If you know what it’s like to arrive in a new city, set up your house, settle in, then three years later get orders to move away, then this story is for you. If you know what the letters PCS stand for, make yourself comfortable.  If you can look under your coffee table and see a green, an orange, or a blue sticker with a number on it, you’re gonna relate to this story.

Married 24 years, Andrew and Diane have moved together seventeen times.  Each of their fathers was in the Air Force, so they also moved every three years with their families before they even met.

Diane settled in North Carolina, so that became home to her until she and Andrew married. Andrew, on the other hand, has never lived anywhere more than three years in his life.  He did have one assignment for four years, but that is the longest he’s ever lived anywhere.

To some of you that’s normal and moving seventeen times is nothing. To others, you cannot imagine that, and you wonder what it’s like. Here’s what it’s like.

Every military family has a checklist in their mind, sort of like a grocery list. It’s familiar and mostly the same items are on it, but they vary a little according to where you’re living.  And that list is right there, in the back of their mind, ready to spring into action at the first sight of PCS orders.

PCS means Permanent Change of Station. In other words, you’re moving.  The term “PCS-ing” is a real term. Here it is, used in a conversation: “We just found out we’re PCS-ing this Spring.” “Really? We’re not PCS-ing until next Fall.”

So, now that the grammar lesson is over, let’s get back to that checklist.  Here’s a hint for you; you don’t want to mess with a military wife who just got orders to PCS.  Just leave her alone for a few days. She’s got a thousand things to do right now, as she begins checking things off that list. She’s in “moving-mode.”

Another interesting thing that happens during that time is that she and her husband become a very tight-two-person-tag team. They may be a very close family, but you tell them they have to move and they are instantly bonded even tighter with each other. Why? You ask.  Well…they realize that only the Lord knows what lies ahead in the coming months, so they pray, and trust in Him for that part, meanwhile, they’re busy running here and there, closing out their current assignment.

Here’s a typical breakfast exchange: Husband: “I’ll head by the hospital and pick up our files, then go by the dentist. After that I’ll run by the housing office, base legal, TMO and the BX.”  Wife: “Good, then I’ll go by the school, the post office, the bank, the vet and the cleaners to make sure we have all your uniforms.”

Can you see why they become so tight? They need each other right now. And no matter how many people are around them, or how many people they have come to know and love those past three years, they know it’s only going to be their family that gets in the car (or the cars) and drives away, leaving the familiar, and heading into the unknown….together…………..again.

That is a picture of what it’s like. And that’s a picture of Andrew and Diane.

A Texas boy, born in Wichita Falls, Andrew joined the Navy in his early 20’s. In 1984 he was assigned to a Fast Frigate out of Charleston, South Carolina, where he worked as a machinist-mate on the ships propulsion systems.

That same year, Diane, moved to the warm climate of Charleston with her roommate Nancy and a black lab named Sam.

Andrew and Diane met and got married. In less than thirty days after the wedding day, Andrew reported to school in Colorado for four months and Diane stayed behind to wait for him. When his training was finished, he called Diane with the news of their next assignment.

Their new home would be Jacksonville, Florida, (their first move together). That was the good news. The bad news was that he was assigned to a ship that was heading out to sea, to the Mediterranean, for the next six months.

For the next two years, Andrew and Diane saw each other less than 90 days. There is a phrase in the Navy that goes like this: “Navy means ships, and ships go to sea.” That’s a true statement. Andrew’s carrier left port on schedule for six months, as Andrew waved goodbye to Diane, who stood on the pier waving back to him, in tears. There was no email at that time, so the letters they wrote each other took three weeks or more to arrive. 

 While she was in Jacksonville, Diane carried a cassette tape player around and recorded herself talking to Andrew every day. She even took it with her in the car, telling him where she was, and what sections of the city she was passing by, so he could picture himself there. She often put the recorder beside the coffee pot when it was brewing so he could hear sounds of home.  When the tape was filled, she mailed it to him and began another. The time apart was misery for the couple so when it came time to re-enlist, Andrew chose not to, and left the Navy.

He and Diane moved to her home in N.C. and Andrew returned to school to complete his degree. In his junior year, they moved to Charlotte where he joined the AF-ROTC. Two years later, on May 10^th, he was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant, and the next day, graduated from the university and was an officer in the Air Force.

