Community Response Team Alert

If you are interested in doing relief work here is some information.

We are considering a trip the starting the week of November 3 - November 10. If you are intereted please email me. I am somewhat busy before 6 pm if you call call after 7:00 p.m.

We have talked to Hilltop and are trying to gear up. More Info tomorrow.

Buddy Gray

San Diego Fires Report 3 . . .

Tonight I am writing from a hotel room. I feel guilty about leaving the shelter people behind and coming to an ocean side hotel. This is just a reminder of how it is so real for the individuals who have lost so much, and yet just a temporary event for me. We have seen many great acts of kindness and blessing during this event. People offering all kinds of aid, from housing to catering food for the whole shelter. We have also seen the other side of the coin. The City we are working in gave us 48 hours to vacate their senior center today. We still have over 100 people staying with us with no place to live . Our hope is that the city will rethink their position tonight and allow us to stay until the people from Ramona can go home. I beseech your prayers for God to change their minds.
Dr. Bennie Cisek has put together an excellent medical facilty at our shelter. He was waiting at Qualcom to find some people to help. He came and put together a fully functional medical triage place in a matter of hours. My hat is off to him. He has blessed many lives with his work at the shelter. Its 10:30pm, I have been up since 430am. Pray that God will continue to energize me for His work.

Buddy Gray

San Diego Fires Report #2

The transition from city shelter to Red Cross shelter was the work of the day. We rearranged the set up and added some more services. Poway did a great service to their citizens with the shelter. Alot of excitement with two heart attacks by clients and one slip and fall. Three trips to the hospital in one day for our clients. Everbody survived. Thanks for the prayers. . . It looks like this will be home for a few days.

Hilltop is gearing up and has asked us to partner in a project to be named in the near future. Start lining up vacation and get ready to roll. Team Red is on stand by.

Only 2 hrs sleep in two days. Time for bed. Pray for the fires to end! Pray for God to Reign in the hearts of the people.

Buddy Gray

San Diego Fires

I am writing from Poway, CA just north of San Diego about twenty miles. The shelter that is operating is being run by the city. The Red Cross has flown me in and I am already at work. Pray for us as we figure out what the needs are for the people in San Diego. Hilltop is trying to assess and figure out whatt their response is going to be in the next few days. As they make decisions I will keep you informed. They may be in need of using some of our equipment and we may need people to work with them in the near future. Everything is very fluid and changing as we speak. The coming days will tell what the needs will be. Pray for the people of San Diego County.

Buddy

Family Promise

We are past half-way on this turn for Family Promise. The families are good people trying to get past a bd place in their lives. The program is a no-brainer for a church group. We get to live out Jesus' for these people for one week. We provide food, shelter and drink, 24/7 for a week. We have had over seventy members invloved in the program so far. Most of the people are here for there small group and provide support service from a distance for the people. 5 couples stay over night. The night portion is the easiest, you show and sleep. Have you ever thought about serving God while sleeping? These people have a roof over their head for a night because a few people leave their homes and come to the church building for a night. The sacrifice is not much, but the benefit for the people in the program is great.

serving Him,

Buddy

The Cross and the Towers/ Family Promise

The movie night was an overwhelming success. We had a good crowd for The Cross and the Towers and The Wizard of Ha's. It is always incredible to see so many guests in our building at one time. Many got to hear an inspiring message concerning the Living Message of Jesus Christ. Over 30 visitor families were in the Veggietales premier. Pray that we continue to have fruit from events like this.

Family Promise, a coalition of local Modesto Churches that provide services to displaced familes has come to Davis Park. We are having our first rotation since the re-start a couple of months ago. We have 3 great familes that we are working with this week. Pray for them to find jobs. . . and housing.

Buddy

The Cross and the Towers . . .

On September 29th at 6:00pm we will be showing the movie "The Cross and the Towers". This movie is a documentary that tells of the story of how the Cross impacted the workers at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. This movie demonstrates the power of Jesus and God to work through the hate and sin of men and provide lives changed for the good of the Kingdom. More on this later

Buddy

The People of the Park. . .

The first book project of the Davis Park Church of Christ is now complete. We have published our first 250 copies and have ordered our second printing of 500. The book is a compilation of Christ Stories specific to the people who are members at the church where they allow me to minister. These stories have a broad range of struggle, from children who have wandered into homosexuality, children lost in a rafting accident, a little girl who had to deal with the molestation of her and her sister by their father. These stories allow us to demonstrate how non-perfect we all are even though we put on a grand facade for Sunday morning. I cannot wait to see the impact for Jesus that this book has in our community. If your reading this and desire a copy please contact the Davis Park Church of Christ, 209-522-7226 and we will send you a copy.

Suicide. . . .

