A WEEKEND TO REMEMBER!

        The Young People are on their annual ski retreat this weekend and for the first time in several years, Joyce and I are not with them.  There is a good reason for our absence.  Our grandson, Parker, is celebrating his second birthday!  There was no way we would miss his party, but we did miss his birth—because we were on the annual youth ski retreat!

        We didn’t plan it that way.  In fact, until the very last minute Joyce was unsure where she would be that weekend.  Our daughter, Della, went to the doctor on Wednesday and was told it would probably be another two weeks before the baby would come.  I remember hearing Joyce on the phone saying, “Well if that’s the case, I’m going on the ski retreat with the youth.”

        We were watching the weather forecast all week because they were calling for snow that Friday.  Our concern was getting to the mountains!  Just the opposite is true this year.  Sadly, the unseasonable warm weather may close the ski slopes.  The leaders have other plans of course, but it is sad to go on a ski retreat without any snow. 

        Two years ago we feared there would be too much snow!  I recall contacting all the parents to move the departure time up on Friday afternoon.  It was one of those cold, dismal days when the clouds looked ready to burst open any minute.  The temperatures were in the 20s.  When it started falling, it would be snow and it would stick! 

        We loaded into several cars and trucks.  Because of the weather we didn’t feel it was safe to take the bus.  I had my trusty Chevrolet Colorado weighted with concrete blocks in the back to gain more traction. 

        We gathered at the church Friday afternoon and the excitement was palatable.  We kept looking to the sky.  The clouds were “pregnant” with snow. (A sign-perhaps!)  “It could start any minute,” we said.

        We left the church in a caravan and headed up Highway 52.  When we reached Winston and turned on I-40 it started snowing!  At first it was a fine mist of sorts, but then it started in earnest and by the time we reached 421, the roads were getting covered. 

        Cell phones are wonderful inventions for times like that.  We were talking to the other cars.  All the kids were excited.  All the drivers were nervous.  We were thinking about the climb up the mountain as we approached Boone. 

        We stopped in Wilkesboro at a Subway for supper.  The parking lot was white and the kids were already finding enough snow to form snowballs.  Those of us driving had a quick meeting of the minds.  “We need to be careful, extremely careful,” we all said.

        By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain on 421, the roads were white.  Traffic was very thin.  Most people were staying home and here we were taking a bunch of kids into the heart of the snowy weather!  We had all slowed down, not going over 25-30 mph. 

        The young people sensed our apprehension and there was a tense silence in all the vehicles.  The talk became measured and more serious.  The snow was coming down so fast visibility was very restricted.  We could see flashing blue lights on the southbound lanes, the downward side.  A number of vehicles had skidded off the road.  We also passed several cars and trucks attempting to go up that were unsuccessful.  We realized that we were just about the only cars on the road.  Our slow ascent continued—methodically, carefully, and nervously.  We didn’t see a single vehicle coming down the southbound lanes.  Then we realized that the Highway Patrol had closed the highway!  At least the downward side.  We wondered how far we would go before they would stop us. 

        We finally made it to the top of the mountain but still had ten miles to go before we reached Boone and another five miles to our destination in Valle Crucis.  Joyce called Della to see how she was doing.  It was snowing hard in Raleigh and they were advising everyone to stay off the roads.  Della said she was going to bed.  Joyce told her they would talk in the morning.

        Our slow trek continued into Boone.  We knew we only a few miles left to go, but one of our drivers, Kyle Kepley, had tire trouble.  He changed the tire in the snow and we were ready for the final push.  The good Lord was with us as we safely arrived at our destination.  The only trouble we had was getting up the hill to the lodge!

        It was a picture-perfect snow.  It snowed almost a foot that night in the mountains.  We woke up the next morning to a winter wonderland.  Skiing was perfect.  That night after a good meal we all sat around a roaring fire and talked about life and God’s calling.  It was one of those unforgettable moments when the group was tuned in and the message resonated loud and clear. 

        It snowed so much in Lexington that church was cancelled on Sunday.  But we had a wonderful service with the youth in the mountains.  All was well—but here is the rest of the story!

