GOD & TEXAS: Devil Biter

The Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio was a pivotal military encounter between the besieged Texas revolutionaries and the attacking Mexican army. The siege stretched from February 23 to March 6, 1836. It ended with almost all of the defenders killed, and the Alamo grounds decimated.

The Mexican army tore down the garrison’s outer walls, leaving a crumbling barracks structure and church amid piles of stones and rubble. After the Battle, the local citizens scorned the Alamo. To them it was a place of defeat and mourning, with no discernable future.

In 1842, a circuit-riding Methodist preacher visited South Texas. After establishing a church in Seguin in 1844, John Wesley DeVilbiss preached what is believed to be the first Protestant sermon delivered in San Antonio. By 1846, DeVilbiss was holding services in the courthouse on the Plaza in front of the Alamo ruins.

The Plaza was a busy place with merchants selling their wares, children playing, and gamblers betting on cock fights. John Davis, in his book The Texas Rangers, recounts that DeVilbiss disturbed local Rangers when he criticized their moral character. Taking both umbrage and delight in his remarks, a group of Rangers went to a service intending to throw Devilbiss into the river.

Instead, several of the Rangers liked his preaching and became members of his congregation. With Rangers present, cock fights stopped, and the Plaza was very quiet during services. And the Rangers liked the preacher even more when they discovered that his name in Middle High German is translated dūvel (devil)+ beiz (biter). Their pastor was a devil-biter!

By 1848, DeVilbiss had purchased property on Villita Street. He bought a church bell and put it on the vacant lot hoping to build a church for it. He rang the bell for services and became known in Spanish as “el padrecito que tiene la campana,” the little father who has the bell.

There remained much rubble around the Alamo, and DeVilbiss asked the city if he could use some of the stones to build a church. Needing finances, they sold it to him at 50 cents per cart load. With these castoff stones, he built a church now known as Travis Park United Methodist Church. Further, DeVilbiss built the pulpit and seats used in that original building. Though now in more modern facilities, this church remains a strong presence in downtown San Antonio.

What appeared to be rubble in the eyes of the community, became construction materials in the hands of a man with a vision. Stones that represented defeat to others became building blocks of a ministry that would bring victory and life to generations.

When the walls of our life are broken down, we have a choice: Will the rubble herald our failure? Or will it serve as a turning point towards a new life? God has proven time after time that He can provide “a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.” (Isaiah 61:3 NLT)

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