Andrew’s first assignment took him and Diane to California for a short time, then for the next seven years, they lived along the front range of the Rocky Mountains. During those years they moved three more times. By now, the couple had moved eight times together.

 Longing and praying for an assignment closer to home, they were excited to receive orders for Huntsville. Once back in the south, they were a short drive from each of their parents, so the location was ideal. Incidentally, there were three more moves during those three years.

 By now Andrew was a Major and ready to retire. Two assignments, six years, and three more moves later, his retirement date arrived. On a cold January morning in Nebraska, with the wind chill making the temperature 23 degrees below 0, the moving company packed their furniture for the last time, and Andrew and Diane drove back home to the south. This was their fourteenth move together.

Two more moves later, Andrew got a job in Madison, Alabama and soon after that; he and Diane bought their first home (17^th move).  One morning as Andrew was driving to work, he turned on Mt. Zion road to see where it led. He called Diane from his cell phone and told her there was a Baptist church right around the corner.

They visited that Sunday, and two weeks later MZBC became their church home.  Andrew soon began teaching Sunday School and God has truly gifted him as a teacher. Diane joined the Ladies Bible Studies, where she met a great group of ladies who are good friends. Then she joined the choir and met another group of talented people who sing with joy, and love to laugh.

Andrew and Diane are home. They are weary travelers. Still, after all the miles they’ve covered, and the distances they’ve travelled together, and out of all the people they’ve met, they enjoy each other’s company most of all.  In December, Andrew and Diane will celebrate their 24^th wedding anniversary.  They are, and have always been, each other’s best friend.

This little family will not get PCS orders to move in a year, but that checklist we talked about is still there, in the back of their minds. It will be interesting to see how they feel next year, when they realize they don’t have to move anymore.  They’ll probably do what most recently retired military families do at that time. They’ll re-arrange their furniture, because something deep inside says it’s time for a change. 

You have been reading about Andrew and Diane. You know them as:

 Brian Andrew… and Gwynn Diane…… Schneider.

This is a story about a journey in the life of a teacher. The distance traveled was short if you measure it in miles. In fact, it only goes as far as Athens. But if you measure it in depth, Kay Thompson is a seasoned traveler.  Her journey began like I said, in Athens Alabama, where she was born as Katherine Kennemer.

Church and prayer were integral parts of Kay’s life growing up. Her parents spent a lot of time praying, and back then, there was much to pray about.  They had seven children; five boys and two girls. Kay was the youngest. All five of her brothers were in the military during WWII and the Korean War. One of them was reported missing in action after flying a mission over the English Channel, and he never returned.  As you can imagine, the family spent a lot of time praying for their boys.

Kay remembers her mother kneeling by the bed at night praying, and credits her mother for the prayer life she has today.  “I always knew the Lord,” Kay said, “I’ve been in the Bible all my life and I just always knew He was there. When I was six years old, I joined the church.  At the time, that was unheard of, but it was something I had to do. It’s so funny,” she said, “when you look back over your life, you realize how God has been preparing you for all of this, but at the time you didn’t think about it.”

Kay graduated from Athens High School. “My journey has not taken me very far,” she said, “The only time I’ve lived anywhere else was when I went to Birmingham Southern College.  Kay Kennemer met a young man named Frank Thompson and they dated during the four years he was in college at UA.  When he graduated in 1958, they got married, and in 1962 they moved to Monrovia to help Frank’s mother with the farm, since she was a widow.

Frank worked as an Industrial Engineer, but if he’d  done what he loved, he would have been a farmer. According to Kay, Frank loves the Lord, his grandchildren, farming, fishing, and sports.  

In 1972, after her two daughters (Kathy and Beth) entered school, Kay went on to receive a Bachelors Degree in English from UAH, with a minor in Elementary Education.  When she graduated, she worked at Monrovia Elementary as a teacher. 

In 1986, after 14 years of teaching school, Kay closed her last text book, graded her last paper and erased her last chalkboard.  She retired. Her teaching days were over…she thought.  She took a job in an electronic sales office in 1987, where she worked full-time for awhile and then went part-time.  During her time at the sales office, in 1992, Kay had major back surgery. She had rods put in her back to help straighten her spine.  She continued working at the office until 1995, when she retired for the second time.

