Like Marin said, I won't usually post, she is the brains of the operation here for sure, but I wanted to take some time to reach out and explain my heart for a moment. It's so hard, especially when you are supposed to have faith, to be vulnerable to the people around you. Most of the people who stumble onto this blog right now are people that I know or know of, so you've known me as a certain type of person. I'm going to take some time here to share a small part of my testimony so that, hopefully you will know why I feel so deeply drawn to the area we are on mission to minister to. The Child: There are some who will travel to this page who only knew me as a child. You didn't get to see me mess up, but you knew my family. We were the Stitts at that time, and I didn't know any Hudsons. These were difficult times for my family. My mind has actually done a fairly good job of blocking most of these memories, but 2 things I know: 1) my dad had walked out (praise the Lord he is back in our family with no intention of parting ways again!), and 2) we were poor. I don't mean that bologna sandwiches were a staple and we had hand me down old clothes. Not that kind of poor. No, we got to the point that I remember going to our next door neighbor's house to get water in 5 gallon buckets so that we could drink water and bathe. I share this story so that people who visit this site don't see a family, or a pastor, who doesn't understand need. I share this story so that people who visit this site don't see a family, or a pastor, who doesn't understand need. I have felt need, I've lived without running water, I've had family members who had teen pregnancies, I've been a child of divorce and seen all sides of that hurt, I have seen kids (heck I've been a kid) who missed a parent, and I've seen parents who miss their kids. I've been a child who longed for things that other kids took for granted. When I was 11, Child Protective Services relocated me and my 3 younger siblings, and I even felt what it was like to be alone without family around me at all. I was placed in a temporary home away from all my siblings and family. Now we got to visit but it's not the same as living with them. From there, I got put into foster care and was eventually adopted into the Hudson family. The Punk Kid: My early teenage years were some of the weirdest years of my life. I was polite, I knew by the time I was 13 to say "yes sir, yes ma'am, no sir, and no ma'am," but I was a bit of a rebel. I identified as a Hudson more than a Stitt by this time, and I hated that about myself. It felt like the state had tried to wipe away my family through this adoption (even though I had the option to refuse it and instead had agreed to it. Welcome to the logic of teenagers). I got mixed up with what I now identify as the "stoners," but at that time I called them friends. I wound up slipping some of my prescription medicine to one of them, because we thought that kind of junk was cool. He had an allergic reaction and I turned myself in out of fear for his life, and to be honest a little bit of fear that he would turn me in anyway. Which landed me in alternative school for the remainder of the year. At that point, Mr. Hudson, who I call dad now, showed me the roughest form of discipline I have ever experienced, even to this day. When we got home that day, he silently closed the door, turned on the light, looked at me, and said, "I am so disappointed in you. You have more potential than this." It cut like a knife, and a part of me wanted to rebel. But that summer, he sent me to spend 2 weeks with my aunt in Duncan, Oklahoma. She then sent me to Falls Creek, a youth camp, with her church. That's where I really met Jesus for the first time. If that hadn't happened when it did, I honestly believe I would have run off the deep end. As the Lord would have it though, that desire to rebel was replaced by a desire to change and live for Him. The Teen: I dove into church after that. My dad bought me a guitar and paid for lessons and over the next two years I led worship (ish) for 3 different churches. It was during this time that I made some of my most influencial Christian relationships with those who I still call my role models and closest friends today. At 17, I received and accepted the call to vocational ministry and immediately began training under my youth pastor, Brent Baskin, in Student Ministry. I attended every Bible Study, every conference, every camp I could find. College Boy: After a 1 year internship at First Baptist Wills Point my senior year, I made my way to the University of Mary Hardin Baylor. Even though I would have to pay my own way, and it seemed crazy not to go to a cheaper state school, I knew that I had to follow my call to ministry at a Christian University. I immediately took a job as the Youth Pastor at FBC Moody where I quickly realized that I actually knew nothing about pastoring and I needed to spend more time under someone more experienced. I also realized that I needed to be able to explain my faith much better. I then interned for a year and a half at FBC Belton (see a Baptist church trend yet?) during which time I took the time to examine what I considered to be the most important parts of my faith and I discovered why I believe what I believe in that time. At the end of that short stay, I became the Youth Pastor at FBC Trimmier where the Lord allowed me to minister for 3 years to the day, Feb. 1st 2011- Feb. 1st 2014. At the beginning of that job, while praying to figure out how I should run and style this