I spent all of my
teenage years as an active participant/leader in OAFC. My involvement with OAFC
started when a summer travel team can and visited my home church, Beautiful
Savior, in Austin, Texas when I was in 6th grade. That was in 1989. Since that
visit, I became very involved with the program. In the very beginning we were
lead my Melisa & Donnie Cooper. The Coopers went off to seminary and our
circuit was taken over by Gary and Debbie Dredla. We were a very active group.
Each month we participated in at least one, and sometimes two, OAFC weekends.I became a "commissioned" ambassador in March of 1992, right before my Confirmation. I had taught myself how to play the guitar and extremely involved in every aspect of OAFC. In 1992, I attended my first summer training in Quincy, Illinois. Throughout the school year I continued to remain active at weekends and attended the following summer training in 1993 in Nashville, Tennessee. Finally in 1994, I attended my first of 3 summer travel teams, in Collinsville, Illinois. My first travel team visited the Chicago Area, and I still remember the lives of the people we touched there. My second travel team was at the summer training in 1995 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The team I traveled with was blessed to have Randy Ristau as our adult leader. This team is still the most memorable and special of all the Travel Teams I was on. We visited California. I still am very close to the people who served on this team with me. In the spring of 1995, I went on my first Spring Break Travel Team. This experience was very different from any team I had ever been on, traveling to Alabama with a carload of college age people, and I still in high school. The spring of 1996, I went on my second Spring Break Travel Team to Laredo Texas. It was here where I learned how precious the Lord's Word is to people. Children standing on the streets of Mexico still stand out in my mind when I think of that time, asking us for a Bible. It was also here where I was commissioned as a Servant Ambassador. My final Travel Team was in the summer of 1996 in Texas. I had just graduated from high school and didn't know where the road would take me. That summer I also got reacquainted with a long time friend, who is now, my husband.
The Holy Spirit, through OAFC, guided my path to Concordia University at Austin, Texas, where I attended for 5 years as a part of the education program. I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but through OAFC I was able to learn that my true desire was to tell middle school age children about the love of Jesus Christ. While in college, I did not have very much time for OAFC, but because of it, I found one of the gifts the Lord has given me is the gift of witnessing through song. I was a part of a Contemporary Christian Student Music group on campus called "Living Praise" for two of my five years. In 1999, I married my husband, Stephen McIntyre. We have been married 2 years this September. I graduated this May, 2001, with a Lutheran Teaching Diploma and Multidisciplinary Studies Degree. I am now a 5th grade teacher at Zion Lutheran school in Walburg, Texas. Walburg is about 30 miles north of Austin.
OAFC was very important to my youth. I know that I would not be the person I am today if I had not been a part of OAFC. I know that have friends with the same faith and morals as I did helped me get through situations where I would not have made the right choice if I had been faced with them before. OAFC will always be important in my life. I am eager to be an adult leader at Zion. I cannot express my desire to have our young people involved in such a precious and gracious ministry.
Thank you for listening, and I would love to get back in contact with anyone from any of my OAFC days. Our friendships are precious and few.
God's Blessings
Rose (Whitaker) McIntyre