        Everyone went to bed Friday night with the snow falling.  I slept well and woke up the next morning looking forward to a great day.  I put on my snow boots and trudged through the foot of new fallen snow to the lodge.  Walking into the lodge, I could smell bacon frying!  I poured myself a cup of hot coffee and savored the moment.  It couldn’t get any better than this, I thought.  Little did I know what had happened while I was sleeping.

        Joyce and the girls went to sleep around 11:00 o’clock.  At some point after midnight one of the girls woke Joyce to tell her that her phone was beeping.  Joyce looked at the phone.  Della had been calling.  She was trying to get to the hospital in Raleigh.  The baby was on the way!

        Della woke up a little after 11 and realized she was in labor.  Ryan, her husband, borrowed his dad’s 4 wheel drive vehicle and they started to the hospital in the snowstorm.  The roads were covered and icy.  A trip that normally took 25 minutes took over an hour.  Just as she walked into the ER waiting room, her water broke.

        Joyce was texting Della back and forth all night.  The plan was for Joyce to be with her when the baby was born, but that was not an option.  Our oldest daughter, Lynn, was at her job at Durham Regional Hospital due to the weather.  She jumped in her car and made the slow and dangerous drive to Rex Hospital in Raleigh.  Just after 5 a.m., Parker Jennings was born.  I was sound asleep, not aware of all the drama going on. 

        When Joyce came into the lodge that morning I asked her how she slept.  She didn’t say a word!  Just looked at me!  Then she informed me that I had another grandson!

        We will be celebrating Parker’s 2^nd birthday this weekend.  It is supposed to be in the 60s and balmy.  The kids are in the snowless mountains on a ski retreat.  They have no doubt talked about the amazing ski retreat two years ago in the snow.  It will be a weekend we will never forget.

        Happy Birthday Parker!

A HOLY COLLISION!

        This Sunday a Holy Collision is taking place at First Baptist Church!  We are celebrating baptism—the baptism of Courtney Sams.  Courtney told me last night she was excited!  And she should be!   Everyone should be excited about the day of their baptism.  And if baptism is true and authentic, the excitement is only beginning and    life will never be the same!  

        Baptists, as you well know, baptize by immersion.  You will get wet!  Soaked to the skin!   I honor and respect the baptisms of different faith traditions; we accept all baptisms in our church because we believe that baptism can only be validated by God, not by a denomination.  But at the same time those who were only baptized as infants or even later by “sprinkling” miss the full impact.  There are many powerful Christian acts that we have, shall we say, “watered down,” behind the soft light of our stained glass windows and the antiseptic atmosphere of our church rituals.  Baptism was never intended to be a comforting little ceremony with warm fuzzy feelings, it was a Holy Collision between water, Word, and Spirit!

        Our Gathering this Sunday will hopefully set the tone for this service that will be anything but ordinary:  Yes, this is no “play it safe” Sunday. Today we celebrate this holy collision of water, Word, and Spirit. In celebrating the baptism of our Lord, we also remember our own baptism, our incorporation into the family of God, and into this wonderful, countercultural, dangerous discipleship journey. By water and Word God named and claimed us and gave us the gift of the Spirit. Nothing should ever be the same again; if it is, if the world is too much with you and you are distracted by worries and concerns then trouble those waters, my friend. Stir it up and remember whose you truly are. Let the grace and the wonder and the expectation wash over you again and again

            One cannot survive this Holy Collision and expect to return to normal.  When Jesus was baptized the heavens split open, the Word was proclaimed, and the Spirit descended like a Dove!  Whoa!   That’s powerful stuff.   Annie Dillard wrote these thought-provoking words:

        Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake some day and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.” (from Teaching a Stone to Talk)

            Our ushers are not going to lash us to our pews Sunday!  (It’s an interesting thought, is it not?) But we are going to do something we have never done before!   (Mercy!)   

        Courtney will carry a small pitcher of water with her to the baptistery.  This will symbolize the faith that has been passed down from one generation to the next.  Courtney’s family goes back several generations in our church.  The pitcher will also will have water from the Jordan River, the river where our Lord was baptized.  We have done this before, only this time, after Courtney is baptized, I’m going to fill up the water pitcher and ask her to bring it back into the sanctuary with her.  Then, I am going to fill up 10 more water pitchers, and hand these to our youth who will place them in front of the pulpit.  We are taking water out of the baptistery!

