Totally Wonderful, Completely Heartbreaking

Barbara and I attend Fellowship Church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. We have been at Fellowship since 1999. Ever since we returned from a year on the road, seeing America. We were looking for a church. We attended the first corporate service of this church, at the Wesley Foundation at Henderson State University. We are the only members still in attendance who were here for that first meeting.

     We attended Calvary Baptist Church in Hannibal, Missouri for three years, but we lost that church when we moved back to Arkansas. It was our most wonderful church experience we had ever had, up to that point in our lives. The services were never really quiet. Churches like Calvary, who bus in a ton of disadvantaged people, especially children, and who have tons of outreach going on, local and abroad, and a church whose members are excited to be there for the right reasons, seem to often be that way, I guess.

     When we left Hannibal and moved back to Arkansas, we searched for another church like Calvary for twenty three years. We attended several really good churches, met tons of wonderful people, had some really fantastic pastors during that twenty three years.

     It's hard to really explain to you exactly what we were looking for, during all that time. Maybe it was that feeling of excitement just to be there. That certain feeling that makes us want to come to church just a little bit earlier, before the services actually start, just to be in the midst of that group of people. Or because we get well fed spiritually every Sunday. Or that feeling that makes us reluctant to leave when its over.

      When we showed up for that first service at Fellowship, it didn't take long for us to realize, that feeling we had experienced so many years before was returning. And it's been there ever since.

     We are fortunate enough to have two universities in our town. Along the way, a number of pastors who are associated with the universities came aboard. Many students followed. We now have hundreds of great college students attending Fellowship regularly. It just seems that students who come to our universities are just the cream of the crop. Then, those who choose to attend church regularly, and become an active part of that congregation, on there own, are usually just the cream of THAT crop.

     Instead of having Sunday night church services, we meet at homes in small groups. Like the first church. We meet, break bread, fellowship, study the word and pray for each other. Then we often have a campfire, roast marshmallows, and explode bamboo bombs, or the like. A few brave souls have even chosen to ride my zip line, sight unseen, down into the totally dark woods. Toward that big tree at the bottom nicknamed “splat.” Then they go home.

     This gives us the opportunity to really get to know and love these students. I cannot describe to you how great that is for us, and what a blessing this is to us. We have the opportunity to almost be substitute parents to these wonderful students for years. They become tightly woven into the fabric of our lives. But then, they graduate, and they often are soon gone, some forever, at least in this world. Many are reluctant to leave Arkadelphia, and work at jobs related to the universities for a time, or whatever they can find. But Arkadelphia has few job opportunities of the type they can hang their hats on, and raise a family around. Sooner or later, we lose almost all of them. It breaks our hearts, again and again, to see them go. We like to think of them as young people we have had the opportunity know, love, have an impact on for several years, then send them out as Fellowship's missionaries to the world. Our loss is the world's gain. That's the wonderful side of it, but it does not stop the heartache.

 

     But that is not the end of our story.

     I'm almost certain Griffin and Stephanie fell in love in our living room, many years ago. They now have three wonderful boys. We not only correspond, but visit occasionally. Griffin called us on Christmas night. They were coming through Arkadelphia during one of our very rare snowstorms, the road was getting bad. They asked about spending the night, and I told him our home was always open to them. But in all honesty, I had to tell him. Barbara and I were both flat on our backs with a bad stomach bug. Your choice. After a short discussion, they sadly chose the slick highway, instead. But they will be back, and we will be there, from time to time.

     Candi and Jeff had graduated, but they chose to stay around awhile. And, they were in love. Candi was a nurse at Hot Springs. Not just a very good nurse, but the one the hospital chose to deliver very bad news to the family about a patent, when those times arose. That kind of nurse. Jeff was temporarily training HSU students to be pilots, while waiting for a real job. Candi was ready to marry, start a family. Jeff seemed to have some reservations about being able to support a family, at that moment. I took Jeff aside after our group meeting, told him that if he missed out on this girl, he would never, in this lifetime, find another like her. He just smiled. Seems he had the ring in his pocket at the time. They have two wonderful youngsters now, and Jeff is a commercial airline pilot in Houston.

     Lisa was our one connection between Calvary, the church we attended and loved in Hannibal, Missouri when we lived there, and OBU in Arkadelphia. She grew up in Calvary, and when she showed up in Arkadelphia, we took her under our wing. She worked for Barbara, on occasion. She was a photography assistant, cleaned our baseboards when Barbara was down in her back, and helped Barbara throw a tea party. Those kind of jobs are more plentiful in Arkadelphia, more so than the real jobs. She was training to be an athletic trainer, and had to transfer to continue that pretty quickly. Way too quickly. She just got married. This year.

     Dayton graduated last year, and is currently getting a good, long look at some of the hard things in life, as well as some of the beautiful ones, as an African missionary. She's had dozens of marriage proposals while there, and took a young child, dying of Aids, in to live with her. She's there for a year.

