Robert Chatham

“It’s my birthday!”

Pictured is a very happy man with a “It’s my birthday!” button on his shirt! The big grin belongs to a long-time Seadrift resident whose birthday brings him up to the BIG 80!

Family and friends came to a local Seadrift restaurant to celebrate Robert Chatham’s big day! Robert was born April 30, 1944, in El Paso and came with his family to Seadrift when he was in the 4th grade. For 44 years he ran offshore crew and supply boats to drilling rigs. He became a licensed caregiver and cared for his wife Margaret for five years before she passed. Margaret, whose maiden name was DeHart, was from Morgan City, Louisiana. Robert and Margaret met while they were both working for the Red Cross after Hurricane Hilda. Margaret later served as Seadrift’s Municipal Judge/Justice of the Peace for fourteen years. Robert and Margaret had been married for 49 years.

Robert cared for Jack Mayfield for nine years before he passed a year ago. Currently he works for the Mayfield family.

Robert entered the legendary Water Safari canoe race four times. Twice he finished second place. Once he was unable to finish the race due to his canoe breaking in half! In 1976 Robert and Butch Hodges finished first, breaking a record with a time of 37 hours and 18 minutes!

By the way, this year’s Water Safari starts on the 8th of June and finishes on Wednesday the 12th.
Robert commented about his life by saying, “The reason I’m still here and still working is by the grace of God! I’m so happy that I’m part of God’s family and it’s all because of Him.”

Robert and Margaret had four children: Glenda (Paul) Gonzales, Bubba (Cathy) Chatham, Missy (Dennis) Wiles, and Robbie Chatham. They have 7 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.

We wish Robert God’s Best as he enjoys his 80th year of living!

Water Baptism

Thirteen adults and children were water baptized on Easter at the Seadrift Community Church in Seadrift. Every time someone is water baptized not only are they impacted, but the community is as well. Water baptism has been a long-held tradition in the Christian Church dating back to the time of Christ when Jesus’ disciples were water baptizing. Jesus Himself spoke to His disciples and commanded them to make converts, baptize them, and teach them to observe all that Jesus commanded them. (Matthew 28:9)

At the Seadrift Community Church those water baptisms were a church community event where church members baptized their loved ones all in accordance with Matthew 28:9. Pictured is a grandmother (Jennifer Bernal) baptizing her granddaughter (Kambrie Morales) while Pastor Mart Maxwell was looking on. Pastor Mart made this observation about the baptisms that Easter by saying, “With the founding members doing the work that Christ called them to do, it causes the movement of the Holy Spirit in their lives from baptizing the young people to change the hearts of the congregation.”

Kambrie Morales who was baptized in the picture commented about her baptism by saying, “I wanted to go to “God’s lead.” I wanted to tell God that I don’t want to do any bad stuff anymore and I want to be blessed.”
For three or four months, Kambrie related to me, she was waiting to be baptized. She was very excited for the day to come and wouldn’t stop talking about it. Her grandmother wanted to baptize her because she was excited for her, Kambrie said. Kambrie’s family members were baptized and some of her friends, too.
-Tanya DeForest

From Michael Cloud, US Congressman, Texas District 2.
I wanted to give you all an update on an issue I’ve been asked about several times lately, which is the bill I recently had to vote NO on in the House. It was a bill called the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” but truthfully, the title was misleading.

Too often, Congress speedily advances well-intended but poorly drafted legislation that actually does more damage than the issue it attempts to address. That was the case with this bill. It may have been well-intentioned, but it contained language that was way too broad and I believe violated free speech rights. In trying to condemn antisemitism, the text went so far as to list things that could be labeled as “hate speech.” Under this bill, even someone reading Biblical passages talking about Jesus’s crucifixion could be accused of “hate speech.”

These were issues that could have been fixed had House Leadership allowed for Member input, but as we were working to solve the problems, leadership steamrolled us and scheduled the vote anyway. That’s not the way the people’s house should work.

What’s happening towards our Jewish brothers and sisters is shameful and should be dealt with. It is indicative of a much bigger problem and a sickness within our country that leaders need to deal with head-on. But playing leftist games and labeling things “hate speech” not only violates free speech rights, it pretends we’re doing something useful when we really aren’t.

Instead, we should be focusing our attention on using Congress’ Constitutional power of the purse to defund taxpayer-funded institutions pushing ideologies like antisemitism. We should also block President Biden’s bureaucracy from getting more funding after he, once again, ignored clear Congressional direction (also known as the law) to speedily deliver military aid to Israel. Let’s actually use our leverage to implement consequences and change – not just push talking points.

I hope that explains my position for those of you asking.