        What do we do with the water after our baptism?  Do we simply dry off, get dressed, go to Southern Lunch and talk about how good it was?   Or do we put on our crash helmets and life preservers, and go forth into the world in the power of the Spirit, forever changed from the powerful collision of water, Word, and Spirit!  Do we go forth as the hands and feet of Christ to fulfill the mission that Jesus proclaimed after his baptism in his hometown of Nazareth: “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND,
TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

          At the conclusion of the service as we sing our closing hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River,” our ushers will come forward and take the water pitchers, full with the waters of baptism, to each exit from the Sanctuary.   As each worshiper leaves the church, he or she will be invited to dip their hand, if they dare, into the water!   It will be a reminder of our own baptisms and a commitment to live as baptized people, cleansed by the water, called out by the Word, and changed by the Spirit! 

        I hope to see you Sunday!  It will not be business as usual at old First Baptist!

GONE WITH THE WIN

        I remember the car—a small car with two big speakers tied to the top.  The car was going up and down the streets of my hometown and there was no way anyone could ignore it.  A country song, “Y’all Come,” was blaring through the big, cone shaped speakers.  It was followed by an announcement of a rally at the railroad station where you could meet the man whose picture adorned the vehicle—George C. Wallace.

        I rode my bicycle down to the station to hear this little man.  He may have been small in stature, but he sure could talk big!  He talked a whole lot about segregation.  The more he talked about, the more he fired up the crowd.  I got on my bicycle and rode home.

        George Wallace ran for governor once before, but he didn’t get elected.  They said he was too soft on “the negro issue.”   This time he sold out to the Klan.  He got their money and their votes, they got his voice and elected power.  He sold his soul to the devil and the devil won—this time. 

        A few months later I watched on television as Wallace took the oath of office on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery.  He stood on the very spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president of the Confederacy.  I listened as he pledged, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!  “Y’all Come” applied only to the white folks.

        Governor Wallace continued with his vitriolic racial rhetoric.  His critics said that his bark was worse than his bite.  It was a pretty loud bark though, loud enough to stand in the school house door, but not enough bite to scare away the National Guard. 

        There was violence in Selma and Birmingham. A bus was burned.  Innocent people were killed.  Bull Conner turned fire hoses and dogs on protesters in Birmingham. Four innocent little girls attending Sunday School were killed in a tragic church bombing. The Sunday School lesson that morning was “The Love that Forgives.”  People of reason knew that the madness had to stop.

        Rev. Billy Graham came to Birmingham to promote racial harmony. The big football stadium where Alabama and Auburn played football was packed. Dr. Martin Luther King preached the gospel of peace and forgiveness.  When I heard his remarkable, “I Have a Dream” speech from the Lincoln Memorial, I was deeply moved.  Governor Wallace was not.

        There were two things in Alabama more important than politics: religion and sports—not necessarily in that order.  For the most part, white preachers were silent on the race issue.  We went to our white churches and just pretended that the problems didn’t exist while we raised money to send missionaries to Africa. The head usher at my church, who was also my barber and a Sunday School Teacher (haircuts $1.25) bragged about bringing a loaded gun to church to “keep the niggers out.”  As a nine year old boy, I was scared to death..

        There was one man in the state of Alabama more powerful than George Wallace.  In the late 1960’s, this man’s once-mighty football team was no longer a national powerhouse.  The problem could not be ignored.  The coach knew what he needed to do to fix the problem, but first he had to convince people that he was doing the right thing.  Paul “Bear” Bryant called his good friend, John McKay, coach of the University of Southern California and asked him for a big favor.  “I want you to bring your football down here and let’s play a game.”  John McKay reminded his good friend that USC was integrated; no school in the South was at this point.

        “Like I said,” the Bear continued.  “I want you to bring your football team down here.”

        John McKay brought his integrated football team to Birmingham in 1970.  For the first time ever, black men were permitted to do more at Legion Field than sell soft drinks and hot dogs.  The good old boys were making jokes about the California “colored” boys who thought they could play football.

