Dr. A.J. “Jack” Green
Much of what South Texas Children’s Home Ministries is today, it owes to the leadership of Dr. A.J. “Jack” Green. To those who know him best, this may seem like an understatement, but if you’ve not yet had the privilege to meet him, well…get ready!
But whenever and wherever it is, you will know three things about this great man in the briefest of encounters. One, he cares about you and is genuinely interested in your life. Two, he loves the Lord and is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And three, he is passionate about the work of South Texas Children’s Home Ministries (STCHM) and what it does for hurting children and families.
“When I think of STCH, I think Jack Green. When I think of Jack Green, I think STCH,” shares Bob Beazley, who served on the STCH board of directors for 27 years. “Jack is STCH …. 24/7.” Bob has been friends with Jack for many years. “Jack and I have hunted, fished, ridden motor cycles, laughed, cried, and served together. He’s a Godly man that I am proud to call friend.”
Green retired as STCHM’s President and CEO in June of 1998 after serving in that capacity for 25 years. Yet someone comes up to him almost daily to share about the impact STCHM had on their life.
“I used to sponsor a child from STCHM, Dr. Green. He would come stay at our house every summer. It was such a special experience and we still keep in touch with him. Thank you, Dr. Green, for all you did for the Children’s Home.”
“Dr. Green, you probably don’t remember me, but THANK YOU for what you did for me through the Children’s Home. I know it didn’t seem like I would ever make it, but I have a job and a family, and I’m doing well. I never forgot what I learned at the Home. It changed my life.”
“The first and foremost thing about Jack Green is that he is grounded,” said John Weber, current STCHM Board Chairman and lifelong friend of Jack and Bobbie Green. “He knows absolutely who he is, what he believes, and why he believes it. And he always seeks to know what is right.”
Perhaps that is why in the early 1970s, the South Texas Children’s Home Board and founding president Brother Jess Lunsford were determined to bring Green in as the second leader of the Home.
“When we were first told that the search committee wanted me to be the next president of the Children’s Home, my wife Bobbie and I both laughed,” Jack said. “But Homer Dean called me to meet the committee for dinner and he laid down a thick file of all the information they had gathered about me and said, ‘We are absolutely certain you are the one to take the head of the Home.’ So I told Bobbie that we should at least pray about it since so many that I loved and admired believed I was the man for the job.”
Alton Jackson Green, Jr. grew up on a 97-acre rent farm outside of Rogers, Texas in a four-room unpainted house with Christian parents and three other siblings.
Todd Roberson, current STCHM President and CEO, recalls a conversation that took place after he first started working at STCH 18 years ago.
“I hadn’t been at the Children’s Home long when I put two and two together and realized that Bro. Lunsford had been Dr. Green’s boyhood pastor,” Roberson said. “I had also heard that he had baptized Jack, but I thought maybe someone was pulling my leg about that. One day when I was talking to Bro. Lunsford I asked him if he had really baptized Jack as a young man. Brother Lunsford replied, ‘Todd, I did baptize him. The only problem was I didn’t hold him under the water long enough for it to take.’ Brother Lunsford and Dr. Green had such a great, and humorous, relationship!”
Later, after his baptism, Jack was called into the ministry at the age of fourteen while attending youth camp in Bell County. He preached his first sermon at a revival when he was only 15, and at age 17 he began attending Baylor University.
“I was intimidated by the big churches around Baylor so I preached at smaller churches, Jack said. “When I first saw Bobbie while preaching at Third Street Baptist Church, I was totally enraptured. We couldn’t date at first, but she graduated from high school and worked at Baylor while attending college, and I went off to seminary. We were married right before I got out of seminary.”
Jack became the founding pastor of Shearer Hills Baptist Church in San Antonio, which began as a mission of First Baptist Church-San Antonio, and the Greens had three children – Allen, Doug and Jeanene. Jack loved being a pastor and had been at Shearer Hills for 15 years when he was asked to come to STCHM. He remembers someone telling him that if he became the president of STCHM, he would have to give up preaching, and that was a tough decision.
“Jack was my pastor and preacher at Shearer Hills from the time I was eight until I graduated from high school and went off to undergrad and law school,” Weber shared. “Jack was very involved with the youth so I had the opportunity to interact with him a lot. He had a great sense of humor. My favorite memories are things that occurred at youth camp, but it would not be appropriate to elaborate on them in this article!”
Jack’s reputation for being a character is as much a part of him as his spiritual passion. Bill Beazley, Bob Beazley’s brother and a current director on the STCH board, has special memories of Jack as well.
