I just left the church because I met someone from Rainbow Middle School & let them borrow our Trunk or Treat games for their fall fest. Before I even forget let me say, in the future if anyone ever needs to borrow them & it doesn’t conflict with WBBC’s trunk or treat please feel free. I’ll be glad to let you know what all we have and show them to you. We have been blessed over the years to have some great wooden games made by Gene Mince and if we can help anyone else in the community out by using them then I think we should. I think every church member will be so proud of our church come Sunday. The gym looks great and those pumpkin & mum baskets are beautiful too. I know Kendra did the baskets, June & Leslie decorated the gym & Shay & Tommy cleaned the gym carpet. I am very sure there have been others who have put in hard work I just haven’t been at the church much this week to know who all did what. Anyway, you will be proud to have visitors in our church Sunday. I have to tell yall about our signs at the beginning of Whorton Bend Rd & over by the skating rink. We were at a meeting last week going over 100th Anniversary items & Joey suggested we get some signs made & would I call the sign guy I always use. I said sure but this is kind of last minute. I called & he got busy & quickly emailed me 2 proofs, which I emailed to Joey. The 1st one was purple with just the words the other option had sky, water, a bible & a cross plus all the words. We really liked the 2nd option but was afraid from the highway it would be so busy graphically that passing cars might not be able to read the words. So we went with the purple version. I stayed on Joey to get those signs up. Well, yesterday Jami was in the car with me & I was just a complaining about those signs. I was like that is so ugly & I should have went with the 2nd option & the purple color didn’t look like it did on the computer. Jami said Kristi that is pink. In my nornal fashion I argued purple. Jami said well he thought it was pink & that we had decided to do pink signs for breast cancer. WHAT???? Where 100th anniversary & breast cancer awareness come together I have no idea but I was floored. I said oh no everyone else probably thinks the same thing Jami did. So you all know, breast cancer is close to my heart but I didn’t plan on promoting it with the church signs!! Again the signs are purple!! Lol
I said on the last blog post that I wanted to talk about people who have been so special to me since I came to WBBC. There have been a lot of special people but June White really stands out. One of the 1st outside church activities Jami & I came to when we were visiting WBBC was the trunk or treat. There were very few cars & the only people remotely close to our age were Paul & Teresa Johnson. Remember, I was very shy back them and I remember June walking past me and saying now there is food over here & a bonfire outside and yall just help yourselves. She was so welcoming. As things progressed over the years, I watched June help w/ a half day VBS, my boys 1st VBS. When I first quit Bellsouth & actually had free time, I would go to church & help June with the trunk or treat or get the fellowship hall ready for a dinner. I learned so much from her. She just took me in & included me. June has welcomed me into her home for several women’s’ church parties, she has planned wonderful ladies trips to Pigeon Forge and she has taught me how to do the annual report for the EBA. She has offered to drive Mother to Bham when she was receiving radiation and she was a huge encourager when I found out that I was having Jack. The most important thing I have learned from June over the years is dedication & faithfulness. I have seen her at church so many times doing this or that, that people never know about. Yes, I know she is our secretary but she has done things that fall outside of the secretary zone for years. She doesn’t just lay out of church. If June isn’t there, there is something wrong. When I turn in receipts they are completely unorganized with writing all over them & she somehow makes it out. Year after year I call her asking how close I am to going over the kid’s budget & she knows it down to the penny within a minute. I call her asking for a church check & I have it that day. As a matter of fact, I called this morning because I needed a check to go pick up Sunday’s programs & she met me in Southside within minutes. She has been dedicated and faithful not just as the WBBC secretary but as someone who loves to work in her church. She is faithful to being in God’s house. She is welcoming to others at WBBC. I know I am all over the place with this but I hope it conveys the importance she has played in my life. I have watched her example & I strive to be as dedicated & faithful. Yes…. I know June likes things a certain way but she is honest & will tell you that upfront. I had a shower at church a few wks. ago & the table cloths looked a little wrinkled. I said something to June & questioned if I should steam them, she said yes she would & of course I didn’t make the effort. Lol June has so much knowledge and history of our church. I think in the business meeting she said she had been at the church 57 or 52 yrs. WOW!! It really saddened me to hear her give up the social committee & the flower committee this year because she couldn’t handle all the doing anymore.
I guess the whole point of this was to remember how others have influenced out lives. I am so thankful to God for not letting go & giving up on me when I was fighting him so hard not to be at WBBC. I am so thankful to God for the people who I have met, those I learned from, those who helped encourage the children’s ministry, those who thought my young brother had what it took to eventually lead our church, those who stepped up and were role models on how to raise a family, the one who wanted our church to be a lighthouse to the community, the one who started a young adult Sunday school class so Jami & I didn’t have to go to SS with older, much older people, the one who started serving in the nursery so Jami & I didn’t have to take our babies to preaching ( Blake & Laura… I think Theresa was one of those volunteers), for the Baptism that held my boys & brother, for the closeness I felt to church members when we cried out prayers for the Cloughs, for the moments I have been with children as they have asked Jesus into their hearts, for the excitement I have gotten as I have seen visitors walk thru our doors and for the lost who have met Jesus at the alter. I am so thankful for that day when God’s pull was so strong on me that I couldn’t stay in my pew & pushed Jami out so we could become members at WBBC. I hope you all have a great weekend & I look forward to Sunday. Keep your eye out for a visiting preacher Sunday, Bro. Bill Kirkpatrick. He baptized me at 1st Baptist Southside & was one of the preachers who married Jami & me.
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