Christmas Memories

Many people have pleasant Christmas memories.

Jan Waters, who attends Faith Temple Church in Taylors, S.C., says, “One of my favorite memories about Christmas is when I was small I would sit by our fireplace. The fire warmed me to the bone. The heat coming from that fire is [like] the warmth I felt when Jesus came into my heart. My mom would peel me a navel orange, and I would sit by the fire and eat my orange. The orange was so juicy and sweet. I usually ate two of them. The smell of a fireplace was and still is so comforting to me. Now that I am on my own, I do not have the luxury of doing that any more. How times have changed.”

Christmastime may stir happy memories but can cause us to think of losses, too.

Brenda Locklear of Laurinburg, N.C., works in a carpet-dyeing plant. I recently asked Brenda, a Christian grandmother with Lumbee Indian ancestry, to tell me something about her childhood memories of Christmas.

“A shoebox,” she responded. Moisture filled her eyes, and she lifted a hand to wipe away a tear.

“A shoebox?” I asked, feeling nervous about possibly upsetting a longtime friend and coworker.

Brenda explained, “When we’d get our shoes to go to school each fall, Mama would say, ‘Keep your box.’”

Her late mother used those shoeboxes for her children’s Christmas gifts.

Brenda grew up in rural Hoke County, N.C. She had two older brothers and was born the third of six children (three boys, three girls). Her mother was unmarried.

“Did she wrap the boxes for you?” I asked.

“We couldn’t afford wrapping paper,” Brenda said. “In the box would be an apple, an orange, some nuts and candy – hard candy, Christmas candy, and there wouldn’t be much of that. That’s all she could afford.”

Brenda said she, being the oldest girl in her family, babysat younger siblings while her mother and brothers worked as sharecroppers, raising tobacco.

“I never knew my father – never knew what a father was,” Brenda said, noting that she and her baby brother share the same father. When she graduated from high school, a man she thought could be her father, told her he was.

She asked her mother if that man was telling the truth. Brenda recalls that her mother said, “Well, if he says it, you must be his.”

“She wouldn’t admit it,” Brenda said.

Brenda’s maternal grandmother, Nurseann Locklear, took her to church. (Nurseann’s husband died of a heart attack at age 29. She later became engaged to a soldier who died overseas before they could marry. Nurseann remained single until the end of her long life.)

“I always went to church,” Brenda says. “It was a little country church.”

She and her husband, Mike, accepted Christ early in their marriage, she says. They faithfully attend a Church of God of Prophecy and have two adult daughters, four grandsons and a granddaughter. I pray that Brenda enjoys a wonderful Christmas, this year, and that Christ continues healing hurts and disappointments she has experienced.

My early memories of Christmas include a drama presented at Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church in Greenville County, S.C. I was old enough to read and was given a part in that “play” about a modern family at Christmastime. My 3-years-younger sister, Shirley, had a part, too. I recall the darkened church and the pulpit moved aside to make way for a couch. The troubled family featured in the play ended up having a Merry Christmas, with the Lord’s help.

In those days, Gum Springs Church usually gave a large grocery bag of fruit to each family attending the Sunday night service preceding Christmas. Nowadays, a bag of fruit might not mean much, but I recall one family who showed up at our church just to get a Christmas bag of fruit. (At least I, as a child, suspected that’s why that family came.) When fruit bags were presented at the end of the service, that family’s young mother left her two small children and her husband sitting on a pew near the back of the church. She walked forward and received a bag of fruit. I can still envision her thin face and long, wispy, straight brown hair. I never saw that family, again, but the presence of that mother and her family at that service caused me to think about people who lived outside our church. I wondered if they had the hope I had – a hope in Jesus Christ encouraged by folk in my church who took time to teach me about Christ, pray with me to receive Christ and patiently encourage me to participate in a Christmas play.

Father, please fill hearts with Christ’s love and healing during this Christmas season, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Abby Johnson, Prolife Advocate, Speaks in Southern Pines, N.C.

Abby Johnson signs copies of her book, "unPlanned," after speaking in Southern Pines, N.C.


