How a Kentucky Poet Used Her Writing to Speak about Her Christian Faith

Effie Waller Smith is a little-known African American poet from Pike County, Kentucky. Her poems are about the people and beauty of the Cumberland, current events from the early twentieth century and her Christian faith. Youth groups and older elementary students in children’s programs may enjoy listening to some excerpts from her poems and thinking about how Smith’s poetry reflected her faith.

Effie Smith used verse to illustrate how her family hosted the pastor in their home at dinner:

                “Our good, yet jolly pastor

                During his circuit’s ride

                With us once each week gave grateful thanks

                For apple sauce and chicken fried.”[1]

She wrote prayers in the form of poetry:

                “We thank Thee now, dear blessed Lord,

                On this Thanksgiving Day!

                Not only for the crops this year

                (So bounteous and free)

                Of grain and fruit so plenteous

                Do we give thanks to Thee;

                But for the many gifts which Thou

                Hast on us all bestowed…[2]

She used verse to tell Bible stories:

                “To the little town of Bethle’em

                Shepherds wond’ring came to see

                Him of whom the heavenly choir

                Sang with gladness, sang with might,

                Of His birth and of His glory

                On that holy sacred night.”[3]

She used a poem to challenge someone else to evaluate their own Christian faith:

                “Brother, do you shine for Jesus,

                Is your life a life of light;

                Always radiant and brilliant,

                Ever shining clear and bright?”[4]

When her only child died, she expressed the agony towards God in a poem this way:

                “O baby dead, I cannot think God willed

                Your life should end when it had scarce begun!”[5]

In a poetic homage to preachers’ wives everywhere, Smith wrote about what her Christian faith caused her to believe happens after death this way:

                “All over our dear land to-day

                Are graves where rest their dust;

                With their work done they dreamless wait,

                The Rising of the just.”[6]

Effie Waller Smith’s life is the subject of the fourth in the Famous Kentucky Christians Club series of our high-interest, easy-reader chapter books for students reading at the second to fourth grade level which is available here in paperback or as a Kindle e-book.

By Lesley Barker c. 2020

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[1] Effie Waller Smith. “Apple Sauce and Chicken Fried”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128222. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[2] Effie Waller Smith. “A Thanksgiving”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128214. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[3] Effie Waller Smith. “Christmas”. ONLINE at https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/christmas-18. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[4] Effie Waller Smith. “Shining for Jesus”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128313. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[5] Effie Waller Smith. “To A Dead Baby”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128353. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[6] Effie Waller Smith. “The Preacher’s Wife”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128338. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

Twelve-year-old Dottie Rambo's Faith Decisions and Consequences

The Kentucky Faith and Public History Education Project profiles famous Kentuckians whose decision to accept the Christian message shifted how they lived their lives and determined their legacies. Each week this blog profiles one famous Kentucky Christian with the goal that their life could be introduced during a youth group or Sunday School class. The posts connect ideas from the lives of these Kentuckians to conversations that young people may be having about matters of faith. Dottie Rambo was one such person. Her faith story is particularly relevant to middle school students. It started when she dedicated her life to Jesus Christ when she was twelve years old[1].

Dottie Rambo was from Madisonville, Kentucky. She wrote many of the songs we sing in our churches like “I Go To the Rock”[2] and “Holy Spirit, Thou Art Welcome”[3]. She sang with Elvis Presley as well as for the soldiers stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She won a Dove Award and a Grammy. You might think that all the success she had made her life easy but it was far from easy. In fact, the trials she endured inspired the songs she wrote.

Dottie was somewhat of a child prodigy. She was singing and accompanying herself on the guitar on country radio stations by the time she was ten years old. Her father was proud of her. However, when she became a born-again Christian at twelve years old, her father was enraged because Dottie was no longer willing to be involved with secular music. She only wanted to sing Christian music. Her father gave her an ultimatum. Either she would sing country music or she would have to move out of the house. This was in 1946.

Ask what your students think Dottie Rambo should have done? Why do they think that? Would this circumstance happen for twelve year olds today? Do your students think that a young person’s faith in God could trigger such difficult decisions in today’s world? What would they do if their parents tried to control their faith decisions?

 In fact, Dottie refused her father’s requirement. She left home. She started traveling throughout the country on a Greyhound bus to sing in churches. By the time she was sixteen, she was married to another Gospel singer, Buck Rambo. By the time she was seventeen, the couple had a daughter.  The marriage was often difficult, but it lasted.

More about Dottie Rambo’s life for children can be found in the easy-reader chapter book, Hurt Feelings: the Story of Dottie Rambo, by Lesley Barker[4]. This is one of the Famous Kentucky Christian Club books, produced by the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Projects and available as a paperback or e-book here.

By Lesley Barker c. 2020

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[1] https://www.dottierambo.net/about

[2] Rambo, Dottie. “I Go to the Rock” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58eeda899f7456cb9be3e735/t/59133a7a3e00be66b0094286/1494432378663/I+GO+TO+THE+ROCK+LYRICS+Rambo+McGuire+version.pdf

[3] Rambo, Dottie and David Huntsinger. “Holy Spirit, Thou Art Welcome” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58eeda899f7456cb9be3e735/t/591336f75016e19ffa2040e6/1494431479847/HOLY+SPIRIT+THOU+ART+WELCOME+LYRICS.pdf

[4] Barker, Lesley. Hurt Feelings: The Story of Dottie Rambo. 2020.

