Day Eight: The Painted Churches

At this RV Park was given an RV site with water and electrical hookups.  The only drawback is that I have to pitch the tent on the gravel pad.  Not conducive to using stakes so I had to tide down to the trees.  Smart move because the wind had clearly moved my tent around in my absence. 

Sleeping was decent.  I was woken by train horns twice in the night.  After the second round I fumbled around and found my earplugs around 4 am.  That seemed to work well.  Woke up early and road down to St. James Street to find the old Black School that a parishioner’s mother taught at.  I found it and another little treasure. St. James Baptist Church.  The oldest African American Church in Schulenburg.

Came back into town and grabbed a ½ mini-loaf of banana bread, cup of vanilla latte, and a bottle of water before I caught the tour van that would take us to the painted churches.  I’m glad I opted to take the shuttle as it gave me time to rest.  But I also got to spend time with two catholic priests retired from Ft. Worth (originally from Pretoria, South Africa). 

We talked about ministry and the decline of civilizations.  Every great civilization that charted its decline first turned to moral decay.  I write this with no righteous indignation.  It’s not simply a judgement on the civilization; rather it is an objective reality.  Civilizations decline because the disparity between wealthy educated elite and the uneducated poor.  The wealthy/educated who are the societal leaders indulge themselves in carnality and set the example for the masses.  Everyone takes and takes, and no one gives.  This is the age we live in.  Our leaders both poltical and religious take us down the road to perdition. 

Now one wants to think that theirs is the generation that has fallen.  Indeed it's a slow generational process.  But it's happening.  And I think it's cyclical.  It's part of the human story that simply repeats over and over again.  I mean: Look at history.  What empire still exists today that was around 500 years ago?  Do you think that the United States of American will last forever?

But in our conversation today there is always renewal.  There are always those hanging on to the Truth and it will survive.  It has survived since history began.  So I’m not worried the long term.  But I for the short term I hope that we can have an impact in this world for those of us here and now.

The churches are beautiful.  They are a testimony to the faith of pioneering Europeans from German and Czech cultures.  They came here and worked hard.  Built towns around their church and faith communities.  Were obliterated by the cotton collapse in the Great Depression.  Cotton went from one dollar per bail to five cents.  Families lost everything they had worked for over two generations.

Some will ask, “Where was God’s protection for them.”  Well that’s one way to look at it.  But better questions are, “How did their human family take advantage of them and the banks support them when they took away their land and homes?”  The fact is, that when all the worldly possessions disappeared they still had their faith.  They still had their relationship with the Almighty.  That is all God has ever promised.  The only thing left of their thriving communities are these testimonies to their faith in God.  People still worship in these buildings.

Like other rural communities across the country many left looking for work in the cities.  The War came and they sent their sons to fight and die.  Serving as Americans they fought against their native homelands.  Staggering to consider that.

There was another couple a mother and daughter both older ladies in the van with us from Sugar Land. We laughed and joked with one another and marveled at how small the world is.

I’ve returned to my tent, drying laundry, had dinner and waiting for the morning.  A short ride to Flatonia tomorrow in anticipation of a 32 mile ride to Luling, Texas.  There appears to be no lodging in between.

I hope the next two days are fruitful and prayerful.