Of all the things that I do not understand, suicide is very high on the list. To be so very far down in the hole of despair and surrounded by darkness that the only way out is to kill one's self. My last four chaplain calls have been suicides. Suicide knows no boundries and and seems to not care about gender or age. I have seen a young mother, a young teenage boy, an older man and a man who was in his thirties. All of these had one thing in common, the people left behind were left wondering what they did wrong and they felt like they could have done more to stop the event. Guilt mixed with grief = horrible pain. Pray for those who have lost loved ones to suicide today. Pray that God will grant them peace.

The Worst Is Over. . . .

I am presently reading a book by the same title as this article. It is a book about ministering to people in crisis as the crisis has just occured or in the midst of crisis. The book is exciting for me because it helps with the language to use and not use. Words are important in the face of crisis, words can cure and words can crush. Still, presence is the most important part of ministering in times of crisis.

I just finished my week as Chaplain on-call with MPD. Two call outs and one service project. . . Both calls were extreme trauma calls, on the death of a young mother and the other the death of a teenage boy. The same question always arises "why". I do not have the answers, I can only tell people that I will help them throught the moment. Sometimes I wish I had more answers, but I am not sure if I could handle the answers, so lack of knowledge is blissful.

The service project was to provide a respite center for officers working X-fest. X-fest is a night that Satan declares war on Modesto and for 8 hours makes an attempt to own downtown. At the end of the night Satan is driven out to the shadows once again. X-fest is pure debauchery, nothing more, nothing less. It does provide a good way for me to have more time seeing and meeting officers that I will sometime work a call with.

The Movie night is coming up on August 11, 2007 at 6:00 p.m.

Buddy

Back in the saddle again . . .

Much has happened since I last blog, all of which is mostly water under the bridge. Some of the events are still unfolding and only the future holds knowledge of what they will mean.

Outreach is fast and furious with many events on the horizon. VBS is coming up this week and then on Aug 11 we will have a movie night at the church. The last Sunday in August is our annual Back to School Bash. These events are designed to invite our neighbors and friends.

I would like to set up an Outreach Committe for planning future events and deployments. If you are interested please contact me.

Buddy

Homeless Count 2007

On Friday we had a great day at Garrison Park here in Modesto. We helped the local county with their bi-annual homeless count. We set up shop in the middle of a park and offered free food(chilli and hamburgers) and comfort kits. It was a day of blessing for me, the outreach minister who watched as the people of God reached out to the homeless and less fortunate neighbors of our community. We served over a hundred meals from our post and gave out numerous comfort kits. We also had food items with us and made up special bags of food for those who were willing to take them. The biggest blessing to was watching the care that each individual on the team gave to precious people who came by for what we had to offer. Many times during the day we had multiple people being served at the same time and being guided through the surveys we had to fill out. All of us were blessed to here the stories of how or why these individuals live where they live. We have many great plans for this year. Our next event for outreach is Feb 10 when we host a night of comedy. The word for this event is invite, invite, invite. Then we will need to follow-up . . .

share the love of Christ

Buddy

It's a New Year!!!!!!

It is our turn with Family Promise again. So far things have gone on without a hitch. We presently have one family, a mom and her two kids with us. Pray for them as they look for a new home and mom looks for a job.

Two calls for the recent month with Modesto P.D. Both were tragic accidents of sorts involving Children. Nothing worse for a hard nosed first responder than a lifeless child. Even worse is a Chaplain trying to help make sense of the tragedy and not having words to soothe the situation. Loss of a small child hurts worse because it looks like they have been cheated out of the time they need to experience life. Maybe God has spared them from the pain we all experience living in this world.

Pray for our community as we bring Christ to it!

Buddy

Outreach . . .

We are in a very busy month for outreach in Modesto. The Nativity Story event has come and gone and we are still glowing over the success of this event. The way everyone embraced this event made my heart feel good. Individuals young and old invited their neighbors to the movie. To see our congregation name above the door of the theater was cool. My hats off to all those wo were busy inviting but unsuccessful in getting someone to say yes. It took a lot of no answers to find all the yes answers that filled the theater.
The push to help fifty familes has begun. We are adopting fifty families with needs for the holidays. Help is meal boxes and presents for the kids. Over 200 kids will get presents for Christmas because of this program. All of these families are touched by the hands of someone extending Jesus to them for the holidays.
We launched our "book" program this past Sunday. Davis Park is heading toward publishing book concerned with how Jesus has touched the lives of our members. We are seeking your life story, and how the path has changed since you bumped into Jesus. This book will be used as an outreach tool for people in our community. We want people to be able to see how active Jesus and God are in the lives of people at Davis Park.
Family Promise is coming!!!!! December 31 the Families will be here. We will bring in the New Year providing care and serving families in a special way this New Years Eve. If you want to celebrate the New Year with us at the church building let me know. It should be exciting!!!!

make a difference for Jesus today

Buddy

The Nativity Story . . .