During those years, church and prayer were still an integral part of her life. “In 1987, while studying the book of John in my ladies Sunday School class, the Holy Spirit became real to me for the first time.  The ladies decided to meet on Saturday to talk more about what we were studying, and it was so exciting to me. This was when someone suggested that we have some time outside class to delve into Bible study in a deeper way. So I enlisted our pastor’s wife, Vera Hogan, to help me plan a ladies retreat for ladies of all ages as I had never been on one.  We had such a wonderful time that I planned them for about the next four years, before WMU began to have one nearly every year.  Nothing was any better than being in the Word together with those ladies.”

In 1995, when Kay stopped working at the office, she went to a WMU retreat at Wheeler Lodge.  “I had prayed for the Lord to use me in some way in retirement,” she said.  The group at the retreat had a wonderful time. When it was over and they were leaving, someone said; “We don’t have to come over here to do this, we could do this at our church.”  “Right then,” Kay said, “That idea struck me. The Lord just pierced my heart with it. It was almost like a physical stab, and I knew that it was something I was supposed to do.  I knew I had to teach ladies Bible classes.”

“I knew nothing about ladies Bible studies. I didn’t even know they had them, but I saw an advertisement for one at a church, and the idea grabbed me, I thought; “Oh, that’s got to be wonderful!”  She talked to Doris McMichael about it and Doris said; “Kay, if the Lord is onto you, He’s not going to let you alone until you do it.”

That year, at the church’s New Year’s evening service, Pastor McMichael passed the microphone for people to share their resolutions. Kay thought; I’m going to say it, and once I say it, I’ll have to do it, so when the microphone came to her, she said she would teach a ladies Bible study that year.

Trudy Graham called her and recommended they do Experiencing God , Kay agreed, and they did.  So on a January morning in 1996, eight women gathered around a table and launched the Tuesday Morning Ladies Bible Study, which became the official name.  There were no videos, they just talked, and they loved it….. and Kay, our retired teacher, was teaching once again.

“I led classes year around and even tried to have babysitters in the summers at first, but after several years, settled into following the public school calendar and having no studies in the summer.  I think there have been thirty something classes and for several of them the enrollment grew to over forty women of all ages from our church, and from other churches. This went on for eleven years until Jennifer Devlin blessed us by teaching the book she had written in the Following God series in Jan 1997.  She organized Women of Zion that Fall with several choices of classes. She was able to involve more teachers which was a wonderful opportunity to reach more ladies for our growing church. Jennifer’s organizational skills gave her a vision for the church to grow into a broader women’s ministry.”

“The greatest thing the Lord ever asked me to do was to lead the ladies Bible study,” Kay said. “I spent countless hours in the Bible studying for this, and got a lot of support from Frank. He has been my strength, I could not have done this without him.”

“Having other women in the class is where the joy came in,” she said.  “There was always a discussion; we learned so much from each other, and that is where the joy comes in and that is where the joy has been.”

Philippians 4:6-7 are two verses that meant a lot Kay during her recovery from back surgery. The fourteen hours of surgery left her lying still for a long time. During that time these words ministered to her; Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

She reached for her Bible while we talked, and found this verse, and read it to me.  “John 15:5 says; I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.  “It’s one of my favorite verses,” she said.  Then she quoted it again, this time a little slower, emphasizing the words apart from me. “The Bible just speaks to you every which-a-way,” she said, “There’s just no end to it. There’s so much in there. God is so good. Those words (God is so good) are already on my tombstone in Mt Zion cemetery, and it is certainly true in my life.”

Well, as you can imagine, after sitting down with this woman for an afternoon, I realized that she was a picture of what it looks like to grow in the grace of our Lord.

This has been a look at Kay’s journey. It began in Athens and took her all the way to Monrovia. As Christians, our journey is not measured in distance, but in the difference we make in the lives of those we meet for Jesus Christ.  Kay and the group of ladies, who helped start our ladies ministries, are like the verse in Proverbs (6:23), they serve as “A lamp to light the way ahead of you.” 

