A Tribute

“Therefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

When I read the above verse this morning, I thought how Minister Wayne Amoth has joined that great cloud of witnesses whose faith I want to emulate. I can picture him hanging a garment bag in the hall closet of the Washington Heights, New York, apartment and telling Letha, “That’s all we have.” He hoped that the thief who broke into Reuben Shirk’s van and stole his Bible would read it. I remember deep discussions around the table in the open dining area of that apartment, and the time Wayne and Letha went with us to Brooklyn after our friend Cynthia’s husband had just died in a horrific automobile accident. In that desolate apartment with dogs barking just outside the closed kitchen door, Wayne offered words of comfort. He told Cynthia that we would be there for her and her young son.

So many memories . . .

Time skipped along and years later, we met Wayne and Letha in Arizona. I have a mental picture of Letha standing against the kitchen wall of our Airbnb in Tucson, encouraging our dear friend Ady to let go of what’s behind and to travel to her home country of India with courage. None of us who were there will forget how the evening ended with Wayne’s prayer. Afterwards, Waynes, Eds, Kyrons, Ady, and we continued to stand in that sacred space as the youthful Ady shared about her conversion and of being led to the mission in NYC.

These last years when we’d see Wayne, he’d always tell us about the evening he was elected to the ministry. How he did not know what name to put down for the deacon. As the congregation knelt to pray, the name Richard Penner came to him. Wayne and Laurence’s dad were ordained the same evening.

Wayne has joined that great cloud of witnesses. I will meet him and Letha there someday soon.

Berniece

p.s. There is something I must add. I went to my diary just now and saw that on January 28, 2024, Wayne had the sermon at Phoenix. He spoke on “inexpressible joy” – joy that can’t be expressed.