I come from a heritage of great men who have been mentors and shepherds to my life. Today one of those men, R.C. Thompson has gone forward to rest until the resurrection.
I met R.C. Thompson in 1982, I was seven years old and he was the preacher at another church in our fellowship a couple towns over. In 1984 we moved away from that area and when we returned in 1988 R.C. had moved to a different church, and that is the church my family started attending upon our return. Mr. Thompson was my minister from those first days of junior high through high school.
In 1989 R.C. started a training program at our church called Camp Timothy. It was a week where several of us boys stayed over at his home in the evenings, and during the days spent time on learning how to prepare a sermon, and others duties of a minister. I accepted Christ and was baptized at Camp Timothy. I also wrote my first sermon in Camp Timothy. Although I don't know I still practice a single lesson we learned in that camp, I strive to practice the love for people and sense of servanthood I learned in watching R.C.
R.C. loved singing praises to Almighty God. In fact he loved it so much that he was the choir director for both an adults group and a children group. I spent 3 years in the Sunbeams. We toured local nursing homes bringing the joy that a group of children can bear in places like that. I will always remember his booming voice that overshadowed the entire choir of children as he would get going.
More than anything else however one must pay honor to R.C. not in the classes he taught, in the songs that he sang, or in the years of his ministry but in the character of the love he displayed. I NEVER felt unloved by R.C. In every stage of life, whether a junior high monster, a high school rebel, a visiting college student, or an adult returning with my own family; R.C.'s love always poured out.
Please pray for his wife Lenora, for his children, and for his grandchildren. He was a man of great stature and great love, he will be deeply grieved in their lives. He also will be mourned by so many more of us!
Rest well my friend, you will rise again in the great Resurrection.
2 comments:
thanks for sharing the memories
grace and peace
Kevin,
What a wonderful remembrance,
Thank you.
Laura(Darby)Ice
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