The
By Mrs. Melvin Dean
(Read at the M.B.C. home coming, September
6, 1937)
Little brick church by the roadside,
Spotted and time worn and old,
Where are the sheep of your pasture,
Where are the lambs of your fold?
Back in the days of my childhood,
Men came preaching salvation from sin,
They saw the need of the harvest,
And thrust in their sickles to win.
Elders Kreutziger,
Schultz and Snyder,
Are the first three we will name,
Preaching this wonderful gospel,
Into our wilderness came.
At first they held a tent meeting,
The devil, of course, was on hand,
But with “Faith” and the rest of “God’s
armor”
They fearlessly took their stand.
We were but few in number,
With hardships hard to bear,
When we created this church building,
And dedicated it to “God’s care”,
Rev. M.D. Bechtel
was the first pastor,
A man well blessed by the Lord:
Long since he has gone home to heaven,
To reap his gracious reward.
There is another I should mention,
We are all glad he is here with us yet,
And that’s brother Shupe,
our deacon,
His life, we will never forget.
He toiled with us in the beginning,
He bore the burden and heat of the day,
His life of faith and good victory,
Has cheered every one of us on the way.
Rev. B.A. Sherk
and McWilliams,
We never can forget a single one,
Of these good pastors, who helped us,
The Christian race to run.
We will pause and pay tribute,
To a blessed man of God,
Who of us can forget the pastorate,
Of our departed brother R.M. Dodd?
These were the days when the prayer
meetings,
Numbered eighty and more,
As we plunged through the mud with this
gospel,
Which was carried from door to door.
These were the days when the church sheds,
O’erflowed with buggies, wagons and sleighs,
And the crowds filled the “Amen corners”,
These were the old fashioned days.
“The friends of the church” we would
mention,
“The Travers” and “The Sutphens”
too,
How we loved them as they sat with us,
And worshiped God from our pew.
Then came to us Rev. J.N. Pannabecker,
A good preacher and a teacher, too,
The type of a pastor that our conference,
Has altogether too few.
We had been going along as a circuit
With Elkton up to this day,
But by mutual consent we divided,
We came to a parting of the way.
Down from the north came
Bro. Douglas,
Just the man for the place, we all felt,
And by his good will and hard labor,
Our first parsonage was built.
Again Rev. Pannabecker,
Krake, Clint, Avery
All stalwart men of God,
Elders Gill, Eastman and Surbrook,
In turn came preaching the word.
Again Brother Douglas returning
Gave us three years of his time,
Followed by the Rev. and Mrs.
With this couple we got along fine.
Today we have “Our Brother Tuckey”,
God sent him to us in his youth,
He is like Timothy of the scripture
He can rightly divide the truth.
We enjoy his good sermons,
We respect his Godly life,
We have learned to love the “new baby
daughter”,
And his “little black-eyed wife”.
Today we have a new parsonage,
The old one was all swept away,
And we have prove that all things
Work together for good, if we love and obey.
Little country church by the roadside,
Spotted and time worn and old,
Where are the many who
once your aisles trod?
Where are the sheep of your fold?
Families have moved to the city,
In answer to industry’s call,
They have helped build up other churches,
We ask “God’s best” on them all.
Some are out preaching the gospel,
God made them fishers of men,
They have been true to their calling,
We ask, “God’s Blessing”, on them.
The children have married and left us,
Like the young eagles they’ve flown,
And we, the old folks get lonesome,
In the empty nests back home.
But we have stayed, God has blessed us,
Giving us souls here and there,
Some day there will be a great coming home,
When Jesus appears in the air.
I received from
Arzell (Shuart) Mills abt. 1993
This is the church
where James and Anna
(Mc Gallery) Shuart
and family attended church in Colfax Twp., Huron Co., Mi.