2005 Bill and Beverly Hawes

I remember who introduced me to Bill and Beverly and I remember when they introduced us.  I remember hearing a hodge-podge band play 50's tunes for an evangelistic dinner theatre.  I remember going to "The Nutcracker" to watch the students from their dance studio.  I remember meeting their kids and helping at their daughter's wedding.  I remember much about them.

I uniquely remember one of the highest compliments I have ever been paid coming from Bill's mouth at a Mexican Restaurant in the Towne Lake area of town.  He simply chuckled to himself and I asked, "What's up?"  The whole family was there and Karin and Bev were talking about everything.  Isaac was playing with Brittany - I think maybe flirting.  "I just can't believe I am sitting here with my pastor having Mexican Food in Towne Lake," Bill replied. 

"Why wouldn't we have dinner - we are friends?"
"It just isn't this way other places.  We just started going to church here and..."

God taught me something awesome that night and called me to the way of Bob Canuette and so many other great pastors.  God called me back to "the pastoring of old" instead of leading an organization.  It was already part of my life and our church's culture but God burned the desire to touch people's lives up close and not their worlds from far away.  People want and need people.

As you may have guessed, Bill and Beverly have moved on - it's okay, people decide to leave.  As I miss them, I will ponder how we got from "This is so awesome..." to them leaving without saying, "Goodbye."   Perhaps, we all just got too busy to have dinner anymore but it is sad that they left without feeling that connection to the people anymore.  Their world here became the ministry that they did rather than the family that they had.  I wonder what would have happnened if they and the family here had dinner more often instead of just doing and then runnig to the next thing in life?  I think that no matter the outcome the goodbye would have been more like the hello.

Nonetheless, in their coming and their going, I was reminded by God of the way of the pastor and the need for family to spend quality time together without any pretensions or work at hand.