As you consider your Missions Offering for 2011, I thought you might enjoy an anecdote from the life of I.B. Kimbrough, who pastored our church in the 1880’s. Born in Tennessee in 1826, he sensed God’s call as an adult and worked hard to get his education at night “by the dim and flickering light of a tallow candle,” spending his days farming. An innovator, he “rigged up a shelf on his plow between the handles where he placed an opened book from which he read as he plowed.”

Pastor Kimbrough came to Texas in 1879 and was the thirteenth pastor of our church. The Centennial Story of Texas Baptists (1936) describes him as “noticeably eccentric and rather dogmatic” and states that “He cared little for his personal appearance,” but had a “heart of gold and a tongue of silver and was a tireless champion of New Testament evangelism and missionary activity” (p. 106).

This story comes from Kimbrough’s days as a Baptist missionary in the mountains of North Carolina before he came to Plano:

He was accosted one day on a lonely road by two robbers who demanded his money or his life. He got down from his horse and took money from one pocket and placed it on the ground and also from the other pocket a sum which he put in a separate place.

Pointing to the first sum he said, “Gentlemen, this is my money. You may take it if you choose.”

And pointing to the other amount he said, “This is God’s money given by men, women and children for missions. You dare not touch it or the wrath of an angry God will rest upon you.”

The men took the money which the preacher claimed as his own, but, smitten with fear, they turned to ride away leaving the Lord’s money undisturbed, whereupon the Missionary called to them and asked them to wait while he passed the hat for a missionary offering. They halted their horses and placed all the money they had taken in the Missionary’s hat and rode hurriedly away.

I’m figuring out how to get my Bible to “stay put” between the handles of the roto-tiller!

I’m proud to be your pastor. (#36 by my count!)