Abbey Johnson, an American prolife activist and author of “unPlanned,” spoke in the auditorium of Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines, N.C., on the evening of September 10, 2011.

She worked as a Planned Parenthood clinic director but resigned in October 2009, she says, after watching an abortion on ultrasound.

Johnson, 31, was raised in a “conservative, pro-life family” from Texas but began volunteering for Planned Parenthood after seeing its booth at a fair at her college. She said she hadn’t heard of the group before, didn’t know [at first] that they performed abortions. She stated that Planned Parenthood told her they wanted to reduce the number of abortions. Johnson volunteered in 2001and progressed to the position of community services director. She worked at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, for eight years, escorting women into the clinic from their cars and eventually working as director of that clinic.

She serves as the chief research strategist for Live Action, a pro-life organization known for conducting sting operations against Planned Parenthood clinics. She holds a B.S. in psychology from Texas A&M University and a M.A. in counseling from Sam Houston State University. She lives (in 2011) in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 4-year-old daughter.

On Sept. 10, 2011, Johnson, sponsored by the Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C., spoke to about 175 people gathered at Pinecrest High School.

Monsignor Jeffrey Ingram gave an invocation, praying, “Heavenly Father, you have given us your Son as the Truth. … Help us to have a great understanding and respect for human life … leave the culture of death behind and look to a culture of life, protecting those who cannot protect themselves.”

Suzanne Clendenin (pictured above)

Suzanne Clendenin, executive director of the Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, introduced Johnson to the audience.

Abby Johnson, pictured above, speaks to an audience in Southern Pines, N.C.

Abby Johnson Tells of ‘Signs’

Johnson told the following two stories about people who received “signs” concerning abortion decisions.

She said that one girl was pregnant and wanted a sign from God as to whether or not to abort her baby. As the girl rode in the back seat of a friend’s car, she saw a pregnancy center billboard and typed the center’s number into her phone. She later called the center but received no return call.

The girl made an appointment for an abortion. As she was about to enter the abortion clinic, a young pro-life worker, stationed outside that clinic, called to the girl and asked what she could do to help.

The girl told her looking-for-a-sign story to the pro-life lady, letting her know she called a pregnancy center and received no return call.

“What if I’m your sign?” the prolife lady asked. “What is your name?”

The girl said, “My name is Elizabeth.”

“My name is Elizabeth,” the lady said.

“That was her sign,” Johnson said. “She now has a 6-month-old boy.

Johnson told another “sign” story.

A lady visiting an abortion clinic was sent to a nearby prolife pregnancy center to get a free ultrasound screening. Abortion clinics use ultrasound images to estimate how large a baby is before he is aborted.

The lady asked a prolife center attendant for the ultrasound screening but told the attendant she wanted no lectures about keeping her baby.

While performing the ultrasound, the pregnancy center attendant wondered what she could say to help the lady on the table change her mind about aborting her baby.
The attendant thought of these words and voiced them the lady: “Would you like to touch your baby’s hand?”

The woman on the table was startled but placed her hand on her stomach, as the technician directed her to do. Then, the lady on the table saw, on the ultrasound screen, her baby inside her body reach up and touch the top of her womb. Their hands were close.

“She now has a 2-year-old daughter,” Johnson said.

Getting Serious

“If the majority of Americans were really prolife, the abortion numbers wouldn’t be increasing each year. … One in three of those having abortions wouldn’t be ‘Christians,’” Johnson said. (She recommended Lifenews.com as a good source of prolife information.)

She said many ministers don’t take a stand from the pulpit against abortion. There are over 300,000 organized churches in the U.S., she noted.

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is look my parents in the face and say, ‘I have killed two of your grandchildren,’” Johnson said. “I believe this is a spiritual battle, do you? I see so many groups fighting each other. … Let’s get together for these babies. Four thousand children, every day, are dying, because we’re not really ready to get serious.”

Worked for Planned Parenthood

Johnson worked eight years for Planned Parenthood.

“One of the jobs I used to do was in the POC (Products of Conception) lab,” Johnson said. “You’re not allowed to say ‘baby’ in an abortion lab. There’s a POC person in each lab. They take the tissue and dump it into a Pyrex-type holder and piece the baby back together. If you’re missing a part of the baby, it could cause infection in the mother.”

