September 25, 2000

CYBERCOLUMN:
A garden of good cheer
___By John Duncan
___I'm sitting here under the old oak tree thinking of cheer. I hear the echo of Jesus' words in my ear, "In the world, you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
___ Long before the drive-through window at McDonald's, Internet hook-ups, cable television, and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" trouble showed up in North Fort Worth.

JOHN DUNCAN

The year was 1931, when the Depression settled like dust on the Texas plains. It was the age of "The Grapes of Wrath," when life crushed the grapes of optimism. In that year a group of 12 13-year-old girls banded together at the Rosen Heights Baptist Church. Although the stock market failed, these girls joined together to study God's word and to practice that love never fails (I Corinthians 13:8). Wilma Criner began as the first teacher of The Good Cheer Class.
___ Walk down the hall of the first floor of the Rosen Heights Baptist Church on any Sunday some 69 years later, and you'll find a wise group of elderly ladies still spreading good cheer. Today if you join the class and miss one Sunday, you're guaranteed a card in the mail saying, "We missed you last Sunday."
___ In 1933 Liz Duncan (no relation) joined the class. "Those were the days of the Depression, and none of us had much," Liz shared as she reminisced about the Dust Bowl days. "We all graduated from North Side High School and started getting married. But we still scraped together money to help," she added with joy in her voice.
___ The first deed of cheer carried the ladies from the north side to the east side of Fort Worth to a sanitarium. In a quarantined cottage, Maedell Boney, a woman whose lungs rattled with tuberculosis, struggled. Each week, the women of good cheer eased her struggle by supplying her with food and smiles. Maedell's faith lives on in the memory of these ladies.
___ The second act of kindness spread cheer to a widow, Velma Ralph. Poverty weighed down her heart, her household and her five children. The ladies lifted her burdens by taking her to dinner each weekend. Although the ladies of cheer themselves were poor, they still collected $40 to purchase a mangle to assist Velma with her piles of ironing.
___ When Ouida Denton's older son, Bill, contemplated quitting school to help his mother support the family financially, again the ladies cheered her. The ladies chipped in few dollars each week. Bill stayed in school and graduated, later becoming a professor of entomology at a Florida university.
___ These acts of cheer blossomed like a garden of flowers coloring the landscape. The ladies remembered their hard times and aimed to sow seeds of cheer to individuals and families who fell upon hard times.
___ "We brought our sowing machines to church and sewed dresses for the little girls at Buckner's" Children's Home, Liz recalled. One receives the impression that the ladies cherished time together as well as the enjoyment of ministering to others.
___ The garden of good cheer multiplied through the years--assistance for underprivileged children; gifts for battered women; scholarships for young people; help for mission projects; food baskets for needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas; charity gifts in memorial for choir robes, church furniture and construction for church growth. The women also cooked meals for families walking through the valley of the shadow of death as well as workers who remodeled the church.
___ Through the years, the ladies mixed a recipe of good cheer, producing cook books to finance their acts of help for times of trouble. The "Good Cheer Cook Books" started in 1940 with no recipes using cake mixes. The 1950 cook book displayed a blue cover. The 1967 "Happiness is Good Cheer Cook Book" spotlighted "Peanuts" on the cover. Connoisseurs still remember the recipes with frozen strawberries and lemon Jell-O.
___ A picture of the church filled the cover in the 1985 "Favorite Recipes Cook Book." In 69 years, the class has had only two teachers, Criner and Jerry McWhorter. Periodically, the ladies gather for coffee and tea, for chatty talk and plans for other ways to announce good cheer. The ladies gather in hats and flower-print dresses and share a meal together. Some carry home doggie bags, reminiscent of the penny-wise and frugal ways learned in the dark days of the depression.
___ As the ladies leave, they step into the 21st century and modern tribulation. But Jesus cheers their souls. As they wave good-bye to each other, they await the 70th reunion of The Good Cheer Class, getting out the gospel of good cheer until they meet again.
___ And so here I am under this huge oak tree, knowing that seeds of cheer develop deep roots of faith which sprout branches of love which produce the fruit of hope. If only every church had a The Good Cheer Class.

___ John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines


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