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Fool’s ED Volume 2: Part 2 from Cross Timbers Community Church on Vimeo.

Serving others isn’t always easy, but it is your chance to see the loving presence of God on the earth. Serving is what God created you for. The more you discover how much God loves the poor, the more you discover how much he loves YOU.

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?

I’m originally from this area, but grew up in Park City, Utah and India. When I was 10 my family moved back to DFW to start Sower of Seeds.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?

I had quite a few outrageous dreams. Growing up we spent a large amount of time in hotels, and I would go into each one and figure out what I could do to make it better. I wanted to own a huge hotel chain all over the world and told my parents that they would have a penthouse suite they could use in each one of them. Some of the hotels would have themes (like Under Water or Musical), and others would just be ridiculously extravagant and located on a beach in Greece. My dream was always owning a hotel chain, being a secret spy or hosting a TV cooking show.

What do you do at SOS?

I am the administrative assistant at SOS. The accounting department also claims me every now and then and on occasion I get to pretend I’m part of the creative department when I shoot photographs of our projects in India.

Why photojournalism?

I love telling stories, I love hearing stories, I often say stories are my love language. So when looking for a degree, Journalism seemed to be a perfect fit. As a kid I would often make up stories and tell everyone I knew. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized how many amazing true stories are out there and how few of them get told. I love the power that journalism has in connecting two worlds – it can connect the little kid who can’t afford to go to school in India and the business man in America with a heart to give but isn’t sure where.

Over the past few years I have fallen in love with photography. Pictures can tell so much more than just words, and I love capturing moments and people through my lens. This was a whole new form a storytelling for me and I love it. I hope to use photojournalism to be a voice for the voiceless, to tell stories worth hearing.

How do you communicate the need in India to your peers?

There are many ways I communicate the need to my peers. The most common way is through photos and stories. All of my friends know that after a trip I’m going to have loads of stories and photos to show them. Even though I’ve been traveling with my parents since I was 4 years-old, I often still have a hard time explaining just how large the need is. It’s so much more then words or photos could ever express.

Follow Hannah on twitter @hannahweee

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?    

I am originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota. At the young age of 5, my family decided to move to Texas to start a church.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?   

I always wanted to have a huge house to take in all of the kids of the world in order to let them know that they were loved by another human and Jesus!

What do you do at SOS/Hope for North Texas (HFNT)?

I am the Administrative Coordinator for HFNT. Basically, I am responsible for our social media, data entry, and pretty much any other randomness, which needs to be done. We all wear many hats.

Three favorite things to do in the world?

“I love visiting unique places whether it be an earth conscious coffee shop, a rustic restaurant in a podunk town, or an old historical marker.  I absolutely love making people laugh! And most of all I love just hanging out with friends and family. I don’t really have to do anything special as long as I’m with people who care about me and who I care about, then anything can be fun!”

Why did you want to work for a non-profit and if you didn’t work for SOS what other non-profits spark your interest?

Honestly, I had been working for my church and Starbucks before joining the SOS team. I enjoyed my jobs, but I had been volunteering with SOS and I always said that if I could just volunteer all of my time that I would do so with SOS. It just worked out that their local branch had a job opening!!! I love the vision behind SOS and HFNT. Eight years ago my heart was awakened to some of the tragedies that play out in India. Ever since, I have been drawn to organizations involved in helping the people of India. I have always believed that if you can’t be effective in your own community, you have to ask yourself what right you have to go anywhere else. So, it’s worked out perfectly with SOS’ focus in India and HFNT’s focus on North Texas.

Follow Amanda on twitter @frizzycurls2002

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?    

I was born & raised in Texas. The only other places I have lived is India! I’ve stayed in DFW mostly for my family and the job I love at SOS.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?   

The first thing I ever remember wanting to be when I grew up was a violinist. I was five years old, and that was the last time I dreamed of doing anything musical. Since then, my dreams have mostly revolved around media: actress, comedian, animator, artist, director, writer, and somehow missionary. Everything else only lasted a daydream or two.

