Scott County Today

The Rev. Kermit Phillips, senior pastor at New River Missionary Baptist Church and a longtime evangelist, is leading a 5-night revival at Helenwood Baptist Church that concludes Sept. 28.

Phillips is a Scott County native who pastored churches in Indiana and Ohio for 39 years before returning to the area as pastor at New River five years ago. Services begin each evening at 7 p.m.

A Montana pastor is scheduled to lead a missions conference at Trinity Baptist Church in October.

Bro. Steve Sturgeon, pastor of the Dillion Baptist Church in Dillon, Mont., plans to be at the pulpit for a 4-night conference that is scheduled to begin Oct. 7. The former U.S. Navy chaplain has served at the church in southwestern Montana for more than 20 years.

The meetings will also include missionaries on deputation. The church is located on Old Jamestown Road in Huntsville.

In the 69 years that Genevieve Alexander West treated others to her engaging smile and contagious laugh, we rarely paused to reflect on the valuable lessons she was teaching us along the way.

Always busy and never idle, she taught us how to enjoy life. And she made it look easy. As easily as asking a question or two, she could turn a stranger into a friend or make a casual acquaintance feel like a cherished old pal. Her class was in session daily, and the teaching method was consistent _ never by lecture, but always by example.

So effortless was her example that it never seemed like a learning exercise. But in early August, as we coped with the reality that she had departed this painful life and danced gloriously into the next one, it was clear that “Gen” had been on a long mission to show us how life should be lived.

She left behind countless friends and a body that was laid to rest at the Daniel Cemetery _ appropriately, just a few feet from a church. More than anyone else I’ve known, Gen loved being in church.

For months in advance, she anticipated revival meetings or VBS or Christmas productions. She enjoyed them with a passion that most of us reserve for sporting events. For weeks afterward, she was compelled to tell others what they had missed by not being in church that night.

She also taught me quite a bit about money _ or, more specifically, how to enjoy life without it. In Gen’s smile-filled life, there was no need for grandiose surroundings, alcohol, drugs or anything else that some folks require for a celebration. To share a laugh, all Gen needed was a cohort.

She had a way of finding them. Those who weren’t looking for a laugh when they came to her home usually found a good one when they arrived.

Among her favorite lessons was hospitality. Long reluctant to open my home to visitors because it was a modest one, Gen taught me that genuine hospitality never needs opulence.

Any time a visitor to Gen’s home departed, another life lesson was soon to be on display. At every instance, just moments after the door would close, Gen or her husband, J.R., would turn to those remaining the room and make a positive statement about the friend who had just walked away. Never prone to brag on themselves, Gen and J.R. love to find something good to say about others.

The two were together so long (52-plus years) that it would be hard to know who started the brag-on-my-friends habit. It nonetheless unfolded each time a visitor walked away.

It is a routine I hope to teach my children. And one I had witnessed many times before realizing that a lesson was being taught.

That was Gen’s style. It’s one of the many reasons we’ll miss her so much.