“One morning, years ago, in Creed Colorado, Jack Green came by my cabin and told me we were going to the river to fish,” Bill shared. “Soon, we were on the banks of the Rio Grande. The water was perfect, but we never fished. We sat down on the bank and Jack shared with me the invitation he had received to move to South Texas and lead South Texas Children’s Home. For several hours, we prayed, talked, cried, questioned and prayed some more. Jack realized that God wanted him to accept these challenging opportunities, and he prayed to thank God and ask Him for His continued support.”
“Jack is a visionary,” Weber said. “In 1973 when he left Shearer Hills to go to this place called South Texas Children’s Home, he went with a vision – to take what Jess Lunsford started and expand it into what it could become. And he did that with the background of a pastor, not an administrator.”
“He was always focused on the goal,” Weber continued. “And that was: How do I grow STCHM financially to be able to keep doing what we do for children? Jack always has his eyes on the future. He’s not afraid of change if it advances the goal. And he has never lost his way.”
Jack’s early days at STCHM were not easy. A week after they moved to the Home, their second son, Doug, had an accident which broke his neck, although he did recover fully. The work was challenging as well.
“My first six months at the Home, I did not have an assistant or other administrators so I would be able to learn the ropes,” Jack said. “Peggy Patterson, Diane Gryseels, and Mickey Hurry were a great help to me. One of my greatest early accomplishments was to get telephones throughout the campus. We only had one phone in the administration building and a phone booth near the cottages.”
“My first thought as executive director was ‘How in the world am I going to get people to know that the Children’s Home is out here?’ Since our donated land had good hunting on it, I offered hunts to people if they would stop by and see the Home. Then, I started thinking about the cattle on our land and called my good friend and rancher Robert Armstrong. Robert donated 28 prime Beefmaster heifers and two bulls to STCHM to begin a quality Beefmaster herd. At our first Kattle for Kids sale on campus in 1980, 413 ranchers and breeders attended and two-thirds of the cattle that were purchased were donated back to the Home!”
“One rancher who attended that first sale was not even a Beefmaster breeder,” Jack said, “but he liked what he saw at the Children’s Home. He has since become one of STCHM’s biggest supporters and plans to leave everything he has to STCHM one day.”
“Another great accomplishment was when I hired Homer Hanna as the Child Care Administrator,” he added. “Homer had served as Dean of Students at the University of Corpus Christi (UCC) and later as Associate Pastor of Shearer Hills.”
Roberson was also invited to join the staff in 1992. “Dr. Green first hired me to be the Assistant Business Administrator to my friend, Mickey Hurry,” Roberson shared. “I have often thought about the sanity, or lack thereof, involved in hiring a 25-year-old to ultimately be responsible for the finances of the Home! I am grateful that Dr. Green saw something in me at a relatively young age to trust me with such an awesome responsibility.” Roberson later became Vice President-Business Administration and then served as Vice President of Development and COO before becoming STCHM President and CEO in November of 2007.
Jack Green definitely has a gift for connecting with people and sensing their needs, and he’s always ready to offer up a prayer on the behalf of others. “I guess one way to say it is he’s got God at his fingertips,” Doris Porter, who goes by “Po,” stated.
Many years ago, Po and her friend Shirley Hathorn were on their way to Creede, Colorado where they spend their summers.
“We pulled into a station to get gas in Clayton, New Mexico, right behind a vehicle with a Texas license plate and a trailer full of three-wheelers,” Po explained. “Shirley went in to pay for the gas and asked the man where he was from. It was Jack Green and he told her he was from South Texas Children’s Home and that he was headed to Creede, Colorado.” Thus began a lifelong friendship between Po, Shirley and the Greens and Po, Shirley and STCHM.
“Jack Green is kind, considerate and thoughtful,” Po continued. “He really likes people and goes out of his way to speak to you and get to know you, whether it’s at church, on the street or anywhere else. He and Bobbie are so good to stop by and share things with you. If they have been to the Valley or somewhere else, they always bring things back to their neighbors and friends …. candy, peaches, strawberries or lettuce …. whatever they have. And they are the kind of people you don’t hesitate to call when you need help. When Shirley and I were talking about setting up trusts for the Children’s Home, Jack came out and walked the property with me and spent time with us. He’s got such a pastor’s heart.”
“One of the things I’m proudest of in STCHM’s history,” Jack said, “is that God has always provided. “I always believed that if you see as many people as you can as often as you can, God will do the rest.”