So to those of you, like Kay, who stepped out of your comfort zone to teach and mentor….Thank you.  Your faithfulness has borne much fruit.  He who abides in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

We finished our conversation and Kay said a prayer. Later I contacted some people who knew her and gave them the opportunity to offer a comment on how Kay influenced their life. Many of you could write long passages here, I know, but I’ve included only a few in case you haven’t met her.

Below are some of your comments about Kay. 

My Mother has always loved the Lord and tried to know him and serve him. She is not one to be the center of attention or in charge of any situation but she just felt compelled to serve him in the way of Bible study.  My Mom just knew how to put God at the center because that is how she lives her life. As my children say, Grandmother is the holiest person they know.”   Kathy King  (Kay’s daughter) 

“My mother’s story is amazing. She started the Ladies Bible Study here and was real nervous about it at first, but God would not leave her alone and she did it, even after major back surgery.”  Beth Smith  (Kay’s daughter) 

  “If I had one word to describe Kay Thompson, it would be “Encourager”. Kay is my Sunday School Teacher, Women’s Bible Studies Leader, role model, and friend.  She always looks for the good in people and never fails to point it out to others in the group.  One special thing she does is ask others in the group to tell something good about another person there – no one is left out.  I was so lifted up the first time the class did this small thing and it continues to bless me,”   June Bennett

 “Kay approached me about starting another Ladies Sunday School class, due to growth of our class.  I never taught Sunday School and I said if she would help mentor me in teaching I would love to, but worried that I was not capable of being an effective teacher. But with much prayer and Kay’s support, we are in our 4th year together.  I have learned so much from her teaching of God’s word and her gift of presenting the lesson with knowledge, ease and love of the Lord. I have been truly blessed by crossing paths with Kay Thompson.”   Linda Berry

Kay is a wonderful example of what it means to be a servant leader. From her heart for prayer, to her dedication to teach Sunday school and women’s Bible studies, Kay has impacted many, many people with the love of Jesus Christ. She is a very special friend!     Jennifer Devlin 

 “I’ve taken lots of her studies. She didn’t put her “two cents worth” in much, but when she did, everyone listened. She taught with stories. She has had an impact on the ladies of our church that we will never see this side of Heaven.”   Cathy Pemberton

So what’s so special about that, you ask? People do that all the time.

 Oooh… but not like this. This code is different. The story of this code begins in 1949.  Are you trying to figure out what it stands for yet?  Sure you are.  Keep reading.

On Valentine’s Day, Theresa Wilson (The Chicken Lady) asked me to help her and Angela Beck deliver a gourmet dinner to Angela’s parents, David and Doris McMichael.

When we arrived, David showed us the lovely Valentine card he bought for Doris. It was signed; “I love you, David, YDSOA.”  I asked what the letters stood for and Angela smiled and said; “That’s their code. They’ve had that code since we were born.”  

I asked David, after praying about it, if I could tell the story of their code.  He kindly agreed and met me at the church one afternoon. I turned my recorder on and listened as a man with an incredibly detailed memory talked about his life with his high school sweetheart.

This is the story of David and Doris McMichael.

Picture a Sunday morning church service.  The place is Charleston, South Carolina. The pastor is preaching, the people are listening, and somewhere in the pews, two sisters are whispering to each other about a young man in the choir. 

“I’ll bet you can’t get a date with David McMichael,” Louise whispered to her sister. “I’ll bet I can,  I’ll show you!”  Doris said.  Now to hear David tell it, that was about the same time that he began to notice Doris. That was the summer between their junior and senior year of high school.  David remembers clearly the first time he and Doris did anything together.

Some members of the youth group were riding their bicycles to a friend’s house. David asked Doris if she wanted to go. She said yes and sat across the bar of his bicycle. “That was the first time we did anything together,” he said.

After that bicycle ride, the two of them started going together. “We would write little notes at night or something, and the next day at school, I’d pass her a note, or she’d pass me a note,” he said, “and there would just be little notes between us.  As we went along, I came up with a code and I would sign those little notes with that code YDSOA, and that’s how it started. I started doing it then and from then on, every piece of correspondence I’ve given to her has had that on it. That was 1949.”

David and Doris were  married  July 15, 1951, one year after graduation.  When David proposed, he told Doris to think about her answer because he needed to know if she could live as a minister’s wife.

