Haevanle (pronounced heavenly) Satterfield prayed for God to send her a church home in 2021. The 27-year-old single mom had gotten a New Testament from a Little Free Library box at the Cedar Hill park where she had taken her young son.

She opened the Scripture, the New Living Translation, and started reading about Jesus.

“This is nothing like the King James version,” she recalled thinking. “I could understand it.” The more she read, the more she “fell in love with Jesus.”

Baptized at age 5 in a swimming pool after a church bus ministry came to her neighborhood, Haevanle believed in God but “didn’t know the information,” although she had the desire to know more about Him. “I know what I felt,” she said. “But I didn’t know Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life.”

Childhood trauma followed her. Finally, at age 22, she felt she had “arrived,” at last able to afford her own furnished apartment. Then it all went up in smoke, literally, as kids playing with matches sparked a fire that destroyed her building, leaving her homeless.

The next several years she lived with various relatives and tried to find her moorings, co-parenting her son with his father who lives in the DFW area.

“I wasn’t living for purpose. I was living for me,” she said. But in that park, she read the Word of God and found it “beautiful.”

Life didn’t magically turn around. There were still struggles, and she started praying for a church home.

An unexpected turn

The morning of Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, the opposition seemed particularly strong.

“The enemy was on my mind terribly,” she recalled. Despairing and crying hysterically while driving on Interstate 20 to a housekeepking job in North Richland Hills, Haevanle was following her GPS—until she felt prompted to exit the freeway. 

She resisted, stating that, “I was arguing with the Lord. I didn’t realize at the time it was the Lord.” Finally, she exited the freeway and turned into the parking lot at Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington. 

“I didn’t see anybody who looked like me. I am an African American woman. I have dreadlocks. I didn’t think I would be welcomed in this part of town,” she recalled thinking. “My insecurities were prevalent.”

She sat in the car about 30 minutes and just “bawled.” She made her way toward the church entrance but paused to sit on a bench outside for 45 minutes. She texted her supervisor to explain she would be late for the job, which was okayed. At last, she mustered enough courage to approach the door and push on the intercom doorbell before scurrying away.

“Hello, can I help you?” a voice came on a loudspeaker. Haevenle couldn’t answer. “It’s OK sweetheart, I’ll send someone to you,” the voice said.

Pastoral associate Thomas McCarty came out asking how he could help.

“I don’t have any idea why I am here,” Haevanle said.

“You want to come in and we can talk about it?” McCarty asked.

That conversation changed her life. The church staffer listened to Haevanle as she poured out her fears and concerns.

“Anything the enemy had told me that morning, he knocked it down Scripture by Scripture,” she recalled of that talk with McCarty, who asked if she had a church home and assured her that Tate Springs would love to have her come.

She came on Sunday.

“That first service, I just smiled the entire time. I realized why God wanted me here. I had never felt more welcome in any church. … I never felt kingdom love like that before.”

On Nov. 14, 2021, she was baptized at church by McCarty.

When First Baptist Church of Caldwell affiliated with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention last August, it brought a rich history into the youngest Southern Baptist state fellowship. First Baptist is older than the SBTC and, actually, older than the state of Texas.

First Baptist Caldwell was founded during the Texas Republic in 1843. That central part of the state is rich in Texas history as the Republic’s capital moved back and forth between Washington-on-the-Brazos, southeast of Caldwell, and Austin, west of Caldwell, during the 10 years of independence. Southwestern Seminary’s founding president, B.H. Carroll, was one of the church’s early pastors. 

“I think that the history of the church tends to give us a picture of God’s faithfulness over the years. It wasn’t just in those beginning days,” Pastor Shane Dismuke said. “He remained faithful in the midst of the body over the years. The people love their history, and they love their building, and they love the community. But what makes this place impactful has been God’s faithfulness.”

Missions is a big part of church’s story. They have an ongoing missionary project in Matamoros, Mexico, and have planted a Spanish-speaking congregation just down the road. This in addition to faithful contributions through the Cooperative Program. 

“God seems to have spurred an excitement among our people for the gospel; the church has a rich history of missions,” Dismuke said. “We’ve done two [mission] trips in the last six months. We have another one in March and another one in June, which are all in a partnership with Matamoros. We still have a partnership with Uruguay that we’re helping down there as well. And the church has historically planted other churches.” 

A love for missions is also what drew the church to the SBTC. Dismuke said the commitment of the convention to emphasize worldwide outreach and statewide needs was appealing to his church. 

Chris and Kristyn Cummings started the new year with a new address, as they moved their family of six from Texas to Tucson to plant a new church.

Even before the move, Kristyn, a pediatrician, started working at a medical facility near the University of Arizona. Chris preached his last sermon as discipleship and college pastor of Coastal Community Church in Galveston on Dec. 18. With their children’s school semester at an end, the couple packed up their four kids—ages three to seven—and headed from the beach to the desert.