My father

My niece posted a short video clip of my father which brought tears to my eyes. My daddy was first and foremost a Bible teacher. He wasn't a preacher, and frankly not a very good pastor, but he was a great Bible teacher.

Anyway, the clip shows my father in 1989 or 90, and he would have been 81 or 82 years old. He was still an active minister, teaching three times on Sunday, Wednesday night, and then at the small Bible School (Grace Bible Institute) in South Jersey on Monday and Thursday nights. Pretty active stuff for an old guy, right?

He was spry for a person of that age, even though he was suffering from arthritis. Please go to this link and view the video. You'll see that my father when asked to tell someone in the background a story spouts forth Scripture. I'm pretty sure the person requesting a story wanted him to give them some information of when he was a youngster, but he gave them Scripture instead. So like him.

Oh, yeah, notice the pocket full of pens and the suspenders. It must have been a hot day because normally he would have been wearing a vest and a jacket and a tie. The first scene is my brother talking to him and that was his "in-house" desk. The dining room table. He also had a "study" at the church, which I loved to visit, mainly because it smelled like a library. You know how smells evoke memories. Well, dad would "babysit" me in that room when I was a youngster and I loved that little office of his, and I mean little. I think the room was probably 7 x 10 at the most. It contained a mimeograph machine, which had it's own odor -- I guess you could say a person could get "high" sniffing mimeograph ink. Not that I tried it, but I did love the smell. Okay, so I'm weird.

In a few weeks, the family and others will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of that small church, most of its ministry was that of my father. If the family had all stayed in South Jersey, the congregation would be pushing out the walls. Frankly, I don't know where we're all going to sit on that Sunday morning when we're all there, but, they'll find a way, I'm sure.

ttfn