All of the planning is over, most of the tasks associated with the project are about complete and now we sit and wait for the event. This is one of largest evangelistic efforts we have attempted. Tomorrow we will pack in 355 people into the Riverbank Galaxy theater. 250 of these people will be our guests. Most of these guests are not Christians. Neighbors who are close enough for our members to ask to come and watch the movie with them. We will invite them all to our services on Sunday. We hope and pray that many of them will come. We hope and pray that many will hear the gospel message for the first time in a way that will cause them to act on it. Pray hard for them, that God will start working on them today for tomorrow and Sunday.

Parents Tears . . .

I was called out to a scene yesterday afternoon that broke my heart. A house caught fire and a young child perished. Two of us from the MPD chaplaincy were there to serve the family for a couple of hours. Both parents are torn up as you might guess. Pray for them as they begin to feel this loss and recover from it. Pray for the first responders, police, fire, paramedics and chaplains as all of us deal with this loss. No words of wisdom, today only thoughts about promises of the hope of glory that awaits all of us. May God grant this family peace and comfort in the coming days.

The Nativity Story . . .

We are excited about the release of the movie "The Nativity Story". This story has the ability to impact our community for Christ, like no other movie since the "Passion". This story is told from Mary and Joseph's point of view. This story line is developed very well and is the best quality.
Davis Park Church of Christ has purchased the seats of an entire theater for December 2, 2006 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets for guests of members are free, members cost $6.00. Make sure you invite your friends and family. The trailer for the movie may be seen at www.thenativitystory.com. If you live in Modesto and would like a free ticket to this screening please contact, Buddy at 209-522-7226.

NOC 2006 . . . National Outreach Convention

The national outreach convention has come and gone. Three days in gorgeous San Dieago. Lots of vendors with good outreach stuff/ideas. Classes that fire you up and make you want to slap yourself for not thinking of the idea sooner. No heavy theolgy to contend with, just practical ideas how to get people to Jesus for the first time or to learn to share him.
Good ideas . . . The Nativity Story will be coming to a theater near you, why not get excited about it and bring friends to see it and then invite them to church.
Publish a book with the great stories of transformation from you congregation. We will be work on this in the near future. Work on your stories now, be ready.
Comedy night! Christian Comedians come to the church to put on a show, we invite people who want to come and laugh. Many other great ideas were shared by those attending. It was good to be involved in the convention and to learn so much more about outreach.

Harvest Festival, aka Trunk or Treat

Our largest outreach event of the year has come and gone. Awesome! What a night, over 1000 visitors were on our property. This year we had many incredible stats, like 1000 meals served, 500 hot dogs and around 500 bowls of stew. The food crew did a great job of keeping the food coming until it all ran out. Candy, around a half ton of candy was handed out by the 38 decorated trunks. The most decorated trunk was Frank Munian's Pig house (three little pigs), he actually built a house that went over his car, 2x4's and shingles. Our 6 kids games handed out over 1200 prizes plus candy. Our goal of course is to win souls for Christ. This year we added invitations and goody bags to hand out from our info booth (250 were handed out), which was the only place to get hot chocolate and coffee. Over 10 gallons of hot chocolate and 3 gallons of coffee were given out.
All of this took alot of effort on the part of the whole congregation. Thank You Davis Park for Reaching Out to your neighborhood!

An unmistaken sound. . .

Sunday evening a few minutes into Dave Ramsey' FPU, a phone rang in the auditorium. My eyes rolled back in my head, thinking about the disturbance that had been created(much like the one I created on Wednesday night with my phone). The disturbance was followed by a look of tragedy on the face of the one who received the call. Pam Gonzales had just been notified. Notified that her son had been in an accident and not survived. Tragedy visited the meeting place of the Lord's people.
When I saw her face I new something bad had happened. She yelled to Lorenzo that they needed to go. I got there and grabbed her and hugged her. She looked me in the face and said, He's seeing God's face now. I nodded and said yes. Then the sound happened, a sound I have heard as a chaplain many times, the sound much like a wail and a sob combined. A sound that comes from deep within a mother's heart. A sound that means a part of the mother has left this world and gone on, thank goodness for Pam and family, gone on to be with God.
I was proud of the response of God's family Sunday. Many wept for the loss of Pam and her family. Many associated this event with one they had experienced in their own family. Many asked what we needed to do. We have to let Pam and Lorenzo experience the loss, that's what I repeated over and over. There are no words that fix this, all words seem trivial or even trite. We held them, hugged them, paced with them. We took them to a private room and let others come and speak their condolences. We called their family for them. Finally, we helped them get home, make arrangements to go to their son's and daughter-in-law's home in the mid west. We washed their dishes and helped them pack their clothes. By the way I did not do this alone, many people helped them in this time of need. Thursday we will lay Sean to Rest, then,Pam and Lorenzo will try to sort it all out. Thank God for the church who will support them through this tragic event.

I do not look forward to hearing that sound again, I am sure I will as I serve God and this community as a law enforcement chaplain.