SERVE Day 2022
July 16th marked the fifth year Cross Mountain has done SERVE Day. We take one day in the middle of the year and join with other churches to serve our City in huge ways. From cleaning trash to giving away free gas, we look for practical ways to share the love of Christ with People. At Cross Mountain, We Serve And Make A Difference! It’s not just something we say, but it’s something we value.
With 14 locations this year, I organized our biggest SERVE day since COVID started. Here is a list of the locations:
Hill Country Daily Bread - Prepping Food boxes for families in need (Child Friendly).
Boerne Stage Beautification Project - CMC Students - cleaning a section of Boerne Stage Road.
Grey Forest Fire Department - Cleaning the Fire Trucks, Station, and other things as needed (kid-friendly)
Station Clean-Up - Leon Springs Fire Department - We took down a tree with chainsaws and took it away so the Firefighters could put the truck in the station.
Daily Bread Ministries - Preparing food packages for families (Child Friendly).
Teacher Care Packages - Preparing Teacher Care Packages to be passed out prior to school starting.
McAndrews Elementary - Door Decoration - decorating restroom stall doors for the children to return to school in the fall.
SAMM - Dining Room Refresh Project - SAMM provides transitional housing. Their dining room serves as a gathering space for families to eat together. We will be painting walls and chairs, putting together high chairs, and getting the dining room ready for families to share their dinner together (Child Friendly).
CMC - FOOD TEAM - preparing lunch for everyone after serve day.
Teen Challenge - Picnic Area Renovation - Teen Challenge serves to provide a Christian drug rehab. We will be creating a picnic area for the women's portion of the ministry where their families can come and enjoy a meal with them.
Boerne Stage Fuel Takeover - We will provide $50 of gas for each person who shows up that morning. We will turn the Big's at Boerne Stage and Cross Mountain Trail into a full-service station along with offering to pray for everyone who comes through the line.
Children's Hunger Fund - Prepping Food boxes for families in need (Child Friendly).
Harper's Chapel - Community clean-up - We will be working to clean several lots near Harper's Chapel of trash as well as yard work.
Social Media Team - Take pictures and videos so we can show everyone what we accomplished.
This year we say over 230 people gather to SERVE and make a difference in their community. We also worked with churches in low-income locations and look forward to partnering with them again.
Missions Trip to Costa Rica
In the Summer of 2021, I received the opportunity to lead the Cross Mountain Missions Team to Fraijanes, Costa Rica. We thought we would be a bigger team. We thought we would be doing something amazing and hard. We were prepared for almost anything. We weren’t prepared for how this trip would impact us or how COVID would shape the team.
Before we ever left we ran into COVID. The team shrunk in the days before we left. People would call in and we would begin to make adjustments. Our church’s version of VBS the week before left us decimated. Kids and families showed up with the intent of getting out of the house. A year of not leaving drove everyone to find places where they could interact and have fun. We didn’t count on members of our team being exposed and not wanting to develop symptoms in a foreign country.
Senior Ayres, my fellow team lead, and Myself
We came for the opportunity to do something amazing. What we didn’t know was how we would be impacted by the events God conspired to create… Over the last few years, our church has developed a relationship with Pastor Roy Soto from Comunidad Cristiana Shalom. He has a vision to help kids in foster care and mothers reunite after they had come to know Christ and healed up. We found ourselves in Costa Rica following a sister church that had worked really hard to build the structure of the house where the foster kids would live.
What we didn’t know was the depth of sorrow we would see before we left. Pastor Roy received a call from the government asking him to take in a young lady from Nicaragua. She had crossed the border with her baby and had been found by the authorities. They brought her to the location we were staying. Our team got to eat with her and her baby. Our translator got to know her and for about 36 hours she found herself in limbo. In the end, the government separated her and her baby. We don’t know the end of the story but we do know, if the house had been ready, the baby could have stayed there while the mom was working through the process the government laid out for her. We were heartbroken for her as we watch the separation and the departure.
I am more convinced and believe in Pastor Roy’s ministry more now than ever. I also realized my need to learn Spanish and not have to depend on a translator. I cannot wait to go back and experience life with a group of people who are serving their community and making a difference!! Pura Vida!