June 11. So thankful for a good night’s rest. We had a combined Sunday school time this morning -- all teens and adults together in the auditorium. The Musical Merrills were there and will be starting VBS this evening. However, they had charge of Sunday school and the morning service this morning. The teaching in Sunday school was about Philip the deacon/evangelist, and most of the songs were by Philip Bliss. The challenge from Acts 8 was “Arise and go,” and “Go near.” How my heart cried for the opportunity to “go near” to our neighbors. The main message was from Psalm 92 and especially verses 13-15 which talk about "plant," "produce," and "present" (show). Mr. Merrill spent time particularly on producing, even in old age. It was a good reminder that the Lord still wants to use us all the days of our lives and that, in His time, He will take us to PNG. But it also reminded me that He can still use us to plant, produce, and present here in our neighborhood even though things have seemed so discouraging and impossible. Mr. Merrill told the story of a preacher named Charlie McCoy. Here is the story from a book by Franklin Graham called This One Thing I Do: THE REAL MCCOY: (A story) about a seventy-two-year-old Baptist preacher named Charles McCoy. McCoy was pastoring a Baptist church in Oyster Bay, New York, when at age seventy-two he was mandated by his denomination to retire. A lifelong bachelor, he had cared for his mother for as long as she lived. In his spare time he had earned seven university degrees, including two Ph.D.’s — one from Dartmouth, the other from Columbia. But now, at age seventy-two, he was being forced to retire from the ministry.He was depressed. “I just lay on my bed thinking that my life’s over, and I haven’t really done anything yet. I’ve been pastor of this church for so many years and nobody really wants me much — what have I done for Christ? I’ve spent an awful lot of time working for degrees, but what does that count for? I haven’t won very many to the Lord.” A week later he met a Christian pastor from India, and on impulse asked him to preach in his church. After the service the Indian brother asked him matter-of-factly to return the favor. Since he had preached for McCoy, would McCoy come to India and preach for him? McCoy told him that he was going to have to retire and move to a home for the elderly down in Florida. But the Indian insisted, informing McCoy that where he came from, people respected a man when his hair turns white. Would he come? McCoy thought and prayed about it and decided he would. The members of his church were aghast. Dire predictions were made. The young chairman of his board of deacons summed up the attitude of the congregation when he asked, “What if you die in India?” I love McCoy’s answer. He told him he reckoned “it’s just as close to heaven from there as it is from here.” He sold most of his belongings, put what was left in a trunk, and booked a one-way passage to India — his first trip ever out of the United States! When he arrived in Bombay, he discovered to his horror that his trunk was lost. All he had were the clothes on his back, his wallet, his passport, and the address of missionaries in Bombay he had clipped from a missionary magazine when he left. He asked for directions, got on a streetcar and headed for their house. When he got there, he discovered that while he was on the streetcar his wallet and passport had been stolen! He went to the missionaries who welcomed him in, but who told him the man who had invited him to come to India was still in the U.S.A. and would probably remain there indefinitely. What was he going to do now? they wanted to know. Unperturbed, McCoy told them he had come to preach and that he would try to make an appointment with the mayor of Bombay. They warned him that the mayor was very busy and important and that in all the years they had been missionaries there, they had never succeeded in getting an appointment with him. Nevertheless, McCoy set out for the mayor’s office the next day—and he got in! When the mayor saw McCoy’s business card, listing all his degrees, he reasoned that McCoy must not be merely a Christian pastor, but someone much more important. Not only did he get an appointment, but the mayor held a tea in his honor, attended by all of the big officials in Bombay! Old Dr. McCoy was able to preach to these leaders for half an hour. Among them was the director of India’s West Point, the National Defense Academy at Poona. He was so impressed at what he heard that he invited McCoy to preach there. Thus was launched, at age seventy-two, a brand new, sixteen-year ministry for Dr. Charles McCoy. Until he died at age eighty-eight, this dauntless old man circled the globe preaching the gospel. There is a church in Calcutta today because of his preaching and a thriving band of Christians in Hong Kong because of his faithful ministry. He never had more than enough money than to get him to the next place he was to go. He died one afternoon at a hotel in Calcutta, resting for a meeting he was to preach at that evening. He had indeed found himself as close to heaven there as he would have been at his church in Oyster Bay, New York, or in a retirement home in Florida. It was incongruous—an old man, waiting to die at age seventy-two, leaving everything he had ever known and preaching around the world. ------------------------------ Slept like a log again at nap time today. Maybe this hot weather makes we want to sleep more. Praise the Lord for a good meeting and good reception this evening at Old Rugged Cross Baptist Church here in Shelby. Pastor Jerry Allen had Daddy give a 15-minute overview of the ministry in PNG. Immediately following that, he had the church vote on whether to support us or not and the church approved. Praise the Lord! Here is another church that just had a missionary come off the field and was considering whom to take on in his stead. We are sorry for anyone to have to leave the field, but are thankful for this additional support. We thank the Lord for Bro. Bishop too who has been seeking churches to help support us and has a good reputation in this community. “2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” I John 3:2,3 All those (every man) who have the hope of being like Christ at His appearing will put forth every effort to live a holy life. Because I have that hope, I must strive to be pure and holy, even as my Saviour is pure.
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