Christmas and THE BOOK OF NOAH

I'm having a problem mastering placement of my pictures, but I just received one of those occasional phone calls from Dale Stultz in Anderson and I want to share with some of you.

Dale is one of those rare people, always blowing in a breath of fresh air, bringing words of optimism, sharing acts of joy. Since meeting Dale, we have become fast friends, each of us fascinated by varying aspects of our Church of God heritage. Today’s chat informed me he had just sent me three pictures he is using as he shares Christmas in Anderson with individuals and small groups interested in our early history.

Using the above pictures as living graphics, Dale reads the story of young Noah Byrum’s first Christmas away from his Hoosier home, and his mother. He is with his older brother Enoch, and living in the bleak austerity of the Trumpet Home, seen in the panoramic view of Grand Junction (bottom picture).

He is working with those earliest Gospel Trumpet volunteers at Grand Junction, MI. His story is found on pages 45-47 in The Book of Noah, Memoirs From Our Past). He arrived earlier in the year as a 15-year-old teenager--away from his mother and home for the first time.

Struggling with “Christmas Eve depression,” he heard the train pass by en route to South Haven. Minutes later, he heard the door open softly, but ignored it. Then, “I realized someone was standing in the doorway," he wrote, but I kept on with my reading; "I glanced up and my heart almost skipped a beat. There stood my mother, her face all smiles. I was soon in her open arms, and a happier boy could not have been found. . .” (12-24-1887). The picture at top center shows the Byrum farm in an Indiana winter scene.

Mother Lucinda spent Christmas week with Noah, watched and worked around the Trumpet Home for the week, and returned home to Indiana, happy that her sons were busy in God’s work. Noah spent many more happy Christmases, holidays, and other gatherings in Grand Junction and at the nearby Joseph Smith farm--and meeting house, where the Saints often worshipped--as seen at the upper left. Also, you read Noah's handwritten comments.

I haven't mastered placing these pictures yet. Hopefully, I will learn to place them where I want them. Meantime, I will return to Kentucky Christmas week, spend Christmas with our daughter and soon-to-be Irish Cherokee of 62 years (1947-2009), as well as another week or so at Reformation Publishers. I will then leave her there for the cold weather and return to the wonders of Michigan’s winterland_
Wayne