Levi Deatrick

The riches you share

As a couple in Christ

Come from depths so much greater than known;

For coins are lost

And bonds and bills can be tossed…

This world’s riches are fickle and blown.

God’s Word deems this

That a virtuous wife

A crown to her husband is;

She is better than jewels

A sweet fountain that cools;

A storehouse of inestimable price!

Her husband will place

The trust of his heart

In this woman, his sister in Christ-

Her desire for his good

Lasts all of his days

These investments of love are for life!

~ Carol Sue Deatrick

*Below is the sketch that Carol wrote in 2002 as we were driving to Mexico to take our teens on a missions trip; I found it yesterday. (Don’t worry, I asked her if I could post it.)

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Every now and then, I see a paving machine like this one.  I took this picture today as my Dad and I were getting ready to sit down at Hardee’s in Paxton for lunch.  For a three year old kid this represents big and yellow construction equipment, for most people in Paxton it represents a new surface on the streets, for the men in the picture it represents their livelihood, for some people it represents the frustration of having to take a detour.  Significantly, for hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people in St. Louis, Missouri, it represents the sacrifices of a pastor who dedicated 11 years of his life to caring for their souls.  I was one of those people.

People sometimes presume that a pastor’s life is one of little physical labor.  My Dad is one of the hardest working men that I have ever met.  When he was in Bible college in the 70’s, he paid for his education by working in the Blaw-Knox factory in Chicago as a flame-cutter (see the name on the side of the paving machine).  In the early 70’s, Blaw-Knox made the M60 Patton Tank for the U.S. Army while our nation was in the midst of the Viet Nam War.  The picture below is from Wikipedia and you can read about the tank’s history here.

Not only did my Dad pay his way through college and graduate debt free by building tanks, but he saved enough money that he was able to go to St. Louis to start the Lifegate Baptist Church without financial support from a church or institution. (By the way, that testimony does not negate the need for commissioning and support from churches in a normal situation, it is simply an acknowledgment that he had skillfully stewarded the money for which he had worked so hard.)

The drive in his soul to spiritually build people energized his manual labor and careful preparation.  There are many pastors, who like my dad, will work with their hands and their bodies, as well as their heads and their hearts, to be be able to minister grace in the lives of others.

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