my dad

When thinking about servant speakers in my life, I immediately thought of my Dad. My dad is a servant for many different reasons. He is a great role model for me. He is an exhibits patience, peacefulness, and kindness. He also speaks up to defend people, and is excellent when it comes to multi-cultural speaking.

When thinking about his patience, I think back to when I was a little girl. I was an extremely picky little girl when it came to food (especially when it came to tomatoes or meat). I simply did not like to eat, except if the food was sweet. A rule in our household was that children could not leave the table until all the food was eaten off the plates. Because of this, I would often sit at the table for hours nibbling at my food. Since I wasn't a good eater, I always had to sit by my dad at the table because he was very patient with me and was able to coax me to eat.

He is a big example of a peacemaker. My family is a missionary family. Because of this, we are often around people who are antagonistic. One story that comes to mind about him, took place in Mexico in the late 70s. My mom and dad were church planters there. Now back then, there were two groups of people who you did not want to be on their bad side: the police, and the soldiers. Both were very corrupt. Police there had a reputation of coercing money from people for no reason using threats of imprisonment or violence. The soldiers were a little less corrupt (but still corrupt), the government sent them to the villages to keep the police in line. Now my mom and dad stood out in the villages they started churches in, I mean they were gringos. To remain peaceful with both groups, the police and the soldiers, my dad would go and play basket ball with them, and invi...

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...ily's friends are from a different culture or country. Because he knows how it feels to be foreign, he is able to relate to people of all ethnic groups and cultures. He started a bible school about four years ago for hispanic leaders who do not have any training and are already in ministry. Because he is sensitive to cultural differences, and has molded the curriculum to fit with their culture, the bible school is a great success. Because he is so good at communicating multi-culturally, he has planted churches among diverse people. He started churches for Gypsies, for shunned Amish, for tribal mexicans, for mentally unstable people, for ex drug addicts, and even for convicts in a high-security prison! He understands and loves marginalized people, so they tend to gravitate to him.

Not only is my dad a role model of a servant speaker to me, he is also my superhero.