John said the POC job didn’t bother her and that she thought the process was interesting.

“I had to buy leather tennis shoes,” she said. “I got blood on my shoes and had to throw them into the washer each day. Abortion is graphic. It didn’t bother me. I looked at that [body parts] in a dish all the time. It didn’t bother me."

The abortion clinic Johnson worked for didn’t get all the baby-parts retrieved from the body of one woman, and that woman ended up in the hospital a week later.

“We had left a leg in her uterus,” Johnson said. “We didn’t want her to go to the media. We needed to make her a monetary offer, for she was mad, ready to go to the media.”

The abortion clinic came up with money and told Johnson to give the woman an agreed-upon check and get her to sign off.

“We gave her $897,” Johnson said, noting that the lady had paid $550 for her abortion. “We thought that was fair. That’s how we treated women. You see, guys, when I hear about how Planned Parenthood helps people, I shake my head. I lied to women every day and didn’t even know it. … I was good at it.”

Selling Abortions

Planned Parenthood honored Abby Johnson as a regional affiliate employee of the year in 2008.

“I could sell about anybody on abortion,” Johnson said. “We gave them promise of a better career. … [Telling them that] to kill their child was a smart parenting decision. … Planned Parenthood knew the lies we were telling were very important. Planned Parenthood gave us this list – all of us who counseled women to have abortions. We had a sheet: ‘Answers to Tough Questions.’”

Johnson said question number one on that sheet was “Will my baby feel this?”

The scripted answer was “No, the fetus has no sensory development until 28 weeks.”

“They wouldn’t believe their baby was going to be in pain and [they then would] have an abortion,” Johnson said, adding that another question on the clinic prompt sheet was “Will God ever forgive me?”

Johnson said, “We asked back, ‘Do you believe God is a forgiving God? Don’t you think he knows you’re in a tough position, right now, and you’re doing what’s best for your family?’”

“We liked our jobs, our paychecks,” Johnson said. “It’s great, until one day you figure out that you’ve been lied to and you’ve been lying to other people. And that’s what happened to me.”

The Turning Point

Johnson said a doctor who was new to her clinic wanted her to help him with an ultrasound-guided abortion, which is a very unusual procedure at an abortion clinic. The Houston, Texas, clinic where Johnson worked was performing 75 abortions a day and open for business six days per week, she said. She was “called in” to help the new doctor perform the ultrasound-guided abortion.

“My job was to hold the ultrasound probe during the abortion,” she said, noting that she had been promised she would, in time, become the COO [“chief operating officer,” in charge of daily business] of the clinic. “I thought it would be good to learn a new technique [ultrasound-guided abortion].”

She said there was no medical reason for the ultrasound, but an abortion clinic can use an ultrasound image to measure the baby and know how much to charge for that abortion. (She inferred that charges for each abortion seemed to be based on the size of each aborted baby.)

Johnson saw the baby on the video screen, during the ultrasound-guided procedure.

“I’m looking at this screen and kind of have an anxious feeling in my stomach,” she said. “The fetus was 13 weeks along and wouldn’t feel anything, I thought.”

The doctor placed a suction tube into the patient’s uterus.

“I saw this 13-week-old fetus recoil and try to move away from the instrument,” Johnson said. “I saw this child try to flee. I didn’t want to look but couldn’t stop looking. This can’t be really happening, I thought. Arms and legs were flailing about. I can’t tell you for sure that the baby felt pain, but if someone walked into this room with a gun … we’d be screaming, running like wild bandits … and that’s exactly what I saw on that ultrasound screen. That baby was frantic.”

Johnson said she recalled the attending doctor saying, “Beam me up, Scotty,” as he turned on the suction.

“The worst part was standing there and witnessing this tiny defenseless child struggling and fighting for his life,” she said. “I watched a child die right before my face. The biggest tragedy is it’s happening 4,000 times a day.

“If we saw a 2-year-old stomped by her dad, what would we do? Would we show preference for a 2-year-old over 4,000 unborn everyday? Would we say to a 2-year-old, ‘You deserve better,” and to the 4, 000, ‘Not so much’?”

