Rev. Calvin White is Deceased; I Wanted Him to Read This Book!

Friday June 17 was one of those days. On that day I got two calls from two different individuals inviting me to two separate memorial services at the same church in the same city during the same month (June), only on different dates! I almost thought it was the same memorial service. Or is it a joint memorial service for two individuals? May be...

Anyway, the first person was the widow of Rev. George Sebree, my friend and mentor in Owensboro, beginning late 1994. The other person was Rev. Calvin White, my friend and mentor, during my days at Southern Seminary in Louisville, from mid 1991 to early 1994. When I moved to Owensboro I lost touch with Pastor White, who left Beargrass Baptist Church and moved to Virginia. In 2004, Rev. White began pastoring again, the same year we founded Church For All in Owensboro, Kentucky.

When Dennis White called on Friday to inform me of his elder brother's death and the planned memorial service, my heart sank, because something really strange happened to me just weeks before...

Today I called Patricia White, Pastor White's widow, and she told me of the online obituary where I could comment in a Guest Book. Here are the words I posted in memory of my precious friend:

"I have never met an equally generous and good-spirited minister of the Gospel. I was a student at Southern Seminary in Louisville when Rev. White wholehearted embraced me as his African brother into the fold of the Beargrass Church family. When I got stranded at the Liberian Refugee Camp in Ghana for 11 months, he and the Church paid for my plane ticket to return to the US. With his leadership Beargrass sent money to build the sanctuary for the refugee church. Then he followed that by throwing a big Welcome Party for Harriet & Daneto (my wife & daughter) when they arrived in America in January 1995. I should have appreciated him much more for the many ways he blessed my life. Rev. White, I look forward to seeing you and your huge smile in Heaven. Your works of love follow you."


Pastor White is one of the key persons I write about in Refugee Was My Name, and I was looking forward to sending a copy of the book to him. Wow! How quickly time slips by and individuals slip into eternity. What guarantee do I have that my book will be published before I die?