By Dr. John E. Morgan

Pastor–Collinsville Baptist Church

We were able to visit recently with a couple of our friends who were passing through the area.  Dennis and Pam are wonderful examples what Christian should be.

When I was in seminary in Louisville, I served as Youth Minister in a church just across the Ohio River in Indiana.  Dennis became my friend.  He and I worked with the youth of the church.  He gave up his job driving a delivery truck to become a teacher and coach.  He found Pam and they married.  They had two wonderful children, a boy and a girl.  Pam was also a teacher.  Dennis and Pam touched and changed the lives of untold numbers of children and youth because they gave their lives and their work to Jesus.  They were able to purchase a nice home in the same area where their families lived.  Their son Kevin lives nearby as do their grandchildren.  Their daughter Krishana left home to work for Focus on the Family and then went as a missionary to Austria.  Everything about the successes in their lives shouts the name of Jesus.  They are wonderful examples of the victorious Christian life.

Dennis and Patti were wonderful examples of the Christian life.  Dennis worked and loved the youth in our church.  Patti became my wife Gloria’s best friend in Louisville.  Patti wanted to serve the church even more.  So she became the church secretary.  On a Friday she left work early because she was not feeling well.  Her funeral was the next Friday.  Dennis handled his grief like a Christian.  He taught me things about sickness and death that I still use in my ministry and my life.  After a long time of loneliness, Dennis met Pam and they married.  I was able to have a part in their wedding ceremony.  They have both had some health problems.  Some problems with members of their family whom they love.  Divorces.  Deaths.  And Krishana, while she was on the mission field, discovered that she had cancer.  They have had years of fighting the cancer.  Pam left teaching mostly to care for Krishana, keeping an antiseptic environment for her during numerous cancer treatments.  Dennis and Pam are wonderful examples of the victorious Christian life.  Christians are people who have joys.  And problems.  Their victory comes from trusting Jesus.

Dennis and Pam have done that.  Their faith has been constant. Dennis and Pam know that God led them to each other at a softball field.  They know He was at their wedding.  They know He gave them their family.  They know He gave them strength to fight cancer and other problems. They, as Krishana, are excited about the future because of Jesus in their lives.

Gloria and I are privileged to call them friends.  We were at that wedding.  And when Pam, who grew up as a Catholic and Dennis who grew up as a Methodist, wanted to be baptized by immersion they came to Collinsville and let me perform the baptisms.  When Krishana made her profession of faith a few years later, she insisted on coming to Alabama to be baptized here in the same place as her parents.  When we have gone back to Louisville, they have thrown their home open to us. So we were excited to see them for a few hours.  Remember precious memories.  Compare problems.  Compare joys.  And victories in Jesus.  They remain Christian examples to us.

Maybe you are facing the death of a loved one.  Or cancer.  Or family failures.  Maybe you have been blessed with joys undeserved.  Trust Jesus.  You might even become an example to others.