        USC killed the all white Crimson Tide.  It was one of Bear’s worst defeats.  When he met Coach McKay after the game, the Bear simply said, “Thank you.”  He also invited USC's star running back, Sam "Bam" Cunningham into the Alabama locker room after the game.  The young black football star timidly looked into the eyes of the white players he had embarrassed on the football field.  Coach Bryant put his arm around the young man and said to his team, "Gentlemen, this is a football player."
        Coach Bryant had what he wanted.  When he unveiled his 1971 team, there were several black players.  Alabama became the first Southeastern Conference school to integrate.

        The unranked Tide traveled to California to open the next season against the #1 ranked USC Trojans. (Bear was returning the favor)  Alabama won and never looked back.  On New Year’s Day, the undefeated Crimson Tide played Nebraska in the Orange Bowl for the National Championship.  I remember it well because I was there.  So was George Wallace, who didn't look quite so big as he walked across the Orange Bowl turf being dwarfed by the massive football stars.  He knew why Alabama was there.  Bear won more football games in the 1970s than any other football team in a single decade.  Segregation was, shall we say, “Gone with the Win.”

        What happened to George?  Well, you know he ran for president and survived an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed—but it moved his heart.  He learned how to say three words that would change his life, “I was wrong.”

        In the early 1970s I served as Youth Minister of the First Baptist Church in Greenville, Alabama.  George Wallace’s daughter was a member of our church.  She told me that the bombing of the church in Birmingham that killed four little girls deeply hurt her father.  “He should have said, ‘I was wrong’ at that point,” she told me.  “But he continued his public show for political expediency.  It wasn’t until he was shot that it didn’t matter anymore.  For many, it was too late.” 

        He spent the last years of his life speaking in black churches asking for forgiveness.  He ran for governor again, but this time the “Y’all Come” good old white boys were against him. He was elected anyway, by the black vote!

        A football coach changed a state.  A wounded governor changed his heart.  Today we honor the prophet who dared to dream of a nation where people would be judged by the content of their character, rather than by the color of their skin. 

        Y’all come!

                                                                       

       

       

Dreaming of a Brighter Future

            The dawning of a New Year brings hope and promise.  The one consistent thread throughout Scripture is the hope of a brighter future.  The great German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the darkest days of the Nazi oppression wrote of “living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future.”  If we knew our dreams would come true, what would we like to see in this New Year?  Here are some of my dreams for Lexington and Davidson County:

            The Local Economy Restored:  The citizens of Davidson County need jobs.  Those of us in churches and helping agencies see the painful results of our economic situation every day.  People are hurt, broken, and desperate. We are not only seeing the stereotypical welfare recipients who are asking for a handout, but we see people who have never asked for help before, individuals who are embarrassed by the situation they are in, but helpless to change it.  Children are going to bed at night in cold houses without food to eat.  We need an economic revival.  We need jobs to restore dignity and stability.  It won’t happen overnight and we will never see the return of the furniture and textile giants that carried us for generations, but I dream of a new day when people have multiple options for employment and capital is infused back into the city and county to create a vibrant and thriving community.

            A Revitalized and Vibrant Downtown:    The late morning Amtrak train glides into the new Lexington Depot.  While the majority of the passengers who get off are tourists, several are residents who can easily walk to their new condominiums overlooking the thriving Depot District.  The old Dixie Smokestack stands tall over the new Furniture Museum and the open air Lexington Market with lovely fountains, unique shops, and enticing restaurants.  A shuttle delivers visitors to the Main Street shops, Childress Winery, the Timberlake Gallery, and the theatre where lines are already forming for the afternoon matinee.  In the evening several thousand residents and visitors gather in the new Lexington Amphitheater for an exciting concert.  This is not an impossible dream.  It can happen and it should!

            An Increase in Faith and Compassion:  Lexington has always been a community of faith.  Individually and collectively, our faith in God provides a solid foundation for a life of love and service. It is through our local churches that our faith is developed, nurtured and celebrated, and through our local agencies that faith is translated into acts of mercy and compassion.  All of our churches and non-profits have struggled in this troubled economy.  I dream of a revival of faith, a recommitment to our churches, and a renewed involvement in the agencies that help and enrich the lives of those who are less fortunate. 

