EASTER SUNDAY WALK WITH JESUS

WALK WITH JESUS

    Of all the Posts I have written on my Blog, this is the one that I feel I am not really capable of giving the WALK WITH JESUS all of the Honor and Glory it deserves. Except for pictures, which have been furnished my many, I am guilty of doing all of the typing, comments, arrangements and errors in all of my other posts so I see no reason not to try doing this one on my own, but remember this is a family post and not a Church post, so if my daughter's or my picture appears more often than it is felt they should it is for my family to view. Please just bear with me and enjoy this Blessed Easter Day, and remember this post and my complete Blog is open to anyone that might like to view it.Thanks to Beverly Justice for Sanctuary pictures and Barbara for so.so many of hers I used.

                           WRITING THE ENTIRE NEW TESTAMENT ON THE SIDEWALKS  IN WHITEVILLE, NC

I am not sure who was the originator of this wonderful undertaking, but two that were very instrumental in all the planning were Janice Young from the Whiteville Chamber of Commerce and Mark Gilchrist from the Whiteville News Reporter. plus many, many others.I will try to explain in a very small way what was involved in this WALK WITH JESUS. There were about 50 Churches and over 1000 people from the Whiteville area that wrote the Scriptures in washable color chalk.Please understand the streets were blocked off when the writing were underway,and even after they were opened I don't think anyone walked on the Scriptures.First no one would want to, and they could only be read if you were on the road facing them. All Scriptures were washed off before sundown.There was no count but during the day many, many people walked and read them.


 First each Book was  broken down into the number of  scriptures that would fit on a sidewalk square.This was printed on an individual sheet of paper with a special number at the top of the sheet that was given to each person that was involved in writing.These numbers were pasted on each sidewalk square in the over 2 mile of sidewalk involved. Each Church was given a packet with all of the squares that involved them. This enabled each person to go directly to the square that had their number. WOW !!! what planning.

My church, Whiteville United Methodist  had the book of Luke and I believe it took us 5 city streets to complete. I had Luke 9, verses 5 thru 9. You will see later this was written on a square that consisted of I believe 90% rock and 10% cement, but I am not complaining because I felt at times I was having help writing on those rocks.

EASTER WALK WITH JESUS BEGINS

It is 5:45 AM,  Barbara and I are leaving for the Church.I look skyward and see that full and beautiful moon ( and why not, Easter is determined by the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon occurring on or after the March Equinox,the first day of Spring.).With the Clear sky and that moon so bright I feel our Lord is just saying "Have a Blessed and Happy Easter Sunday".We arrive at the Church and are greeted by

Kathy Graham, our Church Administrative Assistant and husband Joe
arrive early to open our Church

 You will notice the quality and the darkness in these, and following pictures is caused by not only it is not daylight, but I am not using a Licha camera either. This is all you can expect to get for $90.00.



Members being greeted by Kathy


 Another group of early arrivals at the Church

                                                                                    




 

  




Sue Wells makes me feel I am in the service again

 



Every sidewalk writing needs a beautiful sweeper,.
Beverly Justice with broom in hand




We will now follow Sue to the downtown Sunrise Service




I warned you about the quality of these pictures.

 


Dr. David Heller, Pastor Pleasant Plains Baptist Church ( sorry Dr. Heller)





Beautiful singing by Carol Caldwell and Paula Inman




Emily Fowler playing trumpet and Rev. Hiller




 

Beautiful cross made with paper flowers by children from many Churches in the area


We now leave the Sunrise service and head for our sidewalk locations





Just to show you how many that were getting ready to get on their knees to write.

Beverly sweeping, and probably getting plenty of advice from the Church members

Grant Merritt, a professional photographer working hard

Sue directing( or misdirecting) us to our proper squares with

Frank & Betty Hamilton looking on. Our Pastor Bill Boykin is the one in shorts

in the upper left in the picture.