“There’s nobody more bold and more assertive than A.J. “Jack” Green. PERIOD!” Weber said. “And this boldness brought about the financial stability of South Texas Children’s Home Ministries and the growth to carry out our mission to children and families.”
Hanna could not agree more. “I think 1 Timothy chapter 6 describes Jack both personally and theologically,” Hanna said. “So much so that I have a note in the margin of my Bible that reads: Jack Green stores up for STCH and himself a good foundation for the future; so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed (1 Tim. 6:19).”
The accounts of people’s generosity toward STCHM during those decades are nothing short of miraculous. And most who began supporting the Home through their association with Jack continue to be faithful supporters today.
“I was visiting with a man in a Beeville coffee shop one day about STCHM and later received a call from a stranger who had overheard me talking about the Home in the coffee shop,” Jack shared. “He wanted to furnish a cottage for our kids with a gift of $37,000. Another lady who was a supporter came by the office and then visited one of our cottages. She then wrote out a $100,000 check and said, ‘I’ve always wanted a new brick home and I’m going to have it. But I’m going to give it to South Texas Children’s Home because I want the kids who come to the Home to live in it.’”
Along the way, Jack discovered that he didn’t have to give up preaching after all. “Once when I was preaching at First Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, a woman watching the service on TV called and wanted to leave her ranch and mineral rights to the Home. Another great supporter over the years was Louise Glasscock. She and her husband were in the oil industry, and Louise and I were both trustees on the UCC board together. When I started as STCHM president, she congratulated me with a letter and sent a $30,000 donation to the Home.”
Jack reminisced about the one million dollar capital campaign he launched called Project 80’s to update campus facilities. “We were just kicking off the campaign when the worst real estate bust ever came along,” he said.
Hanna also remembers it well. “When Project 80’s appeared in jeopardy because of the economy, Jack asked the board to ‘allow God to demonstrate His faithfulness and power.’ The project never slowed down and God provided all of the resources to complete the work.”
In fact, Jack got a call from a board member toward the end of the campaign who wanted to give $100,000. “I told him that $87,000 would do it and he said, ‘Jack, I’m sure you’ll find something to do with the rest.’”
Another important aspect of Jack’s legacy with STCHM was the startup of the Family Counseling center in Corpus Christi.
“I got to thinking about the need to work from both ends – to work to keep families together, too, as well as be here to help when families break up.”
A STCHM trustee called Jack and told him missionary Mildred Verbeck had lost her father and wanted to do something for the Home. When Jack shared his idea about starting the counseling center, it struck a chord with Verbeck. In 1995, the counseling center was established and countless individuals, couples and families have been helped for more than 15 years. A second STCHM counseling center in Victoria is now three years old.
“I got a call from a Corpus Christi man one day,” Jack said with emotion. “He said, ‘Thank you for starting STCHM’s Family Counseling center, Dr. Green. It saved my marriage and changed our lives.’”
“Dr. Jack Green is one of those larger-than-life personalities who come along once in a lifetime,” Roberson said. “From friend, to boss, to mentor, I am thankful and blessed that Dr. Green is a part of my life, my family’s life, and a vital part of the life of STCHM!”
Since retirement, Jack has continued to serve STCHM as a development consultant, sharing the good news about the Home at every opportunity. He has also served as interim pastor 27 different times at various churches, preached at many camps, does cowboy church at Beefmaster cattle auctions, and stays busy supplying pulpits in churches that have a need. The Greens also enjoy spending time with their family and grandchildren, and particularly love escaping to their cabin in Creede during the summer.
Five years ago, Jack and Bobbie faced uncertain times when Bobbie broke her femur and they discovered she had Stage 4 lymphoma throughout her body. She was under the care of MD Anderson for three years, but neither chemotherapy nor radiation was recommended. The Greens then learned of an oncologist in San Antonio, and after much prayer and hearing God’s direction through the story of the Pool of Siloam in John 9:1-7, they believed that San Antonio would be Bobbie’s Siloam. She began treatments there and last year, they received the wonderful news that Bobbie is in complete remission.
“There are many wonderful people who have led STCHM in various capacities, but nobody has poured themselves into STCHM more completely than Jack Green.” Weber said. “And Bobbie has been there every step of the way.”
“Loyalty is the word that reminds me most of Jack Green’s life,” Hanna concluded. “Loyalty to Christ, loyalty to STCHM, and loyalty to his friends and family.”
With the quiet confidence of one who has spent a lifetime trusting God to do the impossible, Jack said softly, “If you stay faithful to what God calls you to do, He will provide.”
And He certainly has.