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Index | Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
Part 12
Church? or Mission?
Caught in the Middle
Steve Dennie
March 1987
"We're hurting right now," Titus told me over supper one evening.
"As of today, we have $280 in the mission account. Our utilities and electric bills for the three buildings exceed that. Our 1000-gallon fuel tank is about empty. It'll cost about $800 to fill, and we just don't have it. The newest mission van, the '79 Ford, needs work so we can get another five years out of it. But we don't have money to repair it, or even gas money to pick up people for services. The local store lets us charge gas, but we've been doing that for several months."
The Board of Missions channels $10,000 a year to Laurel Mission. In 1980, the Board voted to reduce its support for Laurel Mission 20% annually, or $3000 a year, beginning in January 1981 and continuing for five years. But after an appeal from money-pinched Central Conference, they plateaued at $10,000 and have given that amount for several years.
Beyond that, expenses are paid through local congregational giving, plus some contributions from outsiders, individuals, Sunday school classes, WMA and Brotherhood groups, etc. The latter have decreased.
"This crisis would have come sooner if it wasn't for King Street church in Pennsylvania. Last spring, they sent us $1000--and they aren't even in our conference."
Titus likes being in Central Conference. It enables the churches and people to be part of a much larger fellowship, and to participate in affairs beyond Laurel Mission. Plus, Titus doesn't labor alone, but is one of 70 UB ministers. He enjoys the support and encouragement they give him. But there are drawbacks.
Being a church in Central Conference, Laurel Mission can't solicit money from other conferences. Mission workers once promoted the work throughout the denomination. For instance, Alvin did deputation speaking while at Huntington College, and the WMA sent Miss Snyder on a tour of California. But they can't do that now.
"Is this a mission or a church?" Titus asked me.
A church is expected to be self-supporting; a mission isn't. At Little Laurel, only one layman holds a job. Realistically, Laurel Mission will never be self-supporting; it will always require outside support.
Mission? Church?
Being part of Central Conference also means Titus and Debbie aren't listed as UB missionaries. But Dick and Gloria Smith, who work for the non-UB Kentucky Mountain Mission 50 miles away, are considered missionaries. This confuses people. Titus gets many letters and packages addressed to "Dick and Gloria Smith, Laurel Mission."
"I don't want to hurt Dick and Gloria Smith," Titus says, "but people get the two missions confused. And since they are listed as missionaries and we aren't, people just assume the UB work involves the Smiths and Kentucky Mountain Mission."
So what is it--a mission, or a church?
Staffing presents another shortage. Nine people, some supporting themselves, served as staff missionaries not too long ago. The Burketts, Cleon Avery, Fred and Beth Kohlhaff, Lacey and Christine Conley, Titus (assistant pastor) and Debbie (part-time)--all of these people helped carry out the varied tasks of Laurel Mission.
But when Titus and Debbie took over, only Cleon Avery remained--for three years, but in poor health. Nearly everything fell on them. Titus preached at two churches until Ken Smith took Cedar Chapel. But Ken works fulltime, and Titus hasn't been in good health. If Laurel Mission were merely a two-church circuit, one person should be able to handle it, as other UB ministers do. But the work goes beyond that of a circuit.
Church, mission--what is it?
A United Brethren policy says money from the sale of a church must be used to start another church. In the 1960's, the WMA had about $30,000 ear-marked for starting a new mission work somewhere. But that fund was nickel-and-dimed away on missions needs when the North American church fell on hard times.
As the WMA sees it, that fund was replenished with the $35,000 made from selling the Abner's Branch property, to which the WMA held deed. Someday, the $35,000 will be used to start churches somewhere overseas among people who will be extremely grateful. Souls will be saved, and the Lord's work will prosper.
But at Laurel Mission, it's too much like the Shamrock coal trucks which constantly rumble through Big Laurel, collecting the area's wealth and taking it elsewhere, leaving the mountain people floundering.
"That's a little sore spot with me," Titus admits. "I'm sure the money will be used for a worthy cause, but we felt Laurel Mission should have gotten at least part of it."
And considering the current financial crisis, the mission could have used it.
So what will happen now?
A Central Conference committee is studying ways to get Laurel Mission back on its feet. The committee members recognize the problems, financial and otherwise, and sincerely want to help. And they are.
They are working with Titus in establishing a workable budget. They are helping determine what ministries the mountain people need, and how those needs can be met. They are searching for additional funding. But perhaps most importantly, they have been a great encouragement to Titus, restoring his spirit after a long dry spell when it seemed Laurel Mission had been forgotten.
"If only--if only Little Laurel and Cedar Chapel could support themselves, like the other Central Conference churches," some people say. But they have never been self-supporting, and never will be. They will always require help from the denomination which, long ago, cared enough to give them life. Laurel Mission, after all, is not a church. It is a mission.
Laurel Mission celebrates its 50th anniversary in 1988. There is much to celebrate from those years, but uncertainty clouds the future.
After the Sunday morning service at Little Laurel, I rushed to Cedar Chapel, arriving 15 minutes late. I began to enter, but suddenly stopped, not wanting to disturb what I saw taking place inside.
