Sharing with Rio Grande prompts German memories

The 2005 Southwest Texas Annual Conference session was the best ever!
My son was ordained an elder, and it was my privilege to place my hand on his head—along with the bishop’s hand and my daughter’s hand.
But that was not the only high point. We joined with the Rio Grande Conference and broke bread together.
This interaction brought me wonderful recollections of the German Methodist Conference coming into the West Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1939.
My maternal grandfather, John Adam Raesener, was a pastor in the German Methodist Conference. He entered ministry in 1878.
Two of my mother’s sisters married German pastors. Rosie Raesener married Alfred “Fritz” Foerster. Mollie Raesener married Alwin Vetter. Both pastors preached in German and English.
Uncle Alwin said he was never comfortable praying in English, although he gave sermons each Sunday in both English and German.
In 1882 the German Methodist Church of Lexington was organized. There were 12 founding families. My grandfather’s was one of those.
In 1898 the men of the German congregation bought two acres for a German Methodist cemetery. My maternal grandparents are buried there.
From the 12 founding families of the Lexington German congregation have come 26 ministers and one bishop.
Janet Fluth, John Fluth Jr. and Gloria Lear are all active elders of the Southwest Texas Conference who came from these Lexington families.
One principle that the founders of the Lexington congregation practiced was inclusion. These German Methodists were against segregation.
When the German and English conferences met together in inclusion, that was a proud moment in the tradition of those founders from Lexington.
I don’t know many members of the Rio Grande Conference. Several times a week I visit Rosario Gomez at Morningside Manor. She thinks I visit her to cheer her up. She should know better. She cheers me up.
I look forward to many more times when we in the Southwest Texas Conference meet with the Rio Grande Conference.