            A Return to Civility and Cooperation in Government:  Are we truly “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?”  Our elected leaders don’t act like it.  Nor do their actions reflect a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Vitriolic and divisive political rhetoric has replaced reason and cooperation.  Does it really matter if the Republicans win or the Democrats win if our leaders cannot work together?  They seem to spend all of their time and energy discrediting and blaming the opposition for our failures.  I dream of a day when elected leaders will put the good of the country and the best interests of all people ahead of their political party, will respect and act with civility towards those who have differing views, and will honor their position as a sacred trust that exists for the common good rather than personal gain. 

              I encourage you to join me in great dreams for the New Year.  Henry David Thoreau wrote, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

(This was published in the Dispatch on January 7, 2012)

                                                                                               

A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEW ORLEANS--38 YEARS AGO

          A National Championship game will be played in New Orleans Monday night.  Alabama will play LSU with the winner being crowned the champion of college football.  I will watch the game and pull for Alabama to win, but my mind will wander back some 38 years, to December 31, 1973, when Alabama played for another National Championship in New Orleans.  I remember it well because I was there.

        The game was the Sugar Bowl, played in massive old Tulane Stadium before the Superdome was even conceived.  Alabama was undefeated and entered the game ranked number 1.  Their opponent was Notre Dame who was also undefeated and ranked number 2.  This was a long time before the BCS was designed to have the number one and two teams play, such a game didn’t happen very often in those days. 

        It was the first time the two football powerhouses had played in their storied histories.  For years Notre Dame would not play in bowl games.  Alabama, on the other hand, had played in more bowls than any team in history, beginning with their big Rose Bowl wins back in the 1920s. 

        Alabama fans despised Notre Dame.  They were still seething from the 1966 game between the Irish and Michigan State.  That was also a number 1 vs. number 2 game, although it was in the regular season.  Alabama, also undefeated was number 3, and wanted one team to lose that game to elevate the Tide to number 2 and hope the other team was knocked out in a bowl game, but it was not to be.  The game was tied 10-10 late in the fourth quarter when Notre Dame got the ball and Ara Parseghian, the ND coach, famously ran out the clock to play for a tie.  (There was no overtime back then)  When the season ended, Notre Dame and Michigan State were still number one and 2, and an undefeated Alabama team that destroyed Ne1ska in the Sugar Bowl was forced to settle for number 3. 

        The two legendary coaches, Parseghian and Bear Bryant were coaching against each other for the first time.  The game was the talk of college football.  The buildup to the game was incredible, and this was long before 24 hour sports talk radio and ESPN.  ABC was televising the game and decided to use their Monday Night Football broadcast team to heighten the drama.  Howard Cosell and Dandy Don Meredith probably didn’t know a lot about college football, but their presence added to the spectacular nature of the game. 

        My Daddy somehow got tickets and we got in the car and we headed for New Orleans on the 30th of December.  I thought both of my brothers went to the game with us but Jon, my youngest brother, says we left him and our grandmother in Tuscaloosa with family.  I’m sure his memory is better than mine.  I remember the long drive through Mississippi on our way to the Louisiana Delta.  Rather than stay in an expensive New Orleans hotel, my Daddy found some little inexpensive motel in Slidell, just outside of New Orleans.  There were some other people from our hometown staying there.  I remember the night before the game Dr. Bob Sittason, who was a good friend of my Dad and also a personal friend of the Bear, stopped by the room.  He told my Dad, “Bear looks mighty worried.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this.”  I took this as a bad sign. 

        We never took in any of the festivities surrounding the game.  We were there to see a football game and that was all.  I think there was a Sugar Bowl parade that afternoon but we didn’t see it.  We left early to get to the stadium that was on the Tulane University campus.  The weather was bad in New Orleans that day, but had cleared up before game-time. 

        Our seats were in the end zone, but that didn’t matter.   We were there.  I even had a movie camera to record some of the game.  I’m sure those old movies are packed away somewhere. 

        One thing I remember was before the game they had a Catholic Priest from Birmingham to offer the invocation—a pretty good compromise for Alabama vs. Notre Dame.  And, an invocation before a football game!   What a novel idea!