 From the age of 14, David felt the Lord calling him to the ministry. He likes to say Doris didn’t know any better, so she said yes to his proposal.

After high school, David worked at several jobs, from being a meat cutter clerk, to being accepted into the Apprentice Machinist Program in the Charleston Naval Shipyard, to being a Tool and Die Maker for Goodyear Aircraft in Akron Ohio. During this time he and Doris were building their lives and their family.

When David was 24, he came home from work one night and sat down on the couch. It was midnight. Doris and their son Davey were sleeping. That’s when he felt the Lord telling him it was time to enter the ministry. “I heard that eternal voice, just as clear as it could be, say “David, you know what I want, and if you’ll be my minister, I’ll provide for you ,and care for you and your family all the way through,” and there was a little pause, then He said “But if you refuse to be my minister, I’m going to love you and take care of you because you’re my son.” There were tears in his eyes as he related that memorable moment. “All the time I thought God was going to make me enter the ministry, but when I realized He loved me so much that He would never make me do His will, it broke my heart, and I finally had that perfect peace of God.”

Right then he slid off the couch, knelt down, used the couch like an alter, and prayed; “Lord, I don’t know if that’s you or not, but I’m taking it for truth that it’s you, and I believe you’re saying you want me to enter the ministry, and I’m gonna do it, and if you don’t want me to, you better stop me.”

The next morning, after he shared the news with Doris, he applied to Furman University. He was accepted and for the next 43 years their family was in the ministry. By now he and Doris had two children. Sharon was born  in Akron, Ohio.  When David entered Furman U. Davey was 5 yrs. old and Sharon was 6 months old . In his first semister at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Angela was born. He preached until the last day of 1999, when he retired from right here at Mt. Zion.

One day, just before he retired, David took Doris to the doctor for an appointment. She had forgotten some things recently and they wanted to get a checkup to make sure her health was good. When the doctor’s report came back, there were initial signs of Alzheimer’s.

It is now 2009 and David and Doris are still in love and are ministering to each other. In David’s words, his ministry now is to Doris and hers is still to him. “Sometimes,” he says, “I will stand in front of the mirror with Doris, point to the mirror and say; that’s David and that’s Doris…they go together, and she’ll smile. I go up to her and hug her, I rub her back and say; Oh I love you, you’re my darlin, I say that all the time. I feed her on it. She needs that.  Sometimes I’ll say; I love you more than you love me, and sometimes she’ll say; No you don’t, I love you more than you love me.  Every night when I get in bed next to Doris I say; Good night darlin,  I love you.”  

 In  1st Corinthians 13, it says: Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

 “I cannot remember a single time since our high school days,” he said, “that I’ve given her a gift, or a card or anything, that I haven’t signed it with the letters YDSOA. That has everything to do with why I’m doing what I’m doing (caring for Doris), because of that expression to her back then. Back in high school. That was it. That was the commitment.”

And that’s the story.

In 1949, in Charleston, South Carolina, sitting in a church pew, Doris whispered to her sister she would get a date with David McMichael, and she did. That’s when David made a commitment to her that he honors today. It’s worth noting that in high school, Doris was voted as the one with the ‘best personality’, while David was voted as ‘most dependable.’

Now about that code: YDSOA…would you like to know what it stands for?

As Angela told me that night at their house…”It’s their code.  They’ve had that code since we were born…and no one knows what it stands for except them.”

That’s David and Doris.

 They go together.

 YDSOA

It was then that she began looking at music scores.  She loved writing and arranging music, and bringing it all together.  Her teachers told her, when she wrote a musical score, to go play it on the piano to see if she liked it.  But Miss Owensby didn’t need to.  She could hear the music just by looking at the score.  Miss Owensby majored in music at the University of Georgia.  She became a music teacher.  Her high school sweetheart proposed to her in her senior year and they married when she graduated from college.  Miss Owensby had a wonderful life.  Wouldn’t you agree?

The happy couple moved to Texas.  She and her husband sat beside each other as they played in their church orchestra.  One day the Music Minister called and asked her to consider directing their orchestra.  She accepted reluctantly, but her natural skill fit the position of director as if she was made for it.

