Welcome
J.C. Choate
I apologize for not keeping the news on this website current. Since J.C.’s recurrence of colon cancer four years ago, and his death two years ago, I have been so busy with things that had to be done by deadlines that I just have not gotten around to up-dating this material. Brad (our younger son) has added some of the bi-monthly reports, and he has also put several issues of our quarterly magazine (The Voice of Truth International) on the site, as well as the last two issues of our twice-yearly publication, the mission news magazine we call Global Harvest.The catalog, showing the books we publish, is also on the website. So there’s lots of exploring you can do!
For a number of years, as we had obviously grown older, brethren have asked us, “Do you have someone who will continue with the work after you are no longer able to do it?” The question provoked many prayers for God’s help in finding co-workers. Finally, with no one on the horizon, J.C. decided that it might be that the churches, preachers, leaders in India and the other places in which we were working might mature faster if they didn’t have the “security” of Americans being continually involved, both monetarily and in teaching. Maybe, in God’s wisdom, no replacement was the means for forcing “graduation”. We reached the state of acceptance: if co-workers were needed to carry on the work, God would supply them. If they were not needed, and no help came on the scene, we should accept that as God’s wisdom and be happy with it.
Then, in the summer of 2007, Wayne Barrier (who lives in Florence, AL and has worked with us for 25 years) suggested that Jerry and Paula Bates had expressed an interest in joining the team. They came to Winona and we talked at length, trying to create a mental image of the work, the potential, and the challenges. Within a few days they had made the decision to move to Winona! They made the transition in August of that year.
About the same time we established contact with Louis and Bonnie Rushmore (see GospelGazette.com), living in West Virginia and working with the church at Cameron. They, too, came and spent considerable time discussing the various aspects of the program. Their move was completed in October.
So, not only our prayers but our questions were answered. God, in His own time and wisdom, had supplied the talents and persons He wanted to use to move the work forward. The decision of our sponsoring congregation, the Liberty Church of Christ in Dennis, MS, to continue sponsoring the work after J.C.’s death, made the final confirmatory statement that God wanted the program and the American involvement to continue.
With these vital parts in place, both J.C. and I had peace as the cancer weakened him to the point of his being in a coma the last 24-hours before his death on February 1, just five days before his 76th birthday. Part of me is incessantly lonely; part of me is so absorbed in the work we did together for fifty years that he seems ever-present, participating in everything I do. I thank God for two great blessings: the expectation of going home, as J.C. has done, and spending eternity with God; and the happiness of being privileged to fill every day with God’s work.