Johnson said the prolife effort is not just a movement.

“This is ‘the’ movement, the cause. … Everything else is secondary to the right to live,” she said. “Thirty-three percent of our population is not here because of abortion. There’s no gray, when it comes to the murder of children – none. Somebody’s waiting for you to get involved. We have to be doing this because this is the right thing to do. I do 10 to 15 events like this every month.”

Funds for Abortions

Johnson said some charities, such as the following, give money to Planned Parenthood: the March of Dimes Foundation, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, Relay for Life and the Girl Scout Cookie program.

“The money you give to this organization [Life Care Pregnancy Center] – not a penny of it is going to kill babies. … I want to give to safe organizations, not those that deceive people. Don’t give to organizations that give to other organizations that kill babies.”

She said the U.S. government gave 366 million dollars of taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood “this year.”

Johnson referred to this quote from the Henry Hyde (1924-2007), a former U.S. House of Representatives statesman from the sixth district of Illinois:

“When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God – and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there’ll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world – and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, ‘Spare him, because he loved us!’”

“You can be the ‘sign’ for these children,” Johnson said. “They are waiting to be spared of death.”

Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C., “a Christ-centered ministry that promotes the sanctity of human life,” may be reached at 910-947-6199 or by e-mail at lcpc01@embarqmail.com.

A mother presents her baby for a hug from Abby Johnson, after Johnson's presentation in Southern Pines, N.C.

Pictured are some ladies associated with the Life Care Pregnancy Center in Carthage, N.C.

'Words Not Spoken' by Stewart Simms

Stewart Simms’ “Words Not Spoken” is a book about “understanding the pastor’s silent hurts.” Anyone interested in human relationships can profit from reading this volume.

“This book will help you understand yourself and others,” says the Rev. Ken Hemphill, a Southern Baptist (SBC) strategist who wrote the foreword for “Words Not Spoken” (Yorkshire Publishing). “Stewart writes honestly about matters such as loneliness, resentment, comparison, prayerlessness, sadness, disappointment and family failures.”

Stewart Simms, Jr. and I sang together in the Greer High School (in Greer, S.C.) Boys Octet. He and his late father, then pastor of the town’s First Baptist Church, sang a hymn duet, “Hold Thou My Hand,” at our GHS baccalaureate service, Sunday, May 30, 1965. The Rev. Edmond Poole, father of Joe Poole of our class and pastor of Victor Baptist Church in Greer, delivered that evening’s sermon. On Thursday, June 3, 1965, at 8:15 p.m., 254 members of our 1965 class, listed as “candidates for diplomas or certificates,” exited high school after a ceremony – which included the GHS band playing “Pomp and Circumstance” – held inside the GHS football stadium.

During his high school years, when friends asked if he would “follow in the footsteps of his pastor father,” Simms said, “Not the way I see it now.” He says he thought of other careers, especially commercial art, but nothing seemed to be a “must” in his life.

“During my freshman year in college [Furman University], I attended a revival service in my home church and had the opportunity to spend time with my father and the evangelist,” Simms says. “I took a deep breath and said, ‘Dad, I think God may be calling me into the ministry.’”

After a long silence, his father said, “Son, I have known that for a long time. I said nothing because I did not want to be the one who most influences you. That is up to the good Lord.”

“The moment I spoke, the direction of the desire of my life changed,” Simms says. “I went from not knowing what I wanted to do, to knowing there was nothing else I wanted to do, or could do. It was a sense of a ‘divine must’… Answering the ‘call’ does not mean that other vocations are unimportant, but for the one called, nothing else is as important.”

Simms says a sense of “must” should not be viewed as compulsion and that some people enter the ministry for unhealthy reasons, such as: the expectations of parents or grandparents; trying to atone for earlier sin and rebellion against God; the result of making a “deal” with God in a time of crisis; escape from another unpleasant career; and the feeling that this is the only way to please and appease God.

