In Memoriam

The Rev. Thomas Lyle Edwards, 63, died September 18, 2002 in Pickwick Dam, TN. The funeral was held September 21 at First UMC, Brownsville, TN with graveside services at Pickwick White Sulphur Cemetery at Pickwick Dam. Officiating were Dr. Joe Thornton, the Rev. Ray Chandler, Dr. Paul Douglass, Dr. Paul Clayton and Dr. Reginald Mallett.

Edwards is survived by his wife, Doris Wright Edwards of Pickwick Dam; a son, Thomas Neal Edwards, Memphis; a daughter, Kathryn Love Edwards Stukenborg, Fayetteville, AR. He also leaves two grandchildren, William Conner Stukenborg and Mabry Callenn Edwards; a brother, James McDonald Edwards, Dyersburg, and a sister, Mary Jo Meyer, Monterey, TN. He was preceded in death by his brother, the Rev. William Austin Edwards of Newbern, TN. Correspondence should be sent to Mrs. Doris Edwards, 4 CR 18, Counce, TN 38326.

Positions Available

•Part time Choir Director: First UMC, Trenton, TN. Wed. PM and Sunday morning worship services at minimum. Work with adult and children’s choirs. Experience/degree in music preferred. Contact: the Rev. Steve Mischke at (731) 855-0561. Email resume to: fumctren@msn.com. Fax: (731) 855-0571.

• Part time Program/Children’s Director: First UMC, Huntingdon,TN. 30 hours per week – $12,000 salary. Call (731) 986-2251 for application.

“Living with Questions of War”: Oct. 22 at Lambuth

A resolution was passed at the 2002 Annual Conference calling for balanced teachings of the two church traditions of “just war” and “principled pacifism.” In August, a number of pastors and lay people met to consider these two living traditions, to listen to scripture, to pray, and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

On Tuesday, Oct. 22, in the College Union Building at Lambuth University, a second gathering of people who wish to continue this work will convene at 9:30 AM. Lunch will be provided by the cafeteria at a cost of $4 per person. The group will finish by 3 PM.

The work will be simple, says the Rev. Randy Cooper. “We will ‘live with the questions of war’ in light of our weekly worship of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. Our day will take the shape and pattern of Sunday worship. We will consider how our weekly discipline of worship shapes us in this time of war. Scripture and Tradition, as well as singing and the Lord’s Supper, will be central to our work.”

It is not necessary to have attended the first meeting in order to join the group on Oct. 22. Call Cindy Wesley at Lambuth, (731) 425-3252 or Randy Cooper at Henderson, (731) 989-2732, if you will be attending.

Second Annual DD Camp Fall Reunion, October 20

On Sunday, Oct. 20, Selmer First UMC will host the 2nd Annual Developmentally Disabled Camp Fall Reunion during the church’s 10:45 AM worship service. All campers and their counselors are invited to gather for the special service held in the spirit of the camp. Following the service, a church-wide potluck will be held in the fellowship hall. “What a blessing it is to have the two most important groups in my life–my local church members and my Lakeshore family–to gather in one place,” said Paul Mullikin, Selmer First pastor and long time Dean of Lakeshore’s DD Camp. “This day helps my local church to better know and appreciate the unique outreach ministry of our church at Lakeshore.” For info., call (731) 645-5267.

Disability Concerns Design Team, October 22

The team will meet Oct. 22 at 6:30 PM at the Conference Office, 24 Corporate Blvd., Jackson. Dinner will be provided as the work done this year is celebrated. The team will continue to work on local church accessibility audits. New faces are welcome if you are interested in participating. Questions or to RSVP, call Deborah Suddarth, (731) 664-8480. Chair: Dr. Emmy Lou Whitehead.

Lottery? Vote NO, November 5

Members of Lambuth Memorial pass the plate to help pay for yard signs, videos and buttons calling for a “NO” vote Nov. 5.

One young family from Henderson First UMC proved eager to put up yard signs. “The lottery will be bad for the children,” they said.

By Cathy Farmer

Everyone says Tennesseans want a lottery. Newspaper pundits, TV talking heads, callers to radio talk shows–all seem to believe the upcoming November 5 election is a foregone conclusion.

At least they did, until the latest poll came out.

According to the Rev. Joe Moseley, Jackson District Anti-Lottery chairman, the latest polls show support for the lottery is down from 69% to 55%. “And we still have 10 days to a month to make even more of an impact,” Moseley told a crowd of nearly 150 at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Jackson. The group, representing Jackson District churches, had gathered to rally against the lottery and to listen to guest speakers, Dr. Jack Henton and the Rev. Roger Hopson. Henton is Memphis Conference Chairman of the Anti-Lottery effort; Hopson is Coordinator of Program Ministries.

“A lottery is moving money from the many to the few,” Henton told the crowd to nods of agreement. “It’s not ‘recreation’ as Rep. Steve Cohen calls it. It’s not ‘gaming,’ as the gambling industry prefers to name it. It’s gambling. It targets the poor, it’s harmful to youth and children, it’s poor economics, and it is usually followed by corruption in government.”

Free yard signs and lapel buttons saying “Vote No” were snapped up by the crowd.

A ‘small flame of hope’ lights up Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Via Dolorosa:

As men, women and children scavenge in garbage heaped alongside the road, Pastor Felix uses a bullhorn to send a powerful message of love. The road leads to an abandoned fortress where many were tortured.

