AUSTIN, Texas (BP) – Many Central Texas natives know the story of the infamous “Santa Claus Robbery” that took place two days before Christmas 1927 in the Eastland County town of Cisco. Thomas Goodman, pastor of Hillcrest Church in Austin, was pastoring an Eastland church in the 1990s when he heard the tale of four bandits – one disguised as Santa Claus – who robbed the First National Bank of Cisco, briefly escaping with two young female hostages. The job was supposed to be “easy in, … [Read more...]
Tremendous help and difficult decisions in Sutherland Springs months after tragedy
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas – Six-year-old Ryland Ward, the last victim hospitalized from the Sutherland Springs massacre, returned home in style Jan. 11, riding in a crimson Wilson County fire truck driven by volunteer firefighter Rusty Duncan, who had rescued the boy from the Nov. 5 carnage. Ryland returns home to a world markedly different than the one he left—a new normal without his stepmother, Joann Ward, who died shielding her children from the shooter. Ryland’s sisters Emily and … [Read more...]
El Paso-area church takes over local bar
SAN ELIZARIO, Texas (BP) -- An El Paso-area church withstood the opposition of alleged drug traffickers and credit the protection of God as they sought to expand their presence in a strip shopping center in San Elizario, a city of 5,000 in El Paso County. Iglesia Bautista Dios con Nosotros, translated in English as "God with Us Baptist Church," quickly outgrew the small space rented in 2012 and expanded the storefront. Within a few years, they again needed more room, but the owner of … [Read more...]