Simms earned degrees from Furman University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div. and D. Min.) in Fort Worth, Texas. He began preaching in 1966 and has served as a pastor since 1971. He is married to the former Diane Lucas; they have three children and one granddaughter. Simms spent the last 30 years as senior pastor of Beech Haven Baptist Church (BeechHaven.org) in Athens, Ga., and wrote columns for the church’s newsletter. On Oct. 16, 2011, he announced his retirement from that church.

“I am not leaving the ministry,” he says. “After a brief period of rest, I will preach as often as I am able.”

Yorkshire Publishing entices us to read “Words Not Spoken,” Simms’ first book, with these words: “Ministry can be the greatest blessing in life and the greatest source of frustration at the same time. It is a joy to serve God. However, things happen that wound a pastor deeply. Who does he tell? Who is the pastor's pastor? Sometimes because of embarrassment or fear he tells no one, which can lead to serious consequences. This book explores some of those unspoken hurts and offers suggestions of what to do. Pastors will know someone understands, and people can learn how to return ministry to their pastors.”

In a chapter called “The Unspoken Burden of the Ministry: Disappointment,” Simms says disappointment can cause a pastor to become resentful, cynical and withdrawn emotionally.

“Surveys of churches that have dismissed a minister reveal that the number one reason is a fundamental lack of relationship skills by the minister,” Simms says. “Some failings by ministers deserve action. But other struggles, like those spoken of here [in “Words Not Spoken”], should not be fatal to one’s ministry, and in fact, deserve understanding and caring. Members of churches can provide that care to their pastors, if they will. That will often require simple understanding. Where people provide for their ministers the healing and encouragement they need, churches can profit greatly. By learning to extend graciousness and caring and listening to their leaders, churches may decide to extend those same responses to people outside the church.”

The Walking Lady of Augusta Road and Her Brother, Charlie: a NAMI story

Photo of Emelia Yurkus, courtesy of a Greenville, S.C., publication  

Emelia in Communion Dress, before schizophrenia interupted her life.  Emelia (detail from above photo) 

 

Charlie Younkers, Emelia's older brother, in 1967 when he was a 51-year-old designer for Bigelow-Sandford Carpet in New York City. (He somehow changed his last name.)  

Emelia Yurkus, a tall, thin woman who often walked the streets of Greenville, S.C., died recently.

Here is Emelia’s obituary, published in “The Greenville News,” August 6, 2011:

“Emelia Yurkus, 81, died August 4, 2011. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to the late Anthony Yurkus and Emelia Rasiluite Yurkus, she was a 50-year resident of Greenville. Emelia was known as ‘the walking lady of Augusta Road’ and was an independent person of great discipline and good manners in spite of the constraints of her schizophrenia.

“Emelia was predeceased by her brother and lifelong caregiver, Charles Younkers. She is survived by a nephew, John Wittenstrom, and a niece, Jeanne Cifaldi. The family thanks the many anonymous citizens of Greenville who supported and cared for Emelia during her long walks and thanks her late-life caregiving team: Beth Zweigoron, Hilda Jernigan, Connie Evans and Ann Campbell.

“A gathering of remembrance will be held at the Cremation Society of South Carolina on Monday, August 8 at 3:00 p.m. Memorials may be left to NAMI [National Alliance on Mental Illness] Greenville.”

When Bigelow-Sanford, a carpet manufacturer, moved its headquarters from New York City to Greenville, S.C., in the early 1970s, Emelia’s brother, Charlie Younkers, who worked as a designer with Bigelow, had to learn to drive. He, Emelia and their mother – Charlie and Emelia’s married sister, now evidently deceased, was not mentioned in Emilia’s obituary – had depended on buses or the New York City subway. He bought an old, silver-colored Mercedes-Benz, put a Saint Christopher medal on its dashboard – Charlie was Catholic – and headed south with his mother and Emelia.

In 1974, I hired on as a Bigelow designer and worked with Charlie. We were two of Bigelow’s nine designers. He, old enough to be my father, sat in front of my 5-ft. wide by almost 4-ft. tall drawing board. Lean and tall with a bit of a hook to his nose, he resembled his sister, Emelia. He often ate cabbage soup and onion sandwiches., and with a Brooklyn accent talked about “boids” (birds) he saw flying when he took lunchtime walks.

