No matter what our age happens to be, we need to be ready and willing when God gives us new ways to serve Him.
Brother Harris Cook had served as pastor of a number of Baptist churches and had begun making plans for retirement. In fact, he had already built a retirement home on Smith Lake.
However, Bro. Cook felt God calling him to foreign missions work. When he gave the International Mission Board a call, he said something like, “You don’t have any kind of work for a 50-year-old preacher, do you?”
He was surprised by the answer.
Before long, Bro. Cook and his wife, the former Jenny McLemore, will begin serving as missionaries in Venezuela, the South American country where Alabama Baptists have just begun a partnership with local Baptists.
The Cooks will serve in “the belt of misery,” an impoverished area that surrounds Caracas and contains more than 3.5 million people.
First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove recently held a special commissioning service for the Cooks. The church is where Bro. Cook made his profession of faith in July of 1969 and where he felt God’s call to the ministry in December of the same year.
My wife and I were privileged to attend the Cooks’ commissioning service. We have known Jenny, a native of Montgomery, since she was a student at Samford and served as accompanist for one of the choirs at our church. She sings as beautifully as she plays the piano. Our family was even able to hear her sing at the Baptist pavilion during the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville.
It was a blessing to hear Jenny sing at Pleasant Grove. She challenged us all with the message: “God is calling you.” Folks all around the world are waiting for someone to tell them about Jesus, so be open to God’s call no matter what your age is. Jenny said one missionary is serving at age 84. And of course there has never been an age limit for “prayer warriors.”
Brother David Chandler will begin serving as pastor at Baker’s Chapel Baptist Church north of Guntersville March 19. This will be his first full-time pastorate. He previously served as bivocational pastor of Bethany Baptist Church north of Attalla. Along with the move, Bro. Chandler and his wife, Sherry, are coming up with an empty nest earlier than they had expected.
Their son, Todd, married only three weeks ago, and their daughter, Stacie, head majorette at Glencoe High School, will be staying with Bro. Chandler’s parents during the week so she can continue her education in Glencoe.
Brother Chandler was called to the ministry two years ago at age 44. He was also working in the hospital at Fort McClellan when word came that the military base would be shut down. He didn’t know what the future held for his ministry. Then he received the full-time call to Baker’s Chapel.
“God will work things out,” he said. “You can count on Him.”
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