controversy regarding the planned closure of several schools in south Dallas reminds me that, aside from their primary responsiblity of educating students, schools are vital anchors for communities.  At last year’s Global Leadership Summit, I heard Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of Washington D.C. public schools, say that failing schools actually perpetuate failing neighborhoods. (South [...]

Posted at: 12 January 2012 | By: DBA Staff | 0 Comments

My husband and I heard the insults and saw the shoving as soon as we opened our car doors after parking at the apartment complex where we meet for a weekly Bible study. Residents gathered just outside the front door of the building to watch two men and a woman brawl on the porch.  Within [...]