First Baptist Church, Blacksburg, South Carolina

On September 18, 2016 the First Baptist Church in Blacksburg, South Carolina is celebrating its 140th Anniversary. Rev. Wayne Brown, an old friend of the family, will be singing, and Rev. Don Whitener will deliver the message. There will be a catered meal following the service in the church's  Family Life Center.

That's what the card I received in the mail said.  

If I were able to get away, I'd love to go to this service.  I haven't lived in Blacksburg since 1995 and stopped attending First Baptist Church decades before that when I moved from town out to the country, but First Baptist is the church of my childhood.  My oldest memories of church are there.  

They built the "new" sanctuary in 1963, but I remember the old church.  The one I attended when I was very little.  That church had such lovely stained glass windows, and huge pipe organ pipes behind the pulpit.  There was a balcony to the right, as I recall, and the Sunday School building was separate from the church back then.

The old building was full of dark wood and smelled of the furniture polish of the time.  The light through the colored windows was muted and reverent, as was I, always sitting in awe of the splendor of those windows and all the grown people around me.  Old men with fedoras in hand, and ladies wearing their Sunday finest and red lipstick with ready smiles or frowns depending on how I was behaving at the time.

The church benches had no cushions back then and the floors no carpeting.  I remember the aisles being extremely long when I was little.  Taking many many steps with my little legs to get to the front.  

In the summertime we would gather out front for Vacation Bible School. Our teachers would line us up by class group, and when the time was right, the doors would open and in we would go down those long long aisles.  

The big kids would carry the US flag, the Christian flag, and the King James Version of the Bible.  The Rev. Wayne Brown, who will be singing at the homecoming, used to be one of those big tall kids with dark hair and white teeth.  He would often carry the Christian flag as we made our way down to our spots.  

We would sing songs like Onward Christian Soldiers, Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children, and we would say our pledges to the flags and to the Bible.  Then after the short service in the sanctuary we would go to our classes in the Sunday School building.

I loved Vacation Bible School and was always sad when it was over.  

Years later, in the "new" sanctuary, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and was Baptized by Preacher Miller in First Baptist Church.  

I sang soprano in the Junior Choir there until my voice changed to the alto range.  

My younger sister was married in that church.

I met some of my oldest friends there when we were just babies in the church nursery.

My Mama kept that nursery for the Sunday services for many years until her hands and feet were too crippled with arthritis to allow her to easily care for the babies.

Yes.  This was my church.

I may travel far and wide and not come home for years and years, but I left a part of my heart in that sanctuary.  It will always live there along with the echoes of all the little children's voices raised in song, "Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."