For over six years, she directed the orchestra and taught music from her church office.  By now, Miss Owensby had a beautiful daughter.  Several years later, she had a precious baby boy.  Their family was complete, but they wanted to be closer to home, so Miss Owensby’s husband found work here in Huntsville.  They were anxious to see what new music program the Lord had for them.  She could not have been happier.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord.“They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.” Jer 29: 11-12.

PDD-NOS was the official diagnosis.  Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified.  Miss Owensby sat in an office, not long after arriving here, filling out a form to test her son.  As she read the multiple choice questions, she found herself saying; “God, this is a description of my son!”  She handed the form to the staff member to score, but Miss Owensby already knew the answer. It was confirmed. PDD-NOS is a form of autism.

She went into the hall, held her son, and cried.  “Lord,” she said, “You gave me my son…now teach me how to take care of him.”  Miss Owensby’s husband was an engineer, so as an engineer might do, he began to put the pieces together so they could build a safe life for their boy.

The doctor visits began, then the therapy visits.  The financial realities came pouring in, and their lives changed daily.  Miss Owensby knew where the hospital was, before she knew where to buy groceries.  Their daughter learned about autism as well, and gave a presentation on it to her classmates.  She even created a phamphlet to help educate her class.

The Lord knew they needed a church home, and of all people to make a church visit to this musically talented family, Mark Jacobs knocked on their door to welcome them.  When he discovered Miss Owensby’s musical background, he said; “God has sent you to me.  I need your help.”  He was right.  God did send Miss Owensby to him…and to us.

Miss Owensby is a scholar in music.  She has become a scholar in autism.  She knows what it’s like to grieve, to hurt, and to cry those tears.  When asked if she uses her musical skills to work with her son, she said; “Yes. I look at him as a music composition that I haven’t finished writing yet.  We’re on the second page and we have a whole two-hour symphony to write… but I’m not the composer, I’m just the arranger.  God is the Composer.  I get to arrange the parts, I get to see it, and listen to it, and watch it…and I’m so thankful to be part of it. 

Miss Owensby had a wonderful life.  She still has a wonderful life.  While she arranges the parts of life in her family, she also arranges part of the worship service for us, her church family.  Her life has been set to the music of worship, service, and sacrifice. You know Miss Owensby, even though you may only see the back of her hair on Sunday mornings….as she directs our orchestra.

This story is  about Miss Owensby.

You know her as Amy Owensby Pittman, our Orchestra Director. 

“He told me to cook a chicken,” she said, as we sat together at a coffee shop.  “The Lord talks to me at night because it’s the only time I’m quiet!” (she laughs) 

The next morning Ellen went to the store, she bought supplies for the meal. That evening she prepared it, put it in a large container and placed it in the back of her car. She drove to the church, but no one was there…so she prayed; “Lord, I did what you told me to do, now show me who needs this meal.”  Just then she remembered the new couple that had joined our church Sunday. “I’ll take it to them for joining the church,” she thought. So on that cold rainy November evening, unbeknownst to Ellen, a ministry was born. 

She knocked on the door of the Cunningham’s new home. When Frank answered the door, Ellen said; “Hi, I’m from Mt. Zion and I’m here to deliver your meal for joining the church.” A surprised Frank watched Ellen do her thing as she set out a hot meal and left the house. Carolyn called her later saying; “What a lovely ministry you have.”

“Ministry?” Ellen thought, when she hung up the phone. “I have a ministry?”  She loved the idea. “It never dawned on me that I would be someone that God would have a ministry for,” she told me. “A ministry is always for the big dogs in the church you know? For me a ministry is mission trips and all that, and it had nothing to do with me, but that’s how it all got started.” As we sipped our coffee, we discussed how the ministry has grown. She told me how she and her sister came up with a name for it called Birds of Blessing.

The following is part of our conversation. I invite you to join us. Sit back and read about one of your fellow Mt. Zion members, who has a heart the size of her home state of Texas. She loves the Lord with a passion, and she loves you, her church family.