Charlie said he finished eighth grade in public school.

“The only book I ever read all the way through was ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,’” said Charlie, who grew up in Brooklyn.

After his formal schooling, Charlie began working at the Bigelow design studio as a helper to some of the many designers hired to draw patterns for area rugs and broadloom carpets. He mixed tempera paints, using powdered pigments and “gum Arabic,” often wielding a mortar and a pestle. “A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances (trituration). The pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone. The substance to be ground is placed in the mortar and ground, crushed or mixed with the pestle” (from Wikipedia).

Designers used Charlie’s mixed paints to paint designs on “check paper.” A typical paper was pre-printed with small checks (often one-eighth inch or a tenth-inch in size). After a designer freehand-drew a sketch (some sketches were as large as three feet by four-plus feet) in charcoal and then secondarily in pastel chalks, he transferred that design to check paper. Some designs involved 28 colors (each color representing a colored yarn that would be used in a rug). Colors were mixed and matched by designers or assistants-to-designers such as Charlie. Designers used brushes to apply a paint color to each check, individually.

Charlie said his boss, a few years after he began work at Bigelow, let him try his hand at drawing. He was a good artist and could paint beautiful floral patterns.

He told me, “Don’t get stuck behind a drawing board. If you’re good, you’ll stay there.”

He said his bosses one day looked over his shoulder at a 3-ft. by 3-ft. nature-inspired abstract design he’d worked on for quite a while. They gave advice on things to change in his design.

“I sat there a week, staring out the window,” Charlie said, chuckling. “Then I turned that design upside down on my board. They came back and looked at it and liked it.”

He sometimes told me, “Don’t hurry. They’ll just give you another one (a design).”

Charlie’s last name, Younkers, was different from his parents because of a mix-up at Ellis Island when his parents emigrated from Lithuania, he said.

“My mother said her name was ‘Yurkus,’ and they wrote down “Younkers,’” Charlie said. Perhaps his parents and his sister later changed their names back to Yurkus and Charlie didn’t. I don’t know.

I once visited Charlie’s apartment in Lewis Village, located adjacent to Greenville’s Lewis Plaza Shopping Center on Augusta Road. I met Charlie’s thin, white-haired mother and Emelia, who didn’t acknowledge my visit. Neither Charlie nor Emelia ever married.

Months later, I saw Emelia sitting on a stool in an ice-cream shop. I entered that shop and said rather loudly, “Emelia.” She turned her head toward me and quickly jerked it back to its former position. She ignored me, and I said nothing else.

“I think something happened to her in a theater when she was a young woman,” Charlie later told me. “All she wants to do is walk and eat candy. She asked me for money for some, yesterday.”

I later attended the funeral for Charlie and Emelia’s mother, which was conducted at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville. I sometimes saw Emelia walking along Greenville’s Hwy. 291 Bypass and saw her traveling streets located far from her and Charlie’s Augusta Road apartment. She became a public figure of sorts and earned her title: “The Walking Lady of Augusta Road.”

Charlie retired from Bigelow, and then my family and I moved from Greenville to North Carolina in 1988. Charlie and I exchanged Christmas cards until he returned no messages and I figured he had died. Time’s passage has not dimmed my recollection of Charlie, his mother and his sister. In my mind, I can still see Charlie sitting at his drawing board on the third floor of the now-closed studio once located at the former Bigelow headquarters in Greenville, S.C., and I can still see Emelia, walking, walking, walking.

###

OBITUARY

Emelia Yurkus, Greenville, SC

Emelia Yurkus, 81, died August 4, 2011. Born in Brooklyn, NY to the late Anthony Yurkus and Emelia Rasiluite Yurkus, she was a 50 year resident of Greenville. Emelia was known as 'the walking lady of Augusta Road' and was an independent person of great discipline and good manners in spite of the constraints of her schizophrenia.

Emelia was predeceased by her brother and lifelong caregiver, Charles Younkers. She is survived by a nephew, John Wittenstrom, and a niece, Jeanne Cifaldi. The family thanks the many anonymous citizens of Greenville who supported and cared for Emelia during her long walks and thanks her late life caregiving team: Beth Zweigoron, Hilda Jernigan, Connie Evans and Ann Campbell.

