Family News and Notes
Copies of the Minutes from the Men's Business Meeting on October 8, 2006 and the Financial Statement for the month ending September 30, 2006 are available on the table in the foyer. If you are interested, please take a copy.
Visitation Teams will meet in the east side of the Multi-Purpose Room after services this evening to pick up visitation cards. No refreshments.
Thanks to Daniel and Keely McCary for hosting the youth cookout and campfire last Saturday evening. Thanks, also, to all the young people who helped split, deliver, and stack firewood for our widows and elderly.
Youth do not forget the Devotional following services this evening in the multi-Purpose Room. Refreshments will be furnished.
Our sympathy is extended to Iris Ramsey and all of the surviving members of the Ramsey family in the loss of brother Johnny Ramsey whose funeral was conducted last Monday in Garland. Our brotherhood greatly mourned the death of brother Johnny, as was evidenced by the hundreds of people who packed the funeral home last Sunday afternoon with a "wall to wall crowd" for the two hours of visitation with the family, and then as over 500 people filled the Centerville Road church of Christ building, with a "standing room only crowd" for Johnny's funeral Monday afternoon.
Hollis and Joyce Lee are having really bad health problems. Joyce is still having blackouts and Hollis has developed gangrene in two toes on his right foot. Doctors are attempting to treat this but may have to remove the toes. Hollis also has cancer in his left kidney. Proper treatment for this is not known at this time. They are at their home at 307 West 12th Street.
Grady Duncan cut his left thumb pretty bad this past week while using his table saw. It took 14 stitches to put it back together. He has been experiencing lots of pain.
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Crossing Over
© Grady L. Duncan
I've reached the point in life,
I spend time looking back,
Recalling the things I've done,
and seeing what I still lack.
there's more time behind me,
than what might lie ahead.
The past I recall fondly,
the future, somehow, I dread.
Not that I am worried,
for I know where I am bound,
but, still there is some fear.
The thought is so profound.
Though my friends be many,
and their love, I have known,
their presence can't abide.
I must face that day alone.
This cloak of mortal flesh,
with its trials, grief, and pain,
will release my soul at last,
and return to dust again.
Then there shall appear,
a bridge to a distant shore.
Then I shall cross over,
there to live forevermore.
Memories of the past,
though fondly, I may recall,
are swallowed up in victory,
when I hear the Master's call.
In life I see His footprints,
They alone, shall be my guide.
I know He's waiting for me,
just on the other side.
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PRAYER LIST:
Justin Barker, Rachel Barker, Jean Bell, Winell Blackard, Annah Brown,
Nancy Chastain, Josephine Cooper, Perry Cooper, Jan Hargrove, Hollis Lee,
Joyce Lee, Georgia Lide, Wade Miller, Wayne Pickrel, Marie Plemmons, Helen Roper, Alva Mae Sheets, Edith Shiflet, Ola Mae Simpson, Julia Terrell, Rebecca Tippitt
ALSO: Bobby Brewster, Cristell Cato, Austin Cody, Lana Downs,
Juanita DuBose, Wesley DuBose, Carolyn Fox, Roy Fox, Edna Graves, Ruby Jeffery, Carlos Kidwell, Wayne Lineberger, Nola Vandusen
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In Memory Of Brother Johnny Ramsey
Faithful Servant of Christ and Valiant Solder of the Cross
July 5, 1930 October 5, 2006
"Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?" II Samuel 3:38
The bittersweet news last Thursday, October 5, 2006, of the death of our beloved brother Johnny Ramsey, left our entire brotherhood mourning a great personal loss, even as we rejoiced over Johnny's final victory as a faithful servant of God. The man who so often summarized the message of the book of Revelation in the words, "He overcomes self, sin, and Satan, can, by the grace of the Savior, come over to live with God in Heaven eternally," had done just that! He had overcome, so now we believe he has gone over to be with God. Truly, our loss is Heaven's gain!
A native of Sherman, Texas, Johnny Ramsey preached his first sermon at the age of 16 and was involved in full-time evangelistic work for over 50 years. Johnny was educated at Abilene Christian University, where he was awarded both the BA and MA degrees in Biblical studies. After his marriage to Iris Baker, to whom he was married for 54 years, Johnny and Iris Ramsey not only did local work, serving congregations of the Lord's church in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Texas, but also worked in foreign evangelism, helping to begin the Lord's church in Adelaide, Australia. Johnny also taught in three preacher training schools and helped to establish the Southwest School of Biblical Studies in Austin. For many years he was involved in full-time Gospel Meeting work, where he would preach from Sunday to Wednesday in 40 to 50 meetings a year, and then teach Thursday and Friday at the Brown Trail School of Preaching, in Ft. Worth, Texas, where he was also one of the regular featured speakers on the syndicated television program, "The Truth In Love."