     Bethany is a Spanish major, and is currently studying in Spain for a year. We miss her. But we'll get her back, for a time.

     Hillary and Annie have an even longer relationship with Fellowship Church than we do. Their parents, Michael and Shirleen, were some of the founders. Michael, my best friend, was killed in a motorcycle accident, years ago.

     In later years, I suddenly felt a need to call Hillary. Then later Annie. And finally, Shirleen. They later reported that each of those calls came during a major low point in their lives, and were a bit spooked by it. They wanted to know how I knew to call at that moment. I didn’t know, but I have a strange feeling about how that came about. Michael was the strongest lay Christian I have ever known. I’ll let you write your own ending to this little story. I already have mine.

    Hillary graduated from HSU, Annie from OBU. 

    Hillary and John now live in Tennessee, Annie and Clayton in Texas. Fortunately, they both pass through Arkadelphia to visit each other. That gives us a chance to see those beautiful babies they are having. 

     I took Aaron catfishing several times, setting out sixty or so cane poles. Aaron says I taught him a good lifetime hobby. Aaron is a biology major, like I was. He soon hooked up with Cayla-Marie. They married, and have moved on to Fayetteville. Cayla-Marie is a distance runner, like I once was, sixty pounds and fifty years ago. They are a perfect match. Like two bookends. With emphasis on the word perfect. Africa became their next home.

     Gobi was two weeks short of a master's degree when diagnosed with cancer. He was alone in this country, a student at HSU. Our church took him in, along with a lot of help from HSU. We drove him to Hot Springs to chemotherapy treatments regularly. When he became too weak to look after himself, Barbara and I took him home with us. Barbara often helped him dress to take him to yet another chemotherapy treatment. Barbara stood up in our small church one Sunday, said Gobi needed to go to MD Anderson Hospital at Houston. She needed $2000 by Friday. On Friday, she had $2000, a plane ticket, and paid motel reservations. He is now cancer free, a professor in Malaysia, has a beautiful wife and daughter.  Our daughter put up a wonderful post on Facebook recently about her parent's love. A comment immediately popped up from a world away. “I know all about that love. It saved my life.” Barbara and I had a good cry.

     Joann graduated from OBU, sold everything she owned to raise money to go to China as a missionary. She stayed for years. When in this country recently, she came by and spent the night. I got out a truly weird thing I bought at a garage sale in Australia, to ask her if she knew what it was. She ran away screaming. Seems it was a Chinese idol or god of some sort. But it has been a totally well behaved weird thing in my closet for years now. Maybe she knows something about it I don't, but need to.

     Daniel is one of the few who has not broken our hearts. He graduated from HSU, and found a real job in Arkadelphia. A rare thing. He still shows up regularly at our house on Sunday nights.

     Another Daniel spent much of his time, while in Arkadelphia, wandering the poor neighborhoods, meeting children, bringing them to church, playing with them, as well as making them totally adore him. A local lady once saw what he was doing, called him over to her car, handed him several hundred dollars. She told him to spend it on the kids as he saw fit. He did. He also visited elderly, lonely ladies regularly, and drove them wherever they needed to go. We finally hired him to do his thing for the Church, and train others to do the same. But there was only one Daniel Graham, and when he and others he trained moved on, that work lessened. But others were inspired by him, as we all were, and are beginning to take up the slack. Before he left, Barbara asked him to be her Words with Friends (internet Scrabble) buddy. He told Barbara he would take it easy on her.

     Barbara replied, “No! I want you to do your very best!” Soon Barbara was beating him like a drum. There's only one sixty-four year old scrabble player like Barbara. I learned that long ago.

     Kate hung around Arkadelphia after graduating, even ran her own business for a time. She worked tirelessly on the Kid’s Festival for our church. Now she and Brian have moved on. Seems a seminary is now in their future.

     Yet another Daniel, and Kathleen, are twins. They were both in our group. Daniel and Lauren fell in love. That romance, also, could have started in our living room, but maybe not. We now see their beautiful baby regularly. On facebook.  Kathleen is a gifted dancer, a talent best used in a larger city.

     Most recently, Tim, our tireless power point and computer expert at our church, and his wife Kayla, who could always be found at our church working with the kids, left for Colorado, he for seminary and she for a university job.

     Kylie was my best renter ever. An old soul, still in her twenties. She hung around for an advanced degree. Then, she had a chance to work with Neal Nelson, one of our pastors and director of HSU's Baptist Collegate Ministries. Who could pass up a chance to work with Neal? As a really big plus, she met and married Daniel, (We just love our large flock of Daniels!) still finishing up his own degree, a budding Sports Analyst or Sports Information Director. But, we fear he will soon carry her away from us, to a larger city, where his expertise will probably lead him. But we won't like it.

     This is just a sampling. I could go on and on. My apology to all those equally loved students I didn't have room to include. Wherever our wonderful university kids/adults are in this world today, they will always be in our hearts. But we'll see them again. In this world or the next.