What do you do at SOS?   

Make videos! And all that entails. Also, I get to go to India a few times a year, to both shoot video and to assist first-time-travelers to India by helping them feel more at home in such a seemingly foreign land.

When you are making a film for SOS what are you most conscious of in its telling? 

India is like a second home to me, but initially it was a very different place than what I was used to back home in Texas. It’s a pretty constant struggle to know a lot about a place, while remembering that the people I make videos for aren’t always familiar with India. Most of our audience has never thought about what India is like, much less seen it for themselves. That is a struggle, but also an opportunity I do not want to misuse. It is always on my mind. I want to help us know & understand each other better.  I believe if people understood “foreigners” more, where they come from, why they do what they do, then they would love them so much more and act out of that love, and not out of a feeling of guilt. I don’t want anyone to watch a video I make and feel guilty. I want them to feel in love with people, and for that to birth in them a desire to do anything they feel would show patience and kindness. If I ever help inspire anyone to do that, I can die a happy kid!

If you weren’t working for SOS what would you want to do?

I like video & film production, and I love helping people by filling in the gaps in their lives & jobs where they can’t do it all by themselves. I would be anywhere in the world doing those things.

More about Season here. Follow Season on twitter: @seasonc

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?    

I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Later I moved with my family to Park City, Utah where Dwayne was our Missions Pastor. We moved to Texas in 2002, more or less following Dwayne (Weehunt) here to help with SOS.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?

I grew up in the desert and always wanted to be a scuba diver. I ended up instructing scuba for 3 years at Oral Roberts University.

What do you do at SOS?     

I am the Chief Financial Officer. I also work with staff and do strategic planning.

How does your heart for business and businessmen carry over into a non-profit that deals mostly with poverty?   

I would like to connect believers in America with believers in India. Something wonderful happens when you get to see firsthand how Christ’s body (the Church) can work together to reach people with His love.

Can you really belly-dance? 

More like a belly-wave. I have been able to roll my stomach since I was a kid. I call it a gift, but it is a bit unique. It is usually reserved for close friends and camping talent shows.

But can you whip your hair back and forth?

What I have whips quite well.

Follow Mark on twitter: @txmuellers

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?    

I grew up in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC.

Mark and I met and married in Oklahoma, then later lived in New Mexico and Utah before moving to Texas. The short version of the story is that God moved us to Texas to support the Weehunts in the beginnings of SOS, then eventually to work for the ministry.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?

To be a Bible translator in some remote corner of the earth.

What do you do at SOS?

I am the bookkeeper. I also serve as a volunteer on the Project Red Light Rescue panel, helping to raise money to support girls who have been rescued from human trafficking.

What draws you to finances, specifically in the non-profit sector?

I guess I like Math! I like being part of a team that is significantly impacting people in India who really need help. I like helping to steward the resources entrusted to us by maintaining excellent records in our accounting. We take seriously the trust of our donors and work hard to have a good name in the community by how we do business.

Favorite India story?

Just one? I’ve been to India 6 times, and every trip has at least one story where God opens my eyes to the pain of someone’s suffering, and His deep compassion and desire for us to respond with help in some way.

From my most recent trip, we visited a church on the edge of the red light district in Bombay. About half the church was composed of children; the other half were women, with just a handful of men. These people energetically worshiped, and were so happy to be there! Some of the women and children had been rescued from sex slavery, while others were still working in the red light district. But that didn’t matter, we were all there to seek and worship God. It was to me a beautiful, accurate picture of the true Church–we all come to God from the same place. We desperately need His grace, and we are deeply grateful for His love. None of us has it all together, and we are called to walk together. It wasn’t by any means a “”safe”" place, given the neighborhood, but God was there in the middle of real, raw life. I was reminded of the quote by C.T. Studd:

“Some want to live within the sound
Of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop,
Within a yard of hell.”

