A Grand Tapestry Unfolding

Davenport Homestead

Published in Corral newsletter, August, 1999

Note: HCYR Founder Gary Priour gave this talk to 400 wellwishers at the dedication of the Davenport Homestead at Big Springs Ranch on April 30, 1999.

by Gary Priour

God weaves history, like a grand tapestry too large and intricate for any of us to comprehend alone. And yet, we are the eyes and ears, the hands and the feet of his workmanship, and if we look at the picture, first through one and then the other’s view, until we see beyond ourselves, glaring imperfections change into something else or melt away, don’t they, in the sheer size and grandeur of the emerging masterpiece.

On a day like today, we might even catch a glimpse of strands coming together, and marvel anew at the design. The interweaving of yours and my commitments to do God’s will. Soon, the sounds of a family of children awaking to the sights and sounds of this incredible landscape. Then, more families and grandparents, teachers and cowboys, campers and carpenters, all nurtured by a common hope, reaching for an old idea in an ancient landscape through a new expression of discipleship.

For today it is our good fortune to be here to witness and give testimony to the glorious love and grace of Jesus Christ as He works through and among us. Just think of the roads that led us here. Oma Bell and her family homesteading to begin raising goats and cattle and make a living from the land seventy years ago. The Davenports and their Ranch near Comfort, leaving us in secret trust their estate in 1986 that became last year our means to start building the new project. Miraculously, generous friends chipping in to carve the Ingram campus from a caliche hillside and establish the state’s finest childcare program.

As I look out, I know something from a perspective I will cherish as long as I live. For I see the very people who have loved this cause and made stories like John David’s possible for twenty-two years now; you are the artists at His loom, who did not desert when the task seemed threatened, who brought us faithfully through to here. We celebrate today a finish line that is, at the same time, a new beginning in an ongoing story whose outcome we cannot see.

We have found our way to this historic occasion because we gave ourselves to a cause that was large, seemed from the start beyond us. It is precisely this kind of cause that God seems to love so much, perhaps because it allows us to experience His love through recurrent miracles. And by acting in faith, we ourselves have been woven into the master plan, and allowed to become a thread in the Grand Tapestry. This is what we share that strengthens us, that we have made a choice to join together in the service of wounded children, these veterans of our domestic wars, whose cry for love and guidance we have chosen to answer. What we can know is that there is no greater cause than that which opens the doorway to a future for such children.

Now, after two decades of ministry, we have been called to serve in a new vision of caregiving at the edge of a new millennium. What we are doing here today is declaring that hope is real to a world lost in chaos and violence. I believe that this project is destined to be a story of inspiration, one that endures the storms and setbacks of time and circumstance, becoming in the end a lighthouse toward which a weary world might turn for encouragement.

I am humbled today to stand beside a giant of a woman who has carried the torch through thick and thin to see this moment come, whose focused commitment has been with her as rancher, and yes, as visionary, who has taught me to see afresh the possibilities of bringing people together, the old and the young, on the journey to healing and wholeness. My friend, my mentor, my partner – Miss Oma Bell Perry.

A Grand Tapestry Unfolding
	Detail from sculpture "Jesus Wept" in Big Springs Sculpture Garden