Q. How many meals do you think you’ve fixed up to now, April 2009?

A. For that ministry alone, 112.

Q. How do you set up a delivery?

A. I call the people on my list, tell them who I am, and say; “When can we schedule your meal?” 

Q. What the typical response?

A. People are surprised. Sometimes they’re wary and they think I’m joking. I’ve had people decline of course, I’ve had people want to interview me (she laughs). I had a “chicken interview” because they couldn’t believe that someone was making them a meal for joining a church. 

Q. Then what happens?

A. We set a date, they’re usually very excited. When the day comes, I arrive with my container, set the meal on the counters (they always have clean kitchens, she says laughing), and I leave.

Q. Do they keep the dishes?

A. Yes. They’re disposable.

Q. What is your favorite delivery story?

A. Of course the Cunninghams because they were the first meal I delivered, so Carolyn Cunningham, without knowing it, is the one that started this whole thing. Another favorite was a delivery I did on Christmas Eve, and another favorite was to Trudy Graham. I took a meal to her and since then we have this loving sister relationship.

Q. What does the entire meal consist of?

A. Usually it’s a roasted orange-rosemary chicken, mashed potatoes, pinto beans, bread and a cheesecake. It’s not always the same, but that is the typical meal.

Q. So you’ve delivered meals for over a year, and now a new ministry has come from this. Tell me about it.

A. Birds of Blessing was for people who joined the church, but the Lord was paving the way to meet another need. Once again, late in the evening, I felt the Lord telling me to “feed the flock.” The next morning, I called the church and talked to them about it. Feed The Flock’s purpose is to assign volunteers to make and deliver meals to those, in our church, who need them. For example, if someone had surgery, we would deliver meals until they are back on their feet. I call the volunteers The Supper Sisters and we now have a pantry where we store food donations. 

Q. How can we help?

A. Prayer.  Donate food to the food pantry. Donate 8 by 8 disposable containers for the meals, or small containers for the side dishes. Donate Redi-Made graham cracker pie crusts for the cheesecakes – I ask for those all the time.

Q. What do you want this ministry to look like in…say… 2 years?

A.  Two years from now…..I’d like to see it as a common thing at Mt. Zion. Not a baby ministry, a mature ministry. And what it takes is just repeating it and repeating it. I take it step by step. I have fun with my ministries. You know the Steak Out signs you see on tops of cars? I want Birds of Blessing on my car, or The Chicken Lady or something fun. I want Feed-The-Flock on T-shirts. They call me the “Chicken Lady.”  I don’t know who started that, but now I have aprons and stuff with that on them. That’s the fun thing about it. I’m not offended by it, I’m honored!  That’s probably going to be on my gravestone. God wants me to have fun with it and enjoy it. I have a husband and 2 children, so I have to balance things, but God provides the balance.

Q. Put this whole experience in one sentence.

A. She thinks for a moment then says: “If you don’t get out of your comfort zone, or get out of the boat, I (Jesus) cannot do the miracle!”

What a sentence! That afternoon at the coffee shop, I got to know an amazing woman. I walked away enriched. I will leave you with some of her thoughts; random things she said that I did not want to delete, and then…..in the wonderful Paul Harvey fashion, I’ll tell you who Ellen, The Chicken Lady, really is.

“Peter would never have known he could walk on water to Jesus if he had stayed in the boat. That’s what we can do if we keep our eyes focused on Him. We can do anything.”

“All this is so daunting you know. I said; “Lord I can’t do all this.” And He said “I know, but I can.” That’s what He tells me… it’s not you doing all this, it’s Me.”

(Speaking of leaving her home in Texas) “When God takes something away, He usually gives something else. God gave me this HUGE blessing. Every time I leave a home, or every time I cook for somebody, I am on such a spiritual high and I know God is right there with me.”

“He uses imperfect people to do his work. I often say Thank you…because I’m the imperfect vessel for this beautiful thing that God’s trying to do. And it’s not just one person! This church is an intricate family of believers of what God wants believers to be. One person may deliver a meal, then another person helps with Real Estate, it’s all intertwined, we all help each other and it’s amazing to me.”

“I can’t even keep up with God half the time. That’s why I have this huge notebook (laughing) so I can keep up with God! Birds of Blessing started out as making chickens and God just wove this blanket, this quilt of these amazing things.”

………..

This story is about Ellen.  You know her as Teresa Ellen Wilson….The Chicken Lady.