Follow Pam on twitter @PamDMueller

Read more of Pam’s writing here.

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Where are you from and what brought you to DFW?

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.  I grew up during a very significant period in South Africa’s history, witnessing the end of apartheid and the sense of hope that immediately followed the peaceful changeover of government. While South Africa was in a better place, there was still a lot of poverty and many people held on to hope and faith that everything would get better somehow, even if they did not know exactly when or how.

South Africa was the perfect place for me to discover my love for other cultures and it was certainly an exciting place to grow up, study and develop an understanding and love for people, regardless of their differences from me.  I studied languages and journalism at the Rand Afrikaans University, now the University of Johannesburg.

I felt called to use my skills and talents for a higher purpose and started working in missions in 2001.  I followed where I believed God was leading me and immigrated to the US in 2003.  He lead me to SOS where I have been serving alongside the team since 2005.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?

I wouldn’t say that I dreamt big as a kid.  I loved the Lord and felt that I might one day have to sacrifice my life for my faith.

What do you do at SOS?

My title at SOS is Director of Communications.

When I started, I felt that I was called to support what God is doing through SOS in India whatever that might look like.  I still feel that I am called to do that. In the beginning it was data entry. I’ve done everything from IT work to data entry to graphic design.  One of my main passions is to tell the stories of the men, women and children we help in India through storytelling and photography and to guide others to help give exposure to the great work SOS does in India through their various projects.

My role as director of Communications is to help give donors a better idea of what they are helping to accomplish in India. We are really thankful to our donors. We are communicating opportunities for people to save lives, love and impact generations in India.  Communications have the power to encourage, inform, influence and inspire people. We want people to get as excited about making a difference as we are.

How are you living your outrageous dreams here at the SOS office?

Investing my life in something worthwhile is pretty cool.

How does being someone who wants to tell stories well transform you?

How does being me transform me?  Just kidding…

Jesus came to earth with very important information. He entrusted this information to his disciples. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John documented His work here on earth. God trusted Jesus to execute His mission and Jesus trusted human beings to tell His story for the sake of those that are lost.

God wants to do something great in the nations.  He wants to use people to accomplish that mission.

Johan is married and lives in Roanoke, TX with his wife Hannah.

Follow Johan on twitter @johanetsebeth

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Where are you from and what brought you to Dallas/Fort Worth?

I’m from Park City, Utah/Mumbai, India/Keller, TX. It’s a little complicated, but my family moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2001, while still spending 6-8 months in India every year.

What was your most outrageous dream when you were a kid?

For a really long time I wanted to be a physical therapist until a jammed finger made me pass out and I realized it wasn’t for me. I always wanted to work with orphans in India though. Growing up I heard stories of Amy Carmichael and was able to visit her work in Dohnavur.  A close family friend was also rescued by her ministry and is now a very successful Pastor. I always wanted to follow in her footsteps.  I love that so many foreign women have impacted the Nation of India. Whether it’s Mother Teresa, Amy Carmichael or Sonja Gandhi, I dream of one day being listed amongst the foreign women that greatly impacted and helped the poor in India. Over the years this dream has evolved, and although its no longer a girlish day dream it is still the most outrageous dream I could dare to dream.

What do you do at SOS?

I am currently the Director of Hope for North Texas, but I also serve as support for ongoing projects and events for SOS.  Before I was with Hope for North Texas I lived in India helping to develop projects and assist with operations on the ground there. I love project development whether it be in India or here, there is nothing more fun to me than to take a really big idea/dream and figure out how to make it happen.

How is HFNT related to SOS? How has this partnership helped with what’s going on in North Texas?

HFNT is the local outreach program of SOS. Because of that partnership, we have a local outlet to help people get involved in ministry and outreach both here in their own backyard and around the world.  This just continues to increase the resources and opportunities we present to churches as we seek to engage them in missions in a way that is tangible and full of impact.

What is your favorite SOS memory?