A gathering of remembrance will be held at the Cremation Society of South Carolina on Monday, August 8 at 3:00 pm. Memorials may be left to NAMI Greenville. -- Published by The Greenville News on Aug. 6, 2011.

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Below are some sketches rendered by Charlie Younkers:

Pictured below are some relatives of Charlie Younkers: 

Charlie Younkers, right, with his brother-in-law (left), are shown.

Pictured above are (from left) Charlie's brother-in-law with his son, John Wittenstrom (Charlie's nephew, living in Pinehurst, NC), and Charlie Younkers.

Charlie Younkers, left, with his brother-in-law, are shown.


Below are photos of people Charlie Younkers worked with at Bigelow-Sanford in Greenville, S.C.  

 

Earthquake - Where's God?

“The most powerful earthquake to strike the East Coast in 67 years shook buildings and rattled nerves from South Carolina to Maine on Tuesday [August 23, 2011],” wrote Bob Lewis of the Associated Press. “Frightened office workers spilled into the streets in New York, and parts of the White House, Capitol and Pentagon were evacuated.”

A few injuries were reported but no deaths.

“A 5.8-magnitude quake releases as much energy as almost eight tons of TNT, about half the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan,” Lewis said about the recent quake.

What does God have to do with earthquakes?

The Rev. Charles Wesley reacted to the Lisbon, Portugal earthquake of 1755 with a sermon called “The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes.” Wesley indicated God uses quakes as warnings.

Wikipedia offers this information: “The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the ‘Great Lisbon Earthquake,’ was a mega-thrust earthquake that took place on Saturday 1 November 1755, at around 9:40 in the morning. The earthquake was followed by fires and a tsunami, which caused near-total destruction of Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal and adjoining areas.”

Seismologists estimate the Lisbon quake had a magnitude in the range of 8.5 to 9.0 on the “moment magnitude scale” and a death toll between 10,000 and 100,000 people.

Wesley said in his sermon about earthquakes, “Of all the judgments which the righteous God inflicts on sinners here in this world – the most dreadful and destructive is an earthquake. This He has lately brought on our part of the earth, and thereby alarmed our fears, and bid us to ‘prepare to meet our God!’ Earthquakes are the works of the Lord, and He alone brings this destruction upon the earth. That God is Himself the Author of earthquakes, and sin the moral cause of earthquakes (whatever the natural cause may be), cannot be denied by any who believe the Scriptures. [...] ‘He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in His anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble!’ (Job 9:5-6).”

Stephen Rankin, chaplain at Southern Methodist University, says “‘The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,’ reminds me again of how societies’ assumptions can change. The title alone strikes today’s reader as quaint, to say the least. […] Wesley’s sermon clearly indicates that God directly causes the earthquakes for the sake of judgment: a holy God uses natural disasters to judge and awaken wayward peoples. […] As I read, I was struck by how people today (in America) would likely respond. They probably would be quite offended with Wesley’s tone and claims. How could a loving God do such a thing? So, we face two conflicting worldviews. Wesley’s view, shared by many of his day, was of a holy, just, God who is Governor and Judge of the world. God has every right to use all means available to bring about God’s holy purposes. ‘Our lives are in God’s hands,’ and God can do as he sees fit. By contrast, listening to folks today, even ‘conservative evangelical’ Christians, God sounds more like an Attentive Helper, waiting to do our bidding.”

Rankin says that reading a sermon such as Wesley’s provokes questions.

“Virtually all Christians would agree that God can do things like cause earthquakes, but we likely would conclude that God does not directly cause them,” Rankin notes.

Perhaps many believe God’s loving nature does not will such evil on people. Many think God uses other, more gentle means and that natural disasters like earthquakes are an inevitable part of the kind of world God created, but not directly relatable to human sin nor to God’s direct action, Rankin says.

Rankin says, “The harshness of Wesley’s view may trouble us, but so should the God-as-Attentive-Helper view.”

