â??Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.â?Â�  --Proverbs 22:6

     â??Mosby: The Little Town with Big Ideas.â?Â�  For years, a sign carrying those words sat midway between Liberty and Excelsior Springs, Missouri.  The sign pointed down a side road running under a railroad track, one of three entrances to a town so small most people still donâ??t know it exists. The 2010 census puts the population at 190, down from itsâ?? high of 325 in its heyday.

     Growing up there was like living in Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show.  Outsiders couldnâ??t be expected to know these things, but the town had a bank whose holdings made it at one time the â??richest small town in Americaâ?Â�, though the bank and the wealth were long gone by the 1960â??s when I was there. We also had a coal mine, a Little League field and a baseball team that annually beat its big-city rivals, with elderly cheerleaders with names like Opal, Lena, Elsie and Minnie. We had a postal shed, a fire truck, Fishing River and Bill Dueâ??s Bait and Tackle Shop, which also featured ice cream, soda and every kind of candy you could imagine.

     At the center of town was a stately stone schoolhouse built by the CCC during the Depression (one room; eight grades) and what seemed like a huge Baptist church to my elementary school eyes. In reality, the church was tiny, rarely hosting more than 50 except for special occasions like Easter and Christmas or the regular once-a-month potluck dinners on Wednesday nights.

     Inside the church each Sunday, Mrs. Thompson used her flannel-graph to teach us Bible stories before dismissing us to Sunday School classes with boys and girls in separate rooms.  Year in and year out, Charlie Smith and Jack Oâ??Dell would show up in full suit and tie to teach us the Bible and tell us about life.  Mr. Oâ??Dellâ??s stories of his time in an iron lung had a profound effect on us, and both men stood as giants to the boys they taught.  Ethel Due, Amy Douglas, Minnie Roberts, Betty Cazzell and so many other women played nearly every other role in the church and in the school, and (usually behind the scenes) in the town.  Stately, dignified Ivan Douglas introduced us to the dignity and beauty of hymns, and his daughter Betty sang the solos as did my friend and classmate Michael Murray to show the world his lovely voice.

     At the center of the center of everything was Francis and Norma Allen, the pastor who led me to the Lord, who along with his wife taught me how to read and learn the Bible, and who also teamed with Maurice Hall and Mary Hamby to teach me how to live like Christ.

     Everyday people living everyday lives, never imagining the outsized influence they were having on others for Jesus.  Never fully understanding until Jesus greeted them in heaven just what marvelous witnesses they were for Him just by living lives that let us who grew up near them see Jesus every day.

     Likely you have people like them in your own life; people who were regular to the outside world, but who were giants in yours.  Likely, though you may find this harder to imagine, there are people right now who think of you the way I think of Charlie, Betty, Norma and Francis.

     In these early weeks after Easter, when the memory of what Christ did for us hangs high on our memory boards, itâ??s helpful to remember the people who introduced you to Jesus; who lived His Word around you as you grew. In remembering, we are able to once again embrace the fundamental gifts they gave us.

     And in embracing those gifts, we have the chance to share them with others we often donâ??t realize are watching us, hoping to see in us the face of Jesus.

--Randy Kilgore