After eight years of living in Nashville and having much impact in the Greater Nashville Church, Steve and Diane Brown have moved back to Texas.
However, this time, not to Dallas, where they lived for seven years, not San Antonio, where they helped plant the church but all the way south to the Rio Grande Valley, where their son, Matt and his wife Adriana, lead the church. As Steve puts it, “This was definitely not our plan (although it was more like a long-term retirement dream), but God moves in his own ways. It was totally, as someone in Nashville stated: ‘A God thing’.”
When fellow disciple, friend and Diane’s employer, Dr. Jerry Legreid, ended his medical practice in Tennessee and took a job with Mayo Clinics in Minnesota, Diane began searching for job in an ear, nose and throat clinic as a nurse practitioner. So while on a trip to visit the grandkids and their daughter-in-law, while Matt and Steve were both out of the country, Diane interviewed in the Valley. To their surprise she was offered a great job, paid moving expenses and the promise of time off in the summers to be able to spend more time with Steve working with the churches in the Andean Group in South America.
The Browns waited as long as they could to see if employment opportunities developed in Nashville, but that never happened, and so Diane accepted the offer to work in South Texas, in the McAllen area, starting August 1. Steve joined her later in August.
While a move away from Nashville was not something expected, it does not mean the end of the Browns partnership with the church there. The brothers in Nashville and in the Mid South family of churches have expressed the desire to continue to work together. Steve will continue to coordinate the efforts with the South American churches, training the leaders, conducting monthly meetings via Skype, and returning to Nashville every few months.
With a stronger infrastructure in place in the Mid South, Steve will continue to work to strengthen connections between U.S. churches and those in the Andean region. Diane’s freedom to travel in the summer portends good things for the churches there and for ministering to the women as well. Their move to Texas will also allow Matt and Adriana the flexibility to be more involved in South America. They have already been very involved with the new church that was planted in Arequipa, Peru, last year.
Steve will continue to lead a member mission trip in the spring from Nashville to Bogotá—an experience that has impacted so many. Tom Jones and Steve will continue to work in Nashville with the staff training that they have developed using the Internet, and perhaps will be able to expand that effort to include training leaders in other churches. Tom and Steve will continue to work on books related to the Kingdom, with the first of three volumes scheduled for release by DPI this fall.
Steve says, “I really look forward to renewing friendships in the Texas churches. We spent almost ten years of our lives serving in the Texas family of churches and have many great friends there. God alone knows all the doors he is opening through this move, but it sure is exciting to be along for the ride.”
Note: Steve and Diane are not employed by the church; Steve donates his time as able, being on disability with Multiple Sclerosis since 1994. Diane is an ear nose and throat nurse practitioner.