All Things Bruce Eric

Everyone has them. I had one today - a ‘bad’ day. It wasn’t that anything specific went wrong or that I messed up on a high-profile project or anything but my attitude during the day has slowly degraded over time to the point where recently I’ve begun to question everything I’m doing. It has resulted in a very self-centered attitude and tonight it all changed. When we got together with our REALife group, we learned that a the wife of a couple we know reasonably well is not doing very well at all. She’s recently battled cancer, made it through her first round of chemo successfully but recently started a second round and took a turn for the worse. We spent the first 20 minutes praying specifically for her, asking God to heal her, to help her family understand and comfort them, but most of all to heal her.Then we sang a song that just touched my heart and made me realize that, though all around us may appear as out of control, that God is fully in control and that he’s using all this to bring glory to himself. The words that touched my heart were by Mark Hall of the group Casting Crowns from “Who Am I.”They are:“I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in an ocean, vapor in the wind. Still you hear me when I’m calling, Lord you catch me when I’m falling and you’ve told me who I am. I am yours, I am yours.” Friends, we’re praying for you. BEA 

Today, we conducted the second of our Adoption Seminars for Fields of Grace in partnership with our friends at Grace Covenant Church. who have a very similar ministry as we do but have named it Bridges of Grace. We partnered with them last year as well and are looking at other ways we can share ideas and best practices together.The purpose of the adoption seminars is to inform those who are interested in adoption of what the process entails and give them a realistic look into what their lives will look like during the process and once they return home with their child. HCBC’s Community Impact Pastor John Short opened the morning with some opening comments and prayer. Following John were Michael and Amy Monroe, from Irving Bible Church and leaders of the Tapestry Orphan and Adoption Ministry there. They did a great job of describing their various adoptions and drew the parallel of each of us as broken and hurting children that also need adoption into Christ’s family. They are very passionate about living out James 1:27 and are serving as an incredible resource to other churches, like our’s, that are still finding their way with their orphan ministries.I then had the opportunity to moderate a discussion with six different families that have experienced adoption in different ways. Two elders from Hill Country took part – Terry and Joanne Melle talked about their experience having adopted their son 19 years ago domestically. David and Nancy Redding are somewhat early in the process of adopting internationally so they had a very different perspective. There were four other families, some that had adopted multiple times, some just international, some just domestic and some dipped their toe in both waters. We now realize that we are missing an opportunity to have someone who has experienced foster parenting and then adopting. There’s always next year.The remainder of the seminar included Greg Vestri, president of Food for the Hungry and Tracey Eilers, executive director, of the Adoption Coalition of Texas, both discussing other topics related to the call to care for the fatherless. We were blessed to have Dan Baker close us in a short time of worship and Matt Cassidy, Senior Pastor of Grace Covenant, closed the day with some brief comments and a closing prayer. If you ever want more information on what we’re doing, send us an e-mail to fieldsofgrace@hcbc.com. We’d love to hear from you.

I’ve put together this blog out of necessity to communicate with my support team and Hill Country Bible Church on happenings related to our missions trip to Monterrey, Mexico, from March 8 to 15. However, I quickly realize that I can use this occasionally to document different aspects of my life in Central Texas — my family, vacations, work, ministries and thoughts on what I’m learning.We are quickly coming up on the departure date for our trip to Monterrey, March 8. Yesterday, a portion of our team of 25 met for about 15 minutes to talk about a few details of the trip and pass out some of the many forms we all need to complete. In a little more than three weeks, we’ll be departing for seven days of serving the fatherless of Monterrey working closely with our friends from Back2Back Ministries. I’ll be updating this blog in advance of our departure and will provide periodic updates from Monterrey, schedules and WiFi permitting. Stay tuned. BEA