ON OUR KNEES HONORING JESUS

I wish it would be possible to show everyone,but enjoy what I have

That Stadium pad did not slide as easy on these rocks as it

did when I practiced on  the kitchen floor.

Barbara in deep thought

I am happy we wrote side by side.

She helped this old man get up.

Really nothing needs to be said about the above pictures

because they speak for themselves.

Me at a point when I am almost feeling my age, however

being on your knees doing this gives you a Blessed feeling

You will remember earlier I mentioned the 90% rock 10% concrete.

This is a closeup of the top of my sidewalk shown  where I was writing 

 with pink chalk.Hard to recognize it isn't it ?.

Scripture writings

I believe that is Sue again leading us to our Luke location .

Smile Emily, you are on candid camera. Crowd leaving Sunrise Service





                              
                  

RETURN TO CHURCH FOR EASTER WORSHIP

After an Easter morning Sunrise Service, writing the New Testament, and being a part

of 1000 people on their knees praising Jesus by writing His words, Barbara and I decided to walk the mile back to my Church.We knew a wonderful breakfast, prepared by the Methodist Men 

 would be waiting for us on our arrival.

The walk caused us to be a little late but I

understand more than 100 were served breakfast.

EASTER MORNING WORSHIP SERVICE

This was taken from the balcony and it felt so good to have
my daughter with me at this Blessed Easter Service.

Procession returning the Cross, Bible, and
Candles to the empty Alter.

A sight like this will probably never be seen again

in Whiteville United Methodist Church, with so many

dressed in their Sunday finest, blue T shirt with

WALK WITH JESUS printed on the back.

What a glorious sight !!!!!

This brings closure to my Post on WALK WITH JESUS, and I realize there was so much more that could have been written, but maybe it will give all that view this an insight of how much preparation was needed to make this possible..Even if only 1 person was on their knees for the first time, the whole Scripture writing was a success.

GOD LOVES YOU  AND I LOVE YOU  

MENHADEN FISH STORY and POST SCRIPT TO STORY

FISH IN THE HOLD

Growing up in Southport NC in 1935

                               

STORY ABOUT A 12 YEAR OLD BOY’S FISHING TRIP TO EARN MONEY TO TAKE HIS GIRL FRIEND WILMA TO THE MOTION PICTURE SHOW
 

 

This is a Menhaden fishing boat with purse boats and net being hauled in. This is a picture of a modern boat, with power purse boats with net being hauled in with machinery. All of this is different from the story I want to tell about the mid 1930 era.Then the purse boats had no power except oars, and the nets were pulled in by hand.

 

How lucky can a 12 year old boy, growing up in Southport be? I probably did not think so at the time, but looking back those were wonderful days.

“Don’t forget to set the alarm clock” I was thinking because I have to be down on the waterfront before daylight.” Hope the weather is good, but I know it will be hot. It always is in July. I have not decided who I will go fishing with. I could go with Doonie Watts to the shoals off from Ball Head Island blue fishing, with Merritt Moore shrimping, or with Captain John Erickson (my grandmother’s nephew) on the menhaden boat John Anderson. I had better get to sleep because I can decide that in the morning.

Boy, it is hot, even before the sun comes up. I go to the waterfront but can’t find Doonie. He probably isn’t going out today. I believe I will pass up the shrimp boat because the ocean is rough and being so hot the odor when they are culling the shrimp out of the trash fish is so strong I am not sure my stomach can take it. My only option left is going menhaden fishing with Capt. John, so I had better hurry before he leaves the dock. I need to find about a dozen bluefish ( this is a fish most people in Southport like because they say it tastes like a fish, unlike a flounder which they say has very little taste at all) that are feeding in the menhaden schools. Twelve will probably earn me about 75 cents if I am lucky, plenty to take Wilma to the Amuzu Picture Show.