ministry, the Lord had revealed to me that I would be there for 3 years and that my job was to lay the ground work for that youth ministry to begin growing. Then, I got married. (It didn't happen quite like that but that's a different story...) Husband, Dorm Parent, Dad, Teacher: I got married to Marin McNeill Robinson on December 14, 2013, and on February 2, 2014 (two months later) we started our first family adventure as Relief Staff at a children's home in Weatherford, TX. Shortly after starting, we were asked to take over the boy's dorm at the facility, so we became Dorm Parents to 11 boys (throughout the course of a year) during our stay there. (We typically had 5-7 boys at a time). Throughout that year, I trained under the NRGen Pastor at New River Fellowship to take on that role at a new campus in Mineral Wells, TX. The Lord had other plans for our little family though and, instead, after the birth of our first child on June 8, 2015, we wound up in Katy, TX where I became a High School Bible and History teacher at Faith West Academy. Church Planter: Though I enjoyed this time of teaching, the Lord reminded me that my calling was in vocational ministry, therefore I decided to seek out a full time ministry job again. While interviewing for a job at a church in Katy, the Lord led me to let my school know that I would not be returning for the 2016-2017 school year. Cool, right? Wrong, because that church job didn't come through. Marin had been having some revalations about her heart and calling to work with kids, so I told her that she should seek counsel from someone that she knew had the same heart for kids that she did. The person that came to mind was Jenny Jones so Marin set up coffee to talk about that. Meanwhile, we knew that Jenny was working with another Pastor friend, Ryan Lokkesmoe, to plant a church in Richmond, TX (Fort Bend County) and when talking about it one day, Marin said, "It would be really cool to work with them. I love their vision. Too bad it's a church plant and they couldn't pay us." I still don't know why I responded with this, other than the Spirit took over and started talking because my idea was totally insane. I said, "What if we raised money and lived like missionaries until the church is able to support staff through tithing?" So when Marin met with Jenny, even though she intended to talk about something completely different, the Lord led the conversation in that direction and Marin was able to bring up this idea. Jenny encouraged Marin to pray through that and it was from there that our conversation with Real Hope began. The Lord guided our steps, and now I am in the position of Student Pastor at Real Hope Community Church. This leads me to the point of this blog and to this website. The vision of RHCC is, "To be continually transformed by the Gospel and share the REAL HOPE of Jesus Christ with the world around us." The shortened version of that is "Find hope. Give hope."
My vision for this ministry is the same as the vision for the church. I want this to be a fun, exciting, and truth-filled place where students with hurts, doubts, fears, and scars, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, who struggle with their own sins, and whose parent's sins are affecting their lives as well can come to find healing and answers. I want the Student Ministry at RHCC to be a place where ANY student can come with questions, pain, and doubt of any kind and find hope in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But I don't want to stop there. I want to show these students, by how my family lives, that living out your faith is more than a Sunday morning and a leather bound book. That "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and lay his life down as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). This desire has put our family in a place of faith that we have never been in. We are fully relying on the Lord to provide for our finances because we fully believe that His work for us is going to require so much effort that there will not be time for a divided mind and heart when it comes to work. That's where this website comes in. This is not us begging for money. This is a declaration of our faith to the world around us, that we fully believe that the Lord will provide. We are living out James 2 where we are called "to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone." We are trusting in His promises, and living in such a way that we will look insane if God does not come through. That is how much we believe in his faithfulness. What we need more than anything now, even above monetary support, is prayer, prayer, and more prayer. Prayer for people to be faithful to give when the Lord calls them to, and prayer that the Lord would bless their generosity. Prayer for us, that our anxiety would not overtake us and that we would trust the Lord to provide at all times. Prayer for those who hear the vision of Real Hope Community Church, that they would be drawn to the Savior that we serve. For those of you still reading this, thank you so much for getting through till the end! I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by what you have read! Please head over to our support page to learn how to give and to sign up for our email list to receive regular updates on how you can be joining us in prayer. In Christ, Percy
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Marin HudsonMarin likes to stay up late and write. But sometimes Percy will write as well. :) Archives
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