By Christy Smith

member, Brownsville First UMC

September 22, 2002

Greetings from Leon, Nicaragua—lush and green from the unusual rainfall gift of Tropical Storm Isadora—where 14 West Tennesseans are on a mission to make a small difference in a big problem:  Nicaragua’s thousands of homeless and abandoned children.

As work team guests of El Ayudante (The Helper), a Tennessee-based non-denominational ministry with school missions in Central America, we’re here to help build the Nicaraguan Christian School.

Two years after the dream began, a team house is nearing completion (with us as the shakedown crew) and the orphanage building is out of the ground…just.

The week ahead promises to be full. The team house needs more plumbing, painting, dirt moving, outfitting and decorating  (and, unfortunately, the ship container we sent last month full of donated appliances and furnishings is stuck in Honduras).

But we can fill each day hugging and loving the children who arrive when the sun peeks out and smile at us with trust and acceptance. We hope to salve small wounds, feed small mouths and share God’s love. Already, the Nicaraguans have showed us a level of graciousness that shames our efforts.

Be with us this week as we meet the children of Leon and they let us into their world. Celebrate the possibility of a haven of peace for the children left behind by war and economic chaos.

September 23

What a difference mañana makes.

In 24 short hours, 14 West Tennessee gringos in Léon, Nicaragua, have met and made friends. Our hearts are changed forever.

While several men shoveled at least two tons of black, volcanic soil to make planting beds in front of the team house (acquiring along the way pretty significant sunburns), others stepped out in (mildly astonished) faith and embarked on the first Bible School that had ever been conducted in a neighborhood directly across the street from the site of the future Nicaragua Children’s Home.

September 24

It’s hard to smell the sweet perfume of God’s love in the stench of Léon’s city dump where children, adults and animals fight for the community’s discards.

The wretched, reeking piles stretch along a two-mile road leading to an abandoned fortress whose primary purpose was the torture of Nicaraguans by a series of competing regimes.

There in the broken dungeon where men hung in manacles and bled into concrete drains, we heard their screams and prayed for peace; we felt the chains and prayed for freedom; we remembered the suffering of the past (and drove past the suffering of the present) and prayed for hope.

Life in Léon is stern. Economic hard times have visited Nicaragua (along with hurricanes and volcanic eruptions), and only a few live well. Most barely survive.

The children need food, clothing, stable homes, fathers … and, too often, a safe place to lay their heads. Their eyes are full of parasites, their health is precarious…but their smiles are bright. A coloring sheet, a hug, a warm word of love, and maybe a hot dog tell them that someone cares.

We tell them God loves them while our hearts ache. We wonder whether God’s people know the story of Nicaragua. The Children’s Home of Nicaragua will be one small flame of hope.

Léon needs a bonfire. 

September 25

In most other Central American countries, a cranked-up economy supports the occasional oasis where life is lived with modest comfort. But there is almost unrelieved economic stress in León. Here, living conditions only rarely rise above the almost constant strain of worry over the next meal.

Wednesday at the team house of the future Nicaragua Children’s Home, a sanctuary where eventually 128 of the country’s thousands of street children will live and study, our 14 team members awoke to a day that unfurled with incredible blessings.

A quick trip to the grocery store to buy fresh cheese (queso fresca) and jam to make 600 sandwiches (a new taste treat for us!), and we were off to the third afternoon of “Bible School” at the community across the street.

The crowd of children and adults (which had numbered about 300 on Monday) had swelled to nearly 700 by Wednesday, but there were food, drink, toys, candy and hugs for every person.

With the help of our three wonderful interpreters, we held a minor medical education clinic and distributed antibiotic cream and anti-fungal cream to the mothers with small babies. (We gave out 150 and could have used three times that much.) The medicines were graciously sent by pharmaceutical suppliers at the urging of Gary and Sharon Pettigrew of Brownsville.

God was surely with local Pastor Felix who spoke from his heart to spellbound listeners who heard his message of hope with eagerness.

It has been our observation that these gracious people of Nicaragua, who seemingly have so little, smile with much greater frequency than we and our North American friends and neighbors, who live in shameful abundance.

There are precious children here, loving mothers and fathers and grandparents. We are learning that their hopes and dreams are not so different from ours … and that we have much to share with one another.

September 26

How could the smell of defeat, decay and death exert such a strong pull?

On our final day in Leon, a force beyond your understanding drew us back to the saddest sight our eyes had ever beheld–God’s beloved women, men and children digging through piles of refuse in the dump that serves the city of 150,000.

Fittingly, the refuse heaps run along a road that leads to a fortress where the country’s ruling despots visited death and torture upon Nicaraguans. On our first visit, we handed candy and snacks out the bus window to desperate, crying children. We knew we had to return and this time touch hands and hearts more substantially.

With the assistance of our new friends from Third Baptist Church in Leon–who took our team money and made 100 bags containing beans, rice, oil, sugar and matches–and with our arms full of clothes sent with love from all over Tennessee, we made our way back to the Nicaraguan Via Dolorosa.

We didn’t know that Pastor Felix had a powerful message to bring. Few people stopped digging when he began to speak on his portable loudspeaker... until he started to relate his own experience as a 16-year-old, conscripted by the Sandinistas to fight and kill on this very road. His powerful message of love resounded off the hills, obliterating the stench. On that road, in that wretched place, we all experienced the presence of God. We were truly “in church.”

There are 14 lives forever changed by eight days in Leon, Nicaragua. When you see us, you’ll see it on our faces.