A Mighty Man has Fallen

I received the call just after dinner Tuesday evening,

"Pastor, come quickly. Dale has been injured in a terrible accident on the farm. It doesn't look good, and Joyce is going to need you."

I rushed to Dale and Joyce's house, to find a line of four police cars and an ambulance at their home. "How is he?" I asked. "He's gone", came the sad reply.

Dale's body was lying on the ground with a blanket covering hom.

Dale, in his upper seventies, was trying to pull a stump with his truck, and somehow as he was working on the chain, the truck slipped into reverse, and crushed him against the shed.

I spent the next four and a half hours with Joyce, as Dale was taken away and friends streamed in.

Joyce is an amazing saint of God. She is so full of faith and love, that it shines brightest in the darkness. I drove home praying, "Lord, help me to be more like Joyce."

"That's just the way Dale would have wanted to go," she remarked, "doing what he loved."

We're sure going to miss Dale. He was the best "behind the scenes" worker in the church -- always doing random acts of kindness. Every day, we would see him on some mission or another -- chopping wood, helping someone move, building a deck, relocating an organ, putting in a wood stove, helping with the blood drive -- you name it.

Dale was the mailman for many years. He knew the names (and histories) of almost everybody in town.

He also knew first whenever anybody in the community was seriously ill. On several occasions, he would come by the office and say something like, "Pastor, you don't know Bob, but he's only been given six months to live. He's in the hospital now, and I don't think he knows the Lord. Maybe it would do him some good if you paid him a visit."

Joyce told me that Dale didn't want a funeral. He's not the kind of guy who would want a fuss made over him.

So -- we're going to do a Celebration of His Life, instead! (I know, that sounds like a funeral, cleverly disguised -- but I'll take the risk of the haunting.)

Cathy said I should challenge the men attending the celebration to stand up and fill in the gap. There are some big shoes to fill! She figured it will take approximately 30 men to accomplish what Dale did regularly.

In our recent Bible readings, there was a passage about David's Mighty Men. Well, Dale Hubbell was one of Hayward Wesleyan's Mighty Men, and we are going to miss him terribly.