 It is about 10 o’clock now and fishing has been good. We have about 100,000 fish in the hold but have not seen any blues and I am getting worried. The fish are dipped out of the net by something like a crab net. It holds about 3000 fish and the bottom will open up so the fish can fall in the hold. The loaded net came over the hold and the bottom opened, and as the fish fell I saw probably 10 or 12 big blues on top of all the other fish. Now a 12 year old kid’s trouble begins. I am so anxious to get all the blues that I can before the next net full drops on top of them I jump feet first on top of those fish, not realizing that in the summer they are soft and very slimy. As my feet hit the fish I knew I was in deep trouble because I started to sink. The more I kicked the deeper I sank in the fish. I screamed as I was now up to my arm pits in those slimy fish and still sinking. The only thing keeping me from going out of sight was my outstretched arms.

These are the slimy fish I almost sank out

of sight when I jumped in to retrive blue fish

to earn enough money to take Wilma to the

motion picture show.

 

 At that moment an old gentleman looked down in the hold and started laughing. He called out “Capt. John, Capt John you had better come and get your young man out of these fish before he goes out of sight”. I screamed louder, and by now there were quite a few of the crew staring down and laughing. I could not find one thing funny. In a couple of minutes they emptied the full bale net back in the net in the water and the empty net was lowered for me. Capt John said “grab the net”, as if I needed someone to tell me this. When I grabbed the net I was sure they would need a hack saw to get my fingers loose. I think back now, and I can’t remember one time in all of the D day landings that my Ship the LST 775 made in the retaking of the Philippines when I was more frightened than I was at this moment.

Let me tell you there was one mad man, Capt John. He called out to me to go to his room, not inside but outside and stay there until we arrived back in Southport. By this time the slime had dried and I smelled awful. I was in no mood to look for anymore fish.

When we arrived off from the dock in Southport the crew gets in the purse boats and row to the dock, while the Anderson proceeds on to the factory to unload. The custom is that when the boat is abreast the Garrison flag pole they use their  horn to signify how many fish they have in the hold. The signal is 3 Long blasts followed by short ones to indicate how many thousands they had caught. The Anderson signaled 200,000. At this point I did not care how many were aboard because my day had been ruined. I was covered with dried slime; I smelled like a skunk, had no bluefish, and no money for the motion picture show with Wilma. Have you ever had a really bad day?

POST SCRIP TO FISH IN THE HOLD

I know you must feel the crew, catching 200,000 fish in a day must make a lot of money, so let me explain about this fish. A menhaden is very oily, strong tasting, and is used for fertilizer and the oil has many uses.One thing it is not good for and that is to eat.There was a story of a group of drunk men that went to the beach to set a net to catch Spots( a small good tasting fish) and cook on the beach, but the only fish they caught were menhaden. One very drunk, hungry man in the group said he had heard that any fish that swims in the ocean was eatable, so they cooked and ate.The end results(no pun intended),one man said he had diarrhea for a full week after eating those damn menhaden.

Back to the pay for catching that many fish. There are 20 men in the crew and the boat is paid 75cents ( that is correct, cents not dollars ) per 1000 fish. This is divided, the captain receives 12 cents, Mate 6, engineer 6 and the crew's share is 3 cents each, so for a full days work they earned 6 dollars. Remember this is 1936, but would you want to go fishing with them ? However that doesn't sound so bad when I remember 5 years later I went on active duty in the navy in Nov.1940 and the pay was $21.00 a month.I think that figures out to 70 cent a day, so maybe fishing was not such a bad deal after all.

I am really a part of this whole story. My father was at one time mate on one of these boats and if he had been on the Anderson with us, my mother would have made that $12.00 go a long way. We never had much, but were never in need of anything that we really had to have.I loved growing up in Southport because of all the freedom you had and hated to move, but in my freshman year in High School my father accepted a position of captain of an Army boat stationed at Ft.Moultrie SC. We moved to Sullivan's Island SC and I attended and graduated from Charleston High School.  Even though I hated the move, I  think if I had remained in Southport I would not have had all the opportunities that were later made available to me. However that is another story.