Johnny was world-renowned as one of the foremost Bible scholars of this generation, and an unequaled Gospel preacher, teacher, and author, whose power-packed, Scripture-filled sermons and Bible classes often left his audiences spellbound. The author of 13 books, and over 100 Bible tracts and pamphlets, Johnny was often affectionately called "Mr. Bible" by his students and friends, because of his phenomenal memorization and recall of the Holy Scriptures. Seemingly, he had committed to memory most if not all of the 66 books of the Holy Bible, and often quoted more than 150 scripture texts in one of his dynamic 30-minute sermons or Bible classes. Accordingly, for the last thirty years of his life, he was highly sought after and in much demand as a Gospel Meeting preacher, which led him to preach in over 1,100 Gospel Meetings, giving him the amazing privilege of preaching the Gospel in all fifty states, and in 6 foreign countries.
Hundreds of Gospel preachers counted Johnny Ramsey as a trusted mentor and special friend. Undoubtedly this is because Johnny and Iris Ramsey had a special place in their hearts for young men who wanted to preach the Gospel. Johnny helped to train hundreds if not thousands of men to be faithful preachers of God's Word, even as Iris helped to train their wives to be faithful help-meets in the cause of Christ.
They encouraged many young men and women not only with their wise counsel, astute advice, and loving words of encouragement, or even rebuke when needed, but also by helping financially when the need arose. Many a struggling preacher and his family were aided by the Ramsey's financial generosity so they could continue to do the Lord's work when medical bills or other emergencies threatened to drive them out of preaching into more lucrative secular fields.
It goes without saying, of course, that Johnny Ramsey was deeply loved and greatly esteemed not only by thousands of Christians scattered across the whole face of God's earth, but also by all the faithful members of this congregation. What an honor and privilege it has been the past year and four months for the North Jefferson congregation to be able to count among our members, Johnny and Iris Ramsey, and to have Johnny working with us as one of our preachers. For time immemorial, North Jefferson will now be remembered as the place where Johnny Ramsey held his last Gospel Meeting, preached his last sermons, and taught his last Bible classes. To refresh your memory, on May 22nd, 2005, Johnny began teaching our auditorium Bible class. Not quite a year earlier, I had begun a book by book "Journey through the Bible" that had taken us through the first 18 books of the Old Testament, Genesis through Esther. Johnny took up where I left off, and beginning with the book of Job summarized roughly a book a week, ending the series with the final book of the Bible, Revelation, during his last few occasions of public teaching, before failing health rendered him incapable of filling the pulpit.
At brother Ramsey's funeral, Johnny's "three mighty men," as I like to think of them, lovingly eulogized and paid fitting tribute to the life and times of this great man of God. Don Walker, who preaches for the Shenandoah congregation, in San Antonio, Bill Burk, who preaches for the Lord's church in Seagoville, TX, and Mike Vestal, who preaches for the Westside church of Christ, in Midland, captured the essence of Johnny's life as they reminisced about his influence upon them and our brotherhood the past fifty years. One of those eulogists, Mike Vestal, called Johnny a "preaching machine!" Truly, Johnny wore himself out preaching the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, and he "died with his boots on," as the old saying goes, as Iris reported that his last few days were spent in a marathon session of quoting the Scriptures and preaching, as he lay in his bed with his life ebbing away. Literally hundreds of Gospel preachers came from near and far to pay their last respects to this unique Gospel preacher, whom we all wish we could be more like in our preaching and teaching.
Johnny Ramsey was not a sinlessly perfect man, and he would be the first to admit it, but he placed his hope in a Savior Who was, and Who gave His life on Calvary's cruel cross to provide mercy and grace for those whose lives would be perfected in a faithful relationship with Him. Johnny Ramsey spent his whole adult life striving to please only God. He sought to be the Master's faithful servant. He was a faithful Gospel preacher. He fought a good fight, he finished his course, he kept the faith, therefore, our hope is that a crown of life awaits him and that we can see him again someday, if we too live as faithful servants of God. The stirring words of the great statesman, Benjamin Franklin, seem appropriate to this occasion and a fitting conclusion to this memorial to the life of Johnny Ramsey. Franklin wrote, "Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last forever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him?"
David McCain
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