I Stood In A Texas Town And Saw Something The West Has Largely Forgotten
On 17 May 2026 - America’s 250th anniversary - I found myself in a small Texas town called Celina, witnessing something profound... that I hadn’t seen in a long time
What did I witness?
Ordinary people, across four generations, standing up in the public square and speaking with conviction about faith, history, and the soul of a nation.
I didn’t grow up in church. I joined a church in my teenage years and was baptised. I walked away from faith in my mid-twenties. Since 2020 I have been revisiting my moral foundations, asking myself hard questions about what I truly believe - and why. What I witnessed in Celina helped cement my own convictions.
If you want to get straight to watching my video without reading the rest of this article, go here.
The Rededication of the United States
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation declaring 2026 the Year of Celebration and Rededication.
Recently, while participating in ‘America Reads the Bible’, the President read 2 Chronicles 7v11-22 to the nation. A key scripture was…
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” - 2 Chronicles 7:14
It isn’t about getting someone else to be the solution. This verse places the responsibility squarely on us. And in Celina that evening, the people were taking it seriously. These people have picked up their ploughs and are working their fields. So that their town, their state and their nation has a bright future, founded on its history.
Four generations, together in the public square
The speakers walked us through pivotal moments in American history - one generation at a time.
A great-grandfather spoke on the US Constitution, reminding the crowd that the founding framework of the United States was always intended to be a moral document, not merely a legal one.
A grandmother read from George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796, where Washington himself warned:
“It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible… reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
A mother stood and read from George Washington’s personal prayer book, asking all the mothers in the crowd to stand with her (we did). The words were intimate and searching - a Founding Father on his knees, not on a pedestal.
A young man, representing youth and future generations, quoted Benjamin Rush - a signatory on the Declaration of Independence - who said:
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.”
He then looked out at the crowd and said he could already see the consequences of ignoring that warning in his own generation - and he prayed over them, right there, in the open air.
The history that anchors it all
Before the generational speakers took the microphone, the gathering was anchored in the earliest foundational documents of American history.
The first was the prayer of Reverend Robert Hunt at the First Landing in Virginia, 1607 - arguably the first spiritual covenant made on American soil, before a single home was built at Jamestown. The settlers raised a cross and dedicated the land to God before they did anything else. That prayer echoes forward 419 years to this very gathering.
The second was the Mayflower Compact, signed 11 November 1620 at Cape Cod - the first governmental contract in what would become the United States of America. The very first act of self-governance on this continent was an act of faith.
A covenant of rededication
Texas State Representative Keresa Richardson then stepped up and read a formal covenant of rededication - a document that named, plainly and without apology, every way in which America has drifted: the removal of the Ten Commandments from public life, the misapplication of the separation of church and state, the corruption of education, media, culture and governance.
Christian identity
Finally, Jacob Browning, Lead Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Celina - a congregation with over 150 years of history - spoke about what it means to have a Christian identity in a city that is reportedly the fastest-growing in the nation for six consecutive quarters. His message was simple: embrace people, encounter God’s word, equip the saints, empower them to serve. Set your Saviour upstream, and trust what flows downstream.
What this means for the rest of us
I’m a New Zealander. And watching this, I kept thinking about my home - about what we’ve lost, and what we’ve allowed to be taken.
We have removed God from our courthouses, our schools, and our parliament. We are watching our history be rewritten to serve a political ideology, and that rewriting is dividing us in ways we have never seen before. The people speaking in Celina that evening were doing the opposite - going back to their true history, standing on it, and building forward from it.
If this video makes you uncomfortable, I want to gently challenge you: don’t turn it off. Sit with that discomfort and ask yourself why. These are not angry people. They are grounded, humble, and speaking with a conviction that I believe the Western world is desperately hungry for - whether it knows it yet or not.
Watch the video. I think it will stay with you.
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About Penny Marie
Penny Marie is a New Zealand-based investigative reporter, and founder of Let Kids Be Kids. Please follow, comment, share and support my work. Subscribe to my Substack, X (I also post these articles on X) and YouTube - and turn notifications on.
Thank you so much for reporting this historical event. All over the world many people are aware we need to turn our nations back to stability, morality and a pursuit of something greater than self indulgence, promoting woke agendas and constant anger towards different groups.
Christian values embrace serving others in your community and nation, Protecting children from things that will confuse them or destroy their innocence, and pursuing peace and tolerance without capitulating to beliefs and actions that violate Gods healthy standards for families.
I am 73 and have never known a time when both children and adults have become so anxious and afraid of what they hear and see around them.
Thank goodness many youth and young adults who are looking for meaning, purpose and stability in life are turning to God.
Keep up the important
work you are doing Penny
Peace be with you, Penny Marie. Thank you for your work and your honesty.