Mountain Missionaries
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Mountain Missionaries
By Tammy Sharp – Lawson
I wrote this story several years ago. I read it again when I heard that Miss Betty Glover had recently celebrated her 100th Birthday! These ladies carried the gospel in a satchel throughout the mountainous regions of Scott and Campbell Counties. This piece is very personal to me, as it includes my own personal testimony. It is among my most precious memories. You must remember while reading this that during the 1960’s and early ‘70’s the Bible and prayer were still allowed in schools.
All through my elementary years, we would have a day every month where two missionary ladies would come to the Norma Elementary School to teach Bible Stories using a felt board with picture illustrations. They would start in the morning and go to each individual classroom. It usually took them all day to teach and have prayer with every class.
During the summer months, they would go to area churches to hold Vacation Bible Schools, they helped churches who supported their mission. During my research while writing the History of the Mill Branch Missionary Baptist Church, it was recorded “in the month of February of 1965, missionaries, Miss Glover and Miss Clark, donated a mule to to be sold to aid with the churches finances. The sell of the mule brought $25.00.”
I specifically remember when I was in the fourth grade… I hated to see them come to school, because we were getting a little too big for Miss Glover and Miss Clark’s Bible classes to be cool also, I had began to experience the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. I was taken to Norma Baptist Church every Sunday by my Momma. I also attended church on the first Saturday morning of each month at Mill Branch Baptist Church, where my Grandma and Grandpa Sharp were charter members. The first Saturday of the month is when Mill Branch held their business meetings.
When you take your children to church, they reach the age of accountability at an earlier age, because they have been taught the plan of salvation, and they really do know right from wrong. Their Sunday School teacher has had them memorize the Ten Commandments as soon as they’re old enough to learn them. When they’re tempted, they usually remember the commandment that fits the sin. That doesn’t mean kids or even adults always heed the part that says “thou shall not,” because we are faced with decisions everyday of our lives. Even though we are forgiven, we are still in the flesh, therefore we are not perfect. I remember the prayer Miss Glover prayed that day in the fourth grade. She asked the Lord, for any of us who had heard her teaching and completely understood, to invite Jesus into our heart and be saved. The lesson and the prayer that day laid heavy on my little 9 year old heart. I realized that I had never invited Jesus into my heart. I believe we must be somewhat “scared” before the Lord will draw us to him. I mean, we must have heard somewhere through all those years of churching, that there is a Heaven and a Hell. The ones who believe in Jesus and invite him into their heart will spend eternity in Heaven with Jesus and the ones who never do… well, they will end up in total separation from the light of God. None of us want to end up in total darkness and complete separation from Him. As the old song goes, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die”. It is undoubtedly a fear of the unknown. A fear that we can’t imagine, unless we kiss the face of death and live to remember it. At some point, all of us must come face to face with our own mortality. My Momma used to tell me that “none of us are put here to stay”… and we’re not. So, at some point in our life, we have to consider that, and then prayerfully, we do what we’ve been taught from the Bible and all that churching to make sure we go to Heaven when we die, or when Jesus returns …anyway, that day, after Miss Glover and Miss Clark packed up their felt boards in the satchel, put them in their car and left school, our class went to the ball field to play. Some of us were talking to a few sixth graders who were older and more knowledgeable on certain issues than we were. I remember talking to Marilyn Jeffers, whose dad was Bro. Gilbert Jeffers. She helped me better understand, and we “had church” at recess that day! I asked Jesus into my heart at 9 years old. Some of the kids asked me questions, and I told them “I got saved”, of course they didn’t quite understand like I did, and they wanted to know WHO saved me. I told them “Jesus did.” Someone said, “you can’t get saved if there’s not a preacher there, and there wasn’t one.” So I then became ashamed, and I didn’t really wanna talk about my experience. I pretty much left it at that until I was in the seventh grade. Still going to church every Sunday and doing everything just as I always had. By this time, some of my friends at church had accepted Jesus during Vacation Bible School and a Revival that was held at church. So on Mother’s Day 1972, there were several of us who were baptized in Clovis Strunk’s pond. Through the years I have doubted my salvation many times. I talked to a pastor once who asked me if I believed, as is stated in John 3:16, if I had confessed my sins as is stated in Romans 10:9? ..and I said yes! He told me that if I truly meant it, then all I lacked was the faith to believe that Jesus did what he said he would do! As I’ve gotten older, I have considered Jesus complete mission. I have thought about the love that the creator of the universe has for his creation, and I have grown bolder with my testimony! He is worthy of our praise!
Miss Glover and Miss Clark, carried the gospel in simple form to Schools all over Scott and Campbell Counties. I believe many who heard their teachings came to know Jesus through them. They served as Missionaries for the American Sunday School Union, which later became known as the American Missionary Fellowship. They had three weeks of Bible Camp, for different age groups, every summer in LaFollette at Camp Galilee. I started attending Camp Galilee when I was 10, and in the fifth grade. The girls had 7 cabins and the boys had 6. Each cabin had 8 bunks. There was a bath house between the cabins, the boys on one side and the girls on the other. We used to hike up the hill to the bath house every night before bed with flashlights to brush our teeth. We were all afraid of snakes, because the cabins were right at the edge of the woods. We had a lot of fun. It was very much like one whole week of continuous Vacation Bible School. We had two Bible classes a day, and we had time to swim, play and do crafts. Every night we had vespers down by the lake, where we spent time in praise and worship. On Friday evening, each group put on a skit. I learned a lot of Bible during those years. I learned to think, speculate, and ask questions on my own. I learned to use my Bible to search for answers. By the time I was 15, I was spending three weeks every summer at camp. I was a counselor and had my own cabin with 7 of my own little 9 & 10 year olds. I spent three weeks at Camp Galilee every summer until I was 17 years old. My Brothers went to camp too, before I was old enough to attend.
Miss Clark passed away a few years ago, but a short time ago, Miss Glover was still teaching Sunday School at a church in LaFollette. The camp is being run by a younger missionary couple and it is still in operation today. Some of my fondest childhood memories were made while attending classes and summer Bible Camp with these two wonderful Mountain Missionary ladies.
Matthew 19:14 (KJV)
14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Mark 10:15 (KJV)
15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.