        The game went back and forth.  Alabama had taken the lead only to have Notre Dame run the ensuing kickoff all the way back for the touchdown.  Notre Dame was ahead 24-23 late in the fourth quarter when Alabama punted and downed the ball inside the five yard line.  Notre Dame could not run against the stout Alabama defense and the roar from the crowd was deafening as Notre Dame faced a third and long from their own one.  All Alabama had to do was stop them on third down, force a punt from the end zone that could be blocked, but if not the Tide would have the ball in great field position to set up a winning field goal.  Then the unthinkable happened, the ND quarterback retreated back in the end zone and threw a long pass that was complete for a first down.  Notre Dame easily ran out the clock and won the game and the championship, 24-23. 

        I was devastated.  It was one thing to lose, but to lose in such a fashion and to Notre Dame of all teams!  Surely, Alabama should have won.  They outplayed Notre Dame.  The referees called a bad game.  It was a conspiracy.  Anything to face the truth that Alabama lost the game. 

        The drive back home was long and quiet.  When we reached Tuscaloosa, we stopped at a steak house (a Golden Corral type).  There was a fellow there by the name of T-Bone.  My brother and I thought that was funny and we started laughing.  Then Daddy started laughing.  My youngest brother Jon said when we picked him up, all we could do was say T-Bone and then we would laugh so hard we couldn’t finish the story.  He said it was years later before he found out what was so funny. 

        Looking back on that game 38 years ago, I don’t really think that much about the fact that Alabama lost.  What I remember was a long journey with my father and my brother, Robert.  I wish I could call them and reminisce about that journey.  I wonder if we would start laughing at the mention of T-Bone.  I would love to talk to Daddy about the current National Championship game in New Orleans.  But I can’t do that.  My Daddy is gone, my brother is gone---That is much more painful than losing a national championship.  I wish we could be together and laugh again. 

Our Church's Oldest Member

        Our church’s oldest member, Mrs. Ethel Wagoner, was laid to rest today.   Just three months shy of celebrating her 108th birthday, she was likely our church's oldest living member in history.  Born in 1904, she was eight years old when the Titanic sank, twenty-five when the Great Depression started, and thirty-seven when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  While Ethel will always be remembered for the longevity of her years, those who knew her best will remember her for the longevity of her faith, her goodness, and her compassion.

        Ethel was in many respects a quiet, dignified “Southern Lady.”  But she was also fiercely independent, outspoken when necessary, and strong-willed.  She was still driving at the age of 102 and up until a few months ago, had every intention of returning home and coming back to the church she loved and served. 

        Ethel was always a delight to be with.  She had a great sense of humor and a keen interest in everything that was going on in the church.  When Joyce and I moved into our new house back in 1998, we had an open house for the church family.  Ethel was unable to attend and told me one day how much she regretted missing the event.  “I would love to see your new house,” she said.   I responded, “Well, I will be glad to take you to see the house.”  She thought that would be a splendid idea so I drove Ethel out to our new home and you would have thought I was giving her a tour of the Biltmore House.  The house was “lovely” and “delightful” and Ethel was overjoyed to have the private tour.

        Ethel was a faithful and devoted church member.  She rarely missed a service and was faithful to our Tuesday Morning Bible Study.  When she reached the point she could not attend, she faithfully listened to the radio broadcast of the worship services and her good neighbor and close friend Silba Rae Fennell, would bring her tapes of the Bible Studies. 

        Ethel was always supportive of her ministers.  (I was only the third Senior Minister she had known since the Second World War)  A number of years ago I was scheduled to preach at the community Lenten Service at First United Methodist Church.  Ethel did not normally attend the noontime Wednesday services, but told me she was making a special effort to come since “her pastor” was speaking.  There is always a luncheon following the service and before she left, Ethel came up to my table to tell me how much she enjoyed the service.  I thanked her for making the special effort to attend and she left the fellowship hall.  A moment later she fell walking out of the door and was in tremendous pain.  I felt terrible about what happened, since I knew I was the reason she was there.  I went to the hospital where we anxiously awaited the results of the X-rays.  Her hip was broken and surgery would be required.  We all feared that at her age this might be the beginning of the end.  But it was not to be.

