| Our parents called them "the Bible Club girls," even | | | | crying?""Because he's lost," said the little girl solemnly. |
| though Hazel Simonton and Jean Clark had strands of | | | | "He doesn't know where he lives.""Do you know |
| grey sprinkled through their dark hair by the late 1940s. | | | | where he lives?""Nope.""Does anybody in here know |
| That's how people referred to women, especially | | | | where he lives?""Nope." (The little boy began to sob |
| single women, back then.Every Wednesday after | | | | deeply and hopelessly.)"Don't cry, sweetie. We'll find |
| school, the Bible Club girls came to our church in the | | | | your home."Not the highlight of the little boy's week or |
| Bitterroot Valley of Montana. The pastor had built a fire | | | | theirs, but eventually, after hours of travel, the little lost |
| in the cast-iron furnace in the back corner of the | | | | boy was home again.Why did they do it?Not for |
| church, but the building was still bitter cold when we | | | | money. They came West from New Jersey with just |
| arrived at three-thirty. We perched on the first two | | | | $40 per month pledged to them. But their idea was |
| rows of cold wooden pews, little kids with rubber | | | | never to get, but to give. The things they did, they did |
| boots, winter coats leaking dirty mittens, stocking caps, | | | | for love: the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our |
| and, frequently, cold sores and runny noses, which | | | | Lord. Which love they poured out on all of us, year |
| noses, if they were wiped at all, were wiped on the | | | | after year.They died in the 1990s in Montana, which |
| dirty mittens.Miss Simonton and Miss Clark knew all our | | | | had become their true home. Shirley Rasmussen |
| names. And remembered them forever. We could | | | | Downing describes Hazel Simonton's death:"Cathy |
| meet them in a store in Missoula ten, fifteen years later | | | | called me in Arizona and told me that Miss Simonton |
| to be greeted by name and flooded with love.Because | | | | had just passed away . . . on the hospital heart floor. |
| they loved us. Truly did. And we warmed to that love | | | | At 4:00 A.M. she spent ONE HOUR talking with Miss |
| the way little plants do to sunshine.After the class | | | | Simonton, as Miss Simonton wanted to tell her about |
| session was over, Miss Simonton and Miss Clark | | | | me -- the Daily Vacation Bible School years and |
| asked, "Who needs a ride home?"A forest of hands | | | | helping at camp, all the many, many verses I had |
| went up. Mine usually didn't, because Mamma usually | | | | learned at Bible School, and the Bible drills I had |
| sat in the back of the church, ready to take all children | | | | won."Then, after her long visit with Cathy, Cathy left |
| from around Willow Creek. But sometimes she couldn't | | | | for a bit, returned to check on her, and she had |
| come, and I was one of the children who piled into the | | | | died."How like her to die thinking of one of her children |
| Bible Club girls' little car. I sat up front, as I got carsick, | | | | -- for we were all her girls and boys.Her family back |
| and six or seven children crowded into the back, | | | | East sent a nephew to represent them at the funeral. |
| poking and pinching each other. "Who's closest?" Miss | | | | He arrived at the church early and was seated in a |
| Simonton would ask."Me," a hand went up. And we | | | | front pew in the almost empty auditorium. He had said |
| were led through mile after mile of icy dirt road with | | | | he couldn't give a speech, but the pastor didn't know |
| ruts frozen into place, past cold, forlorn farmhouses | | | | that and called on him. He bravely went to the front of |
| and barns and bare trees and chilly looking cows and | | | | the auditorium and turned around. And gaped to find |
| horses with long winter coats, while the snow-covered | | | | the church now packed, the balcony filled, and people |
| Rocky Mountain peaks looked down at us in the | | | | standing at the rear.All the little boys and girls Hazel |
| deepening gloom."Turn here," a little voice would | | | | Simonton and Jean Clark had loved all those years |
| command from the back seat, as the car jolted and | | | | had grown up and had children and grandchildren, and |
| jumped and skidded over the roads. "And | | | | hundreds of them were there that day to show their |
| here."Gradually the crowd in back dwindled. Until there | | | | love and respect.Because Hazel Simonton and Jean |
| were just a little girl and a little boy. A freckle-faced | | | | Clark loved us. And we loved them right back. |
| boy with tears streaming down his face. "Why is he | | | | |