Mike’s Letter

March 24th, 2016

Vision, with it we can rise together and make a difference in our world. Our family has chosen to invest in families in the Rio Grande Valley. Our shared vision is to build communities where all people can live together in harmony and live their best lives. Bentsen Palm is a special place, it has been a privilege to invest our lives in building neighborhoods where families and nature coincide, providing beauty to not only our residents but the entire Mission community. With the spring flowers beginning to emerge, I am reminded of an important season in our nation’s history. A season of vision that changed the course of our nation and literally every American life, past, present, and future. Please enjoy this walk down memory lane as this speech will be a reminder for many of us… and please share it with your children who may not have understood the importance of Dr. King and the vision he held for this nation and our children. For current residents of Bentsen Palm, you are a part of our family’s vision and our dream. We hope you enjoy this beautiful speech as you enter this beautiful new season.

During a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his vision in these now famous words: “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the State of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream… of that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” The night before Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, he told his audience he had “seen” the Promised Land, and even though they may not get there at the same time, they would one day enter it. If you don’t have a vision for your life, ask God for one. And when He gives it to you, pour your life into it believing you’ll live to “see” it fulfilled!

Happy Easter,

Mike Rhodes
Owner/CEO
Bentsen Palm Development