This past December (2014), we had an amazing group of missionaries sent by their employer KeHE Distributors, LLC. It is a team that put their words into action. They came and saw the desperate need of some of the families here in Laredo and then they went back and did something about it. They called themselves The “Kehe Best Christmas” Team. This is their story.
Every Christmas, New Vision Community Church will prepare gifts for some of the neediest children in our outlying areas. This team came just in time to help us sort and prepare donations for the kids and their families. It is a daunting task and we were grateful for their help. When the sorting was done, they helped us distribute the gifts to the children and witnessed first hand the smiles that it brought to their faces. The lighting of the Christmas tree at our Ranch was a special treat and we were glad that were able to take part in that as well.
As with most missionary teams, they played a key role in the execution of our Silver Star Program. This program caters to the elderly in our community and provides them with groceries once a month to help ease their financial burden. The team helped in every aspect of that work from set-up to registration, distribution and clean up.
Even though each mission team is only here a few days they get to experience different elements of what we de here in Laredo. This team was no exception. Yet, despite all that they witnessed, what impacted them the most was the children of the stables. If this is your first time reading one of our blogs, you may be surprised to find out that these are kids that live and work with their families in horse stables. Entire families are literally cramped into modified stables where they live and sleep. It is a sad reality here in Texas and our mission team witnessed the deplorable conditions. What did they do about it? They went back home and began a fundraiser to help these families out for Christmas. Their efforts raised over $5500 that were used to buy the children bicycles and heaters for each of the families. These families are forever thankful and we are so grateful for their help during and after their trip. It will be a Christmas they will never forget and neither will we.
Thank you Terry Rafferty, Scott Switalski, Maire DeLarosa, Teresa Brito, Tabitha Sewell, Alejandro Gonzalez, and Mark Rasmussen! You were an exceptional team!
If you would like to do a short term missions trip, contact us or call us. If you are an individual, we can attach you to another group. If you are a company/church,/organization that would like to organize something for your employees/members, we can put something together as well. We certainly can use the help!