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Steve and Diane Brown to Move to Texas |
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 After eight years of living and working in the Greater Nashville Church, we have moved back to Texas. However, this time, not to Dallas, where we lived for seven years, not San Antonio, where we helped plant the church but all the way south to the Rio Grande Valley, where our son, Matt and his wife Adriana, lead the church. This was definitely not our plan (although it was more like a long-term retirement dream), but God moves in his own ways. It was totally, as someone in Nashville stated: “A God thing”.
When fellow disciple, friend and Diane’s employer, Dr. Jerry Legreid, ended his medical practice in Tennessee and took a job with Mayo Clinics in Minnesota, Diane began searching for job in an ear, nose and throat clinic as a nurse practitioner. So while on a trip to visit the grandkids and our daughter-in-law, while Matt and I were both out of the country, Diane interviewed in the Valley. To our surprise she was offered a great job, paid moving costs and the promise of time off in the summers to be able to spend more time together working with the churches in the Andean Group in South America.
We waited as long as we could to see if employment opportunities developed in Nashville, but that never happened, and so Diane accepted the offer to work in South Texas, in the McAllen area, starting August 1. I joined her later in August.
While a move away from Nashville was not something expected, it does not mean the end of our partnership. The brothers in Nashville and in the Mid South family of churches have expressed the desire for us to continue to work together. So I will continue to coordinate the efforts with the South American churches, training the leaders, conducting monthly meetings via Skype, and returning to Nashville every few months.
With a stronger infrastructure in place in the Mid South, I will continue to work to strengthen connections between U.S. churches and those in the Andean region. Diane’s freedom to travel in the summer portends good things for the churches there and for ministering to the women as well. Our move to Texas will also allow Matt and Adriana the flexibility to be more involved in South America. They have already been very involved with the new church that was planted in Arequipa, Peru last year.
I will continue to lead a member mission trip in the spring from Nashville to Bogotá—an experience that has impacted so many. Tom Jones and I will continue to work in Nashville with the staff training that we have developed using the Internet. Perhaps we will be able to expand that effort to include training leaders in other churches. Tom and I will continue to work on books related to the Kingdom, with the first of three volumes scheduled for release by DPI this fall.
I really look forward to renewing friendships in the Texas churches. We spent almost ten years of our lives serving in the Texas family of churches and have many great friends there. God alone knows all the doors he is opening through this move, but it sure is exciting to be along for the ride.
Note: Steve and Diane are not employed by the church; Steve donates his time as able, being on disability with Multiple Sclerosis since 1994. Diane is an ear nose and throat nurse practitioner.
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August 22, 2010