In Honor of Billie Barnes

In Honor of Billie BarnesCan anything good come out of Oklahoma, or as I call it Okiehoma? Well, sometime in the early 1940 two girls hitchhiked from Oklahoma to California, one them was Wiletta June Clayton. She married Lowell Barnes, had children, worked, got involved in church, and eventually moved to a house they’d built in Don Pedro to retire.Don Pedro really is a great place to live, but when Lowell and Billie moved here it had what was an obvious problem to them, no church. So they made one of the best decisions of their lives, they started one, right in their living room. When the living room got too small they moved to the one room school house where now you find Don Pedro High School. When the one room school house got too small they build the sanctuary we worship in every weekend. It is amazing what God can do when he finds obedient and ready hearts.Think with me for a minute, How much has come to pass and grown out of the obedience of these two retired lay people? How many people in Don Pedro have heard the Gospel, have come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ because Billie and Lowell surrendered their retirement to God? How many have had an opportunity to hear and study the word of God, to find fellowship and love, to receive help in various ways because Billie and Lowell took Jesus’ challenge to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” serious?Just a few years into this adventure of beginning our church Lowell became sick and went to glory, but before he died God in his great sense of humor brought in a young German with his family to pastor the church. Thus it was that an Okiehoman widow of a pastor and a Kraut were paired up. Billie made another decision. She decided to support me, to back me up, to pray for me, to relinquish the reigns. She knew how important that was, she understood that each member of our church needs to be faithful even when life brings hard to bear changes; she knew how essential unity is to have a healthy church family. Think about it, how much have we benefited from that decision? I wonder how often and how much I stretched the limits of her patience? Or how often she thought, “What were we thinking when we called him to be our pastor?”I have been asked many times how and why I have stayed so long here at the Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church. It might be that Germans are not as bright as Okiehomans, or maybe it is because Krauts are more stubborn than Okiehomans. But it is much more likely that, beyond the opportunity, my family and I found love here, got to join into simple obedience to Christ, and ran into a widow named Billie who cheered for this church and us to her last breath. So what do you think? Can anything good come out of Oklahoma? Sometime in the early 1940s Billie did.Thank you Billie, your grateful Church family and Pastor.