Ken Smith was kneeling at the altar with his hand on the shoulder of another man--Jimmy was his name, I learned later. Jimmy didn't attend Cedar Chapel. He just felt he needed to dedicate his life to Christ, and went to Cedar Chapel that morning to do it.
Jimmy told Ken why he had come. Ken didn't bother waiting until an "appropriate" point in the service, like after the sermon. Instead, he took care of Jimmy's desire right away.
After a long time of prayer, Jimmy returned to his pew and Ken returned to the pulpit. And in heaven, Jimmy's name was inscribed in the Book of Life, alongside the names of many other mountain people reached by Laurel Mission.
If not for Laurel Mission, where would Jimmy have gone?
* * *
After years of sporadic attendance at various churches, Rhoda Couch settled in at Little Laurel UB and found Christ there. She loves her church. "It's kind of like being thirsty and coming to a bubbling spring. That's what it is to me."
* * *
Cumile Lewis, as usual, has children on her mind. "Many a child would have practically gone naked without the mission."
"We've had some great workers down here, mighty good people," Fred agrees. "If they saw a needy family, they'd go check on the kids, see what size clothes and shoes they needed, and get them clothing from the store--free. Old people who didn't have a vehicle-they were always willing to take them to the doctor or to buy groceries."
"It has really been a help to everybody," Cumile nods. "I don't know if everybody will agree to it or not, but it has."
* * *
Alvin Boggs, despite leaving on a sour note, never stopped cheering for Laurel Mission. "When the United Brethren started doing something with the mission, it was a God-send," Alvin told me. "The mission has been a wonderful fit for many of its 48 years. No other group like us, except maybe the Baptists, is working in the area--no Nazarene, Free Methodist, Wesleyan, Methodist. God will hold those other churches accountable. The United Brethren, at least, have done something.
"We've had some years of mighty revivals. I remember two ladies who had been carrying guns, wanting to shoot each other. During one revival, they met at the altar and had their arms around each other. It was miraculous just glorious! Things like that have proven that the mission was worthwhile. There have been times when it's been defeated, but other times it's been victorious."
If someone suggested closing the mission today, what would you say?
"I don't know. Who else would do the work?"
* * *
"I looked out and for 50 miles, in every direction, I didn't see anything at all being done for the Lord," Miss Snyder told me.
The only church in the whole area was the snake-handling church. "I've seen those men lay a Bible on their head and put a snake on top. I've seen them open their shirts, put a snake inside, and button it up."
She recalled one of the older men of that church, a sawmill operator, being told by another man, "You have more sense than to believe in a thing like this."
He replied, "If you had been here with your religion, it would have been ours. We took what was here."
Miss Snyder gave the mountain people another option. And they loved her.
"I felt safer going over those mountains than I would driving through Van Weit today," she told me. "I knew every man in those mountains would fight for me if I needed help. No matter how rough they were, the last one of them would have taken my part. I'm confident of that."
Miss Snyder returned to Ohio in 1958. Two years later, she began a 22-year career in Van Wert nursing homes. At age 57, she became Mrs. Mabel Hamrick. Her husband died 12 years later, and she has been a widow for 14. In all this time, she has been back to Laurel Mission just once in person. In her thoughts, she has returned many times.
Miss Snyder retired in 1982, and has spent most of the past five years sick and in bed--cancer, mainly. She lives with friends in a farm house outside Wren, Ohio, and attends the UB church of her childhood. That is where I talked to her--me sitting on a chair beside her hospital bed as she told me of Kentucky.
She recalled a mother living far back in the mountains who was hemorrhaging. "I thought wed lose her. I sent the husband for a doctor, but in the meantime the Lord took over. Afterward, I asked her, 'Were you afraid? She said, 'I kept watching you. If you weren't afraid, why should I be?'"
She recalls the seven children she took in. "The children have all done very well. Their relatives have said, 'What would have become of those kids if you hadn't taken them? I took in 50-some kids altogether, but those seven stayed. And they're still mine."
She remembers when Fred Lewis's little brother fell into a tub of boiling water. "That was pathetic. He lost every bit of skin on his back and the backs of his arms. I had just come from Colorado, where I learned how to make special packs for treating burns. I changed his dressings every day and brought him a treat. That child lived. And every time I took a visitor to that house, I had the boy remove his shirt. It was perfect. Only two marks, on his upper back and side where his fingers could reach. Beautiful, beautiful healing."
Has Laurel Mission been worth it?
"There's Fred and Cumile. Weren't they worth saving? She's told me they would have gone hungry often if it hadn't been for us."
She mentions Mossie Sites, now a bishop's wife and former president of the WMA Board of Managers. "Mossie was just a ragged little hillbilly girl running up and down the hills when I first knew her. Wasn't the mission worth it just for her? We can't really claim the Boggs boys. Yet I say we dug them out."
She pauses. "You wonder, sometimes, if your efforts were in vain. But souls have been saved."
Do you miss Kentucky?
"I sure do."
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