        Ethel’s strong constitution and determination helped her to sail through the surgery and rehab in record time.  Within a few weeks she was back home and driving once again.

        Ethel had a special love for missions that was kindled by her Uncle Arthur Gallimore, who with his wife Gladys, were Southern Baptist Missionaries to China from 1918 to 1947.  She was always very generous in her support of missions, but twenty-one years ago she made a substantial gift that would change our church’s involvement in missions and bless 100s and 100s of lives both in our church and overseas.  It started with the only time Ethel ever called me to ask for a special favor. 

In 1991 a group of people from our church went down to Belize to learn about my friend’s, Cliff Scarborough’s dream of building a retreat center and camp.  We gave a presentation on a Wednesday night.  A few days later Ethel called me on a busy afternoon and asked me to come visit her.  I really didn’t have time, but since she had never made such a request before (and never would again) I rearranged my schedule.  We had a nice visit and she didn’t say a word about Belize.  I didn’t really understand why she had been so insistent that I come and see her that afternoon.  I finally told her that I needed to go.  As I was walking out the door, Ethel told me that she had a “little gift” for the Belize project and she handed me an envelope.  I rushed back to the church and was caught up in all the pressing business of the afternoon—I didn’t even open the envelope.  Late that afternoon, just before I left the office, I saw the envelope sitting on my desk.  I opened it and almost fainted.  It was a check for $10,000!

        Ethel’s generous gift made the Baptist Training Center in Belize a reality. It was the lead gift we needed to get the project off the ground.  Without her gift, the work in Belize and the international mission focus of our church might have been dramatically different.  I think about the 100s of lives that have been blessed by the Baptist Training Center and the number of people in our church family, including dozens of young people, who have had life-changing experiences on mission trips to Belize. 

        I immediately called Ethel to express my profound gratitude for her generous gift.  “I feel like people should know you have made a significant gift,” I told her.  But she would not allow me to publicize the gift.  She made me promise to keep the gift a secret “as long as she lived.” 

        I did pretty good keeping the secret for a long time, but the last few years have shared it privately with several people.  Last summer we took a wonderful group of Young People to Belize.  I wanted to emphasize to our youth that we are always debtors to many, many people for every great experience of life.  I shared the story of Ethel’s gift that helped start the Baptist Training Center of Belize one night while we are all seated in the open-air chapel.  I think everyone was deeply moved by her faithful and generous gift.

        A couple of weeks before we took the youth to Belize, I took one of our youth to visit Ethel.  Jack Davis was helping me prepare the notebook for the trip and I was telling him about all the people, including his great-grandfather Lonnie Davis, who had worked so hard to make the work in Belize possible.  I told him there was a member of our church who was 107 years old who had made the Training Center possible.  He immediately wanted to go and see her.

        Ethel’s mind was a clear as a bell that day.  When I told her who Jack was she started talking about his great-grandfather.  She called Jack by name the entire visit. 

        “We’re getting ready to go to Belize, “I told Ethel.  “Jack is one of our young people who will be going.” 

        Ethel responded by saying, “I’ve always wanted to go to Belize.  I wish I could go with you.”  She expressed her delight that Jack was going to be able to go.  As I was talking to her I realized that if it had not been for Ethel, chances are that Jack, nor any other of the youth, would be going. 

        “You know Ethel, you are responsible for much of the work in Belize.  Your generous gift helped get everything started.”  

        “Well, I don’t know about that,” Ethel demurred.  “But I am thankful you can go.”

        I turned to Jack and said, “Ethel had an Uncle who served as a missionary to China for many years, didn’t you Ethel?”

        “Well, he’s still there,” Ethel countered.  “Arthur and Gladys are still serving in China.”  

The Gallimores actually returned home from China in 1947 and Arthur died in 1955, but the more I thought about her statement, the more I realized it was true.  Yes, Arthur and Gladys still serve in China.  They always will.  And Ethel Wagoner will still serve in Belize.  Her influence will continue and lives will be blessed for generations to come. 

        Thanks be to God for the life, the faith, and the witness of Ethel Gallimore Wagoner. 

        “Servant of God, Well Done!  Rest from thy long employ.  The battle has been fought, the victory has been won, enter thy Master’s joy.”