Called to sow, but not to speak

Today, we had the privilege of sharing our mission with our amazing, awesome and "go to" community partner, Generation Next. We have included the transcription of our spokesman. Read the words, catch the vision, and be grateful we were called to sow and not to be public speakers.

Good morning! I am Kim with Speiro Legacies. I am going to take eight minutes to tell you what my legacy should be, what Speiro Legacies does, how we partner with Generation Next and what my true legacy is.

First, I shouldn’t be here before you today. I should have to work on Sundays at a fast food restaurant, because I shouldn’t have finished high school and “hamburgers” should be the only job my family has ever done. I should be the living in generational poverty, because my grandparents were poor, my mama was poor and I am poor. I should be raising kids on free and reduced lunch. I should be in governmental housing on the northeast side of town.

That is the legacy my grandfather should have left me. You see my grandfather finished junior high school at Horace Mann in northeast Amarillo. Before he finished, though, his stepmom kicked him out of the house. So he spent the first part of his high school career going to school, getting in trouble and sleeping at the house of whichever aunt would take him in. One of whom was Aunt Hattie who would drag Grandad to church with her.

Eventually, Grandad was kicked out of high school and began looking for work. He found some work digging ditches and working in the oil field. He also found his way to the streets and into jail. One morning, after he was released from jail, he found a White Castle Hamburger stand. He moseyed up to the owner and said, “You gotta job for me?”

The owner looked my granddad square in the eye and said, “Son, you finished high school?” My granddad may have been a rebel rouser and troublemaker, but he was honest, so he replied, “No, sir!” The White Castle guy said, “Well, I’ll give you a job, but you have to go home and get your high school diploma.” So my granddad left without the job.

In a minute I will tell you the rest of the story.

But for now, let me tell what Speiro Legacies does. Speiro comes from the Greek word found in the Bible in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. “A sower went out to sow some seed…” That is our mission, to sow into people’s lives the seed they need to grow the legacy they desire.

What does that look like? Basically, God brings us families or individuals from San Jacinto Elementary, through the Christian Job Corps of Amarillo, and through churches like Generation Next.

We dig, sow, weed, water, reap, and repeat.

We dig into the community and cultivate relationships with families and individuals. We help them to discover the legacy God has designed for them. One way we do this is by hosting a SOS (Serving Our School) group. This group joins church members and San Jacinto moms in serving the school by making teacher appreciation gifts, assisting teachers, mentoring students, reading to students and hosting school wide events.

We sow seeds of opportunity by providing job training, computer classes and community connections. We also sow seeds of education by connecting people to our friends at Workforce or Amarillo College.

We weed. Sometimes we weed with tough love. Tough love that may say “no”, I won’t give you a reference for McDonalds, until you go get your GED. Or I know you love him, but you must leave him if he is beating you and your kids.

We water through scholarships for Tascosa High School students or adult student educational loans. Sometimes we simply water with words of encouragement or sound advice.

Finally, the goal in all the digging, sowing, weeding, and watering is simply for the individual and the family to reap the legacy God had planned for them and allow their children to repeat that legacy in their own lives.

But we could never do this alone. We must have amazing partners who believe in the potential of a life transformed. Generation Next is our “go to” community partner.

Generation Next helps us dig into the soil of the school to cultivate relationships with parents and kids by cooking thousands of hot dogs and handing out tons of candy bars and being the hands Jesus.

Generation Next helps us sow, but providing seeds of encouragement and love by finding mentors and honoring teachers and loving in Jesus’ name.

Additionally, the one thing this congregation may not know is how many seeds of “great ideas” I throw at Pastor Tommy. Great ideas of a Mother’s Day Out, Mechanic Shop Locations and Crazy Clinics. I can do this because I know this congregation and their leadership have a heart for this community; and any crazy idea I can get sown, watered and grown for the good of the community, Generation Next will always be a willing partner. Fortunately, Pastor Tommy usually rips the bad seed out before it sprouts.

Finally, Generation Next helps us water. Whether over hot dogs, candy, or neighborhood parties, the teachers and students at San Jacinto are doused with appreciation, advice, support and love; all the while, this church is pointing the way to the Living Water.

Generation Next loves honestly, serves faithfully and helps Speiro Legacies cultivate: walking with us as we dig, sow, water, weed, reap and repeat. For that I thank You….

Now back to what my legacy really is...

I am Kim. I am a child of God, saved at 8 and still in love with Jesus. I am the Executive Director of Speiro Legacies I have my master’s degree in education and have worked at San Jacinto and other schools for over 15 years. I live in the northwest side of town with my husband and four children, one of whom is currently in college hoping to become a mechanical engineer.

I am the daughter of two godly Christ-loving parents and faithful church attenders. Both of whom, have college degrees: one a pharmacist and one a special education teacher.

I am also the granddaughter of Riley Troth – who now resides in heaven thanks to the persistence of Aunt Hattie. Who was an alumnus of Horace Mann Middle School, a graduate of Amarillo High, a WWII pilot who dropped paratroopers on to the beaches of Normandy, who received his pharmacy degree from the University of Colorado and who worked in Canyon, Texas as a pharmacist for 60 years; who also happens to be one of the founders of Hidden Falls Ranch in Wayside, Texas. I am the granddaughter of a man who never flipped a hamburger for White Castle but paid people to flip hamburgers and make shakes in the drugstore he owned, The Canyon Drug.

I owe my legacy to a loving God who sends people to dig, sow, water, and weed so individuals like me can reap a legacy which can proudly be repeated by their children and their grandchildren; and to Aunt Hattie and a White Castle Hamburger stand owner who may never know how stubborn love and words well sown grew my family’s legacy.

Through Speiro Legacies we want to be and allow others to come along side us and be that someone who sows a seed, plants an idea, to help individuals and families cultivates a legacy worth being proud of.

Thank you!