Speaker Lehman Strauss says, “Look at Amos 3:6, where the prophet asked, ‘Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?’ The word evil here does not refer to moral evil, but rather a calamity. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, ‘I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things’ (45:7). Again the word evil denotes any kind of a natural disaster such as a plague, drought, flood, or earthquake. Both Amos and Isaiah are telling us that nothing happens by accident. […] The supreme rulership of God is based upon the perfections of His divine being.”

There are many things we don’t understand, but God asks us to trust him. God is good and in control of all things.

Separating Paul and Barnabas

While working in 1972 as art director at the former Logos International, a Christian book publishing company then located in Plainfield, N.J., I met the late Arthur Katz, a “Messianic Jewish evangelist.”

Katz had been an atheistic high school teacher before converting to Christ. Logos Int. printed “Ben Israel,” a story he wrote about his conversion. I heard Katz deliver a powerful sermon at a N.J. Full Gospel Businessmen’s meeting.

Katz came one day through the Logos office with a fellow preacher. Katz said he and that friend, also a Jewish evangelist, had formed a joint ministry. I recall wondering, “Will two strong-minded evangelists – especially Messianic Jewish evangelists – get along well, together?”

Soon, that joint venture dissolved. They probably agreed on their beliefs about Christ but decided to walk their walks and talk their talks, separately. As far as I know, they never called each other “hypocrite” or accused each other of being “of the devil.”

Church disagreements are often not about doctrine. Differences are sometimes about culture, personalities, leadership, vision and use of funds. Paul and Barnabas, Early Church leaders, experienced a disagreement – not about the Lord or Christian doctrines, but about a person: John Mark.

Author Wayne Jackson, writing for ChristianCourier.com, says Paul had been such a persecutor of Christians that after his conversion, Christians still feared him. When Paul returned to Jerusalem, Barnabas had to persuade the disciples to let him fellowship with them (Acts 9:26). Paul and Barnabas became great friends, but they later had a “falling out.”

Jackson says John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, went with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. We aren’t sure why, but Mark left the men and returned to his Jerusalem home before the journey ended. When the men planned a second journey, Barnabas wanted to take Mark as a helper. Paul opposed that, and a “sharp contention” developed between Paul and Barnabas.

“Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.’ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches” (Acts 15:36-41, NIV).

Jackson writes, “As far as the sacred record indicates, these two remarkable men [Paul and Barnabas] never saw one another, again.”

BibleGateway.com offers this insight under “Acts 15 – Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible”: “Here we have private quarrel between two ministers, no less than Paul and Barnabas, yet made to end well. Barnabas wished his nephew John Mark to go with them. We should suspect ourselves of being partial, and guard against this in putting our [family] relations forward. Paul did not think him worthy of the honour, nor fit for the service …

“Neither would yield, therefore there was no remedy but they must part. We see that the best of men are but men, subject to like passions as we are. Perhaps there were faults on both sides, as usual in such contentions. Christ's example, alone, is a copy without a blot. Yet we are not to think it strange, if there are differences among wise and good men. It will be so while we are in this imperfect state; we shall never be all of one mind till we come to heaven. But what mischief the remainders of pride and passion, which are found even in good men, do in the world, and do in the church! Many who dwelt at Antioch, who had heard but little of the devotedness and piety of Paul and Barnabas, heard of their dispute and separation; and thus it will be with ourselves, if we give way to contention. Believers must be constant in prayer, that they may never be led by the allowance of unholy tempers, to hurt the cause they really desire to serve. Paul speaks with esteem and affection both of Barnabas and Mark, in his epistles, written after this event. May all who profess thy name, O loving Saviour, be thoroughly reconciled by that love derived from thee which is not easily provoked … .”

An author who calls himself simply “Coastal Pastor” – he is pastor of the Portstewart Baptist Church on the north coast of Ireland – writes, “Paul’s eye was on the success of the mission; Barnabas had an eye for the recovery of wounded soldiers (perhaps there was an added dimension in this case as Mark was a relative). It seems to me that the church needs both kinds of people … But the story of Paul and Barnabas shows that it is not easy. They were unable to stay together at this stage. Because these two kinds of leaders are so different, conflict is more or less inevitable. And were it not for the grace of God, conflict would be hopeless.”