The information that I am bringing to you in my column today is an amazing story of a generational link that I share with a family. This generational bond actually started way back in the early sixties when I was initially converted and baptized at a Pentecostal Holiness Church in Latta, South Carolina. I was in the fifth grade and the little church I attended in New Town on Dargan Street was a part of the Highway Churches of Christ that was headquartered in Marion, South Carolina. Bishop R. F. Davis was both the founder and senior bishop of this fellowship of churches. He and one of his associates named Wilbur Gilchrist baptized me and a few other young people from the Dillon church one weekday night. My generational story (according to my recollection) started that night.
Mother Lessie P. Willis and
Mother Mary E. McCoy
The two ladies whose photo is the face of this story were present the night when I was baptized. My generational link started that night with these two very godly and devoted women who were a mother and daughter team (like Lois and Eunice in the Scriptures in 2 Timothy 1:5). In the ensuring years following that night, I got an opportunity to learn more about these matriarchal women who served faithfully as church mothers of the Highway Church of Christ in Latta. Both Mother Willis and her daughter, Mother McCoy, were very committed to praying, fellowshipping with the saints, and being examples to both women and men in the church, as well as the community to what being followers of Jesus Christ was all about. Amazingly, the night I was restored back to Christ during a revival held at the church in 1974, both Mother Willis and her daughter, Mother McCoy, were there helping to pray me through and witnessing my recovery from a backslidden and rebellious life.
Mother Geraldine Roberts
With Mother Willis and Mother McCoy being the first and second generations of godly matriarchs that I had the joy and privilege to serve with in the same church as a young minister, they would not be the last in their linage who I would be fortunate to be able to have on my team and staff. Mother McCoy’s daughter, Geraldine, who was the faithful and loving wife of Deacon John D. Roberts, joined our church. Like her grandmother and mother before her, Geraldine became a model member and faithful mother in our church where she served as a worshipper, intercessor, and counselor to many. She truly proved to be cut from the same cloth of commitment and loyalty as her mother and grandmother before her. Her genuine and undaunted love of God, of her pastors, and of the members of our church certified her as a member of our Members’ Hall of Fame.
The Fourth Generation
Through Mother Geraldine Roberts, I would be given the opportunity to have a fourth generation bond with Mother Willis’ linage and legacy. Five of Mother Roberts’ children (Gloria, Annette, Lisa, Elsie, and Gearl) became members of our church. Though all, but one, have moved on to other assignments in their kingdom calling and purpose, we have remained in close contact and fellowship through the years. Like their great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother they were assets and vessels of honor during their membership tenure in Outreach Family Fellowship. I can truthfully say that they walked in the steps of their three matriarchs and never gave either me or my wife any trouble as their pastors and spiritual leaders. Out of this fourth generation, two are serving as pastors today. Gloria is serving as a pastor along with her husband, David, in Georgetown and Conway. Gearl is serving along with his wife, Valerie, in Marion. From the best of my recollection, from the lineage of Mother Willis and Mother McCoy, quite a few pastors, a poet, an artist, and a history making judge have descended.
The Fifth Generation
What began with a mother and daughter, when I was a young boy and new convert has grown into the fifth generation. I have served as the senior pastor for at least twelve of their descendants for quite a few years when they were children growing up. Though all of them are adults now and a few with children of their own, the generational bond and fellowship that I have experienced with this very distinguished family have truly been both rewarding and refreshing. At this stage of my life, it is very doubtful that I will be able to experience a continual fellowship with another family like I did with this one that extended to the fifth generation. I was humbled and honored when I calculated and considered that one of the fifth generation descendants of Mother Willis was given the middle name “Michael” to commemorate the role that I and others have played in his parents’ lives.