Oh gosh…I have a lot of them! I think that anytime we do something as a staff it quickly becomes a favorite memory.  We work as a team really well, and so it is just so fun to see what we can do when we all come together to pull something off…

I also have some really great childhood memories of traveling all over the nation of India while my parents taught at pastors’ conferences.  Sitting in the back doing school, staying in some crazy hotels, eating things that we would rather just not know what they were, meeting sooo many people, having to stand up and sing these songs in whatever the local language was…which was really a little traumatic as it was more of a “look at the funny white girls who are trying to sing in our language” but it was sweet.

We also had this game that we would play with my Dad, where he had a set of like 30+ sermons that he pulled from depending on what the conference was on…we heard those sermons so many times because we were in a different city every week.  So we used to play this game where he would confuse the sermons…mix them up to see how long he could go before we could figure out what sermon he was preaching.  My Mum knew the answer so we would guess with her till we got it right and we’d see how fast we could guess it…yeah, I know but seriously when you sit in pastor’s conferences for weeks on end you gotta get a little creative!

There are so many more, but I’ll stop there.

Follow Christie on twitter at @chrisanthony07

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Meet the SOS Team –  a blog series by Lore Ferguson, Graphic Designer and newest team member at Sower of Seeds.

Sometimes the doorbell of our Roanoke TX office rings and a minute later you hear someone laughing and saying, “Oh, I wasn’t sure if this was a home or the SOS offices!”  I like it when that happens.  Behind the doors of our office you’ll not only find a dedicated and talented team working to make a difference in the lives of others, but you’ll also find a family.

We’re from all over the world. We each have life stories and experiences. We each have different jobs at the office, but we’re united by a common goal: to see the Kingdom of Heaven advanced and the gospel preached to the ends of the earth.

Over the next few months we’ll be rolling out a blog series introducing each of the SOS staff members. You’ll learn what compels us to serve here at SOS and a bit about each of our stories.

I’m excited to be working on this project and I hope you’ll check in to meet each of us. But that’s not it, we also want to know you! If you’re a regular supporter or your investment in the projects of SOS has changed you, we’d love to hear YOUR story. If you’re interested in telling your story, contact us and we’ll get in touch with you.

Oh, and also, we did a pretty fun photo shoot with all the staff to roll out alongside these interviews, so here’s a little sneak peek. There’s plenty more where those came from!

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by Mark Mueller

For a few years now my family and I have been raising money to drill a water well in India. I’ve been to India seven times and seen the full impact of what a water well can do for a village.

When a well is given through Sower of Seeds, a couple who is trained to share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ will oversee the well. All people regardless of caste will have access to the water, and untold hours of labor will be relieved as women and girls no longer have to travel to the nearest river for the nasty groundwater that they find there.

We take for granted so many things living here in America. Access to clean water seems more like a right than a privilege. But if you were to go to the villages that I have seen, you find a different reality: parents feeling helpless as their children suffer from water-borne illness, many who will die without proper medical attention. Little girls who cannot go to school because they are needed as water carriers seem to dot the landscape. Dry and dusty fields reflect their heat, and relief seems so far away.

Now fast forward to a new well site. Smiling faces, happy hearts everywhere you look. I love to see the pictures of kids playing in the water coming out of the pump. It reminds me of the water fights I used to have as a kid. Cool, sweet water spraying them in the face, running down their necks and splashing off their hands.

Please consider helping me as I raise money to drill another well: www.championsforindia.org/muellerswell01

Water-how cool is that?

Mark Mueller is a licensed Certified Public Accountant with over 25 years of financial and accounting experience.

He is a graduate of Oral Roberts University. Mark serves as the CFO for S.O.S. In addition, he provides leadership for the office and staff in the areas of operations and strategic planning. Mark has served as administrative pastor on the staff of a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has owned and operated several businesses including construction companies and accounting practices.

Mark and his wife, Pam, have been married for 24 years and have four children. They are long term supporters of S.O.S. and Mark presently serves on the board of directors.

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