Hypocrisy in the Church and Elisha Green's Story - A Discussion Guide for Today's Youth

By Lesley Barker

As a youth pastor or leader in a church, you may have had conversations with teens that have experienced hypocrisy, manipulation and even abuse at the hands of adults in the church. You may have heard them argue that if this is how Christians behave, they don’t want anything to do with the Christian God. It can be difficult for teens to separate the inexcusable behaviors they may have witnessed by Christians from the character of God. The Fuller Youth Institute even produced a guidebook to help youth pastors discuss hypocrisy with their students[1]. Robert Velarde described hypocrisy as a core objection that people, in general, raise against Christianity. He wrote: “Phrased in many ways, the core of the objection is, “If Christianity is true, why are there hypocrites in the church?” In other words, if Christianity is really supposed to change people, then why do some who profess to believe in Jesus set such bad examples?”[2] This post proposes the life of Elisha Green, a famous Kentucky Christian born in 1816 in Paris, Kentucky, as an example of a person whose vocation could have been derailed had he clung to his childhood experiences with adult Christians as the lens through he viewed the Christian God.

We know about his life because he wrote an autobiography which is rich in details about his experiences as an enslaved child and teenager and then about living as a free man in Kentucky which was a slave state[3]. Green was a hugely influential nineteenth century African American pastor. He purchased his own freedom along with that of his wife and two of his children. He was instrumental in helping freed slaves become homeowners in Paris, Kentucky. He worked for African American rights in post-Civil War Kentucky. He simultaneously pastored two churches: one in Paris and the other in Maysville, traveling between them on the train. A train derailment on the bridge at Millersburg left him injured and walking with a limp. He was the victim of racial violence on a train when he was 65 and successfully sued a white man in court, becoming dubbed “the Rosa Parks of Kentucky” because of that suit.

When Green was just five years old, he was at Sunday School at an African American gathering of Christians in Paris. He describes how a look-out was posted down the road from the meeting to warn the people if the Patrollers came. The Patrollers were a posse of white men sent to break up any gatherings of African Americans to prevent the possibility that they might plot to run away or revolt. Green watched when the Patrollers entered the meeting and began to beat the adults. Green ran all the way home, a distance of about a mile. He was forced, because his new mistress inherited him as if he had been a piece of furniture, to move away from his family. Next he was sold to Mr. Warder who was a pastor.

If the teens in your youth group put themselves in Elisha Green’s childhood shoes, would they be enthusiastically ready to become Christians? How do they account for Green’s decision when he was plowing a large field as an enslaved sixteen-year-old to fully dedicate himself to Jesus Christ and, soon after making that decision, to allow his owner to baptize him in a pond one morning before breakfast? After he learned to read, Green studied the Bible. He was licensed to preach and pastored until he was an old man. Does this story lead your students to consider whether Elisha Green may have encountered the God of the Bible to have been so compelling that he was able to discount what he had experienced earlier at the hands of Christians? Does this man’s story shift the attitudes that any of your students have about Christianity?

Each week we publish a post on this blog for children’s and youth ministry leaders in churches about a famous Kentucky Christian whose life made a difference to the history of Kentucky. In addition to the blog, a website, and a walking trail leading to a reimagined early nineteenth century camp meeting (coming soon), the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project is producing a series of high-interest easy-reader chapter books about famous Kentucky Christians. Elisha Green’s story is told in New Boots – the Story of Elisha Green, by Lesley Barker[4] available for sale as a paperback or an e-book on Amazon.

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[1] Fuller Youth Institute. Talking About Hypocrisy with Young People. ONLINE at https://fulleryouthinstitute.org/assets/fyi-files/Hypocrisy_Convo_Starter.pdf. ACCESSED 11/5/2020.

[2] Robert Velarde. “What About Hypocrites in the Church?” in Focus on the Family. Jan. 1, 2009.  ONLINE at https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/what-about-hypocrites-in-the-church/. ACCESSED 11/5/2020.

[3] Elisha Winfield Green. Life of Elisha W. Green, One of the Founders of the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute. Maysville, KY. The Republican Printing Office. 1888.

[4] Lesley Barker. New Boots- The Story of Elisha Green. 2020. A Kentucky Faith and Public History Project Publication. Paris. Kentucky.

A Youth Group Leader's Discussion Guide about the Rev. William P. Alexander's Early LIfe

 

By Lesley Barker

Each week, we post about a famous Kentucky Christian whose life can be used as an aspirational example for today’s Kentucky children and youth. Each blog gives a small glimpse of the life of the featured Kentuckian along with a suggested approach that a children’s ministry or youth group leader can use in a two-minute presentation or, as this post suggests, for a more in-depth discussion. This week’s famous Kentucky Christian is William P. Alexander, an early missionary to the South Pacific islands of Hawaii and the Marquesas.

He was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1805. As a boy, he watched his father model a Christian life-style. He attempted to emulate this, but even praying three times a day, he felt no change. Perhaps some of your students have been trying to copy what they see adult Christians do, thinking that the behaviors will make them close to God. By showing that this famous missionary was frustrated by an inability to connect with God when he was a young boy, you may be able to expose the hearts of some of your students who may be in a similar dilemma.

By the time William was 15 when his father died, he gave himself “up to the power of sin restrained only by the pride of character”[1]. Members of your youth group may be able to relate to this decision. This was a teen boy’s decision in 1820 but it is one that many teens resort to today. What do the youth in your group think led him to give up on God? What do they think will happen to him next? Tell them that by the time William was 22, just seven years later; he had dedicated himself to serve Jesus Christ as Lord, been called to foreign missions, attended theology school and been ordained. What do the youth in your group think may have happened to shift his attitude?

William was an enthusiastic student. He kept a journal since he was a young boy in which he recorded his thoughts about math. He studied Latin and Greek at the Bourbon Academy in Paris, Kentucky. When he was just 19, he was hired by Centre College in Danville to “take charge of the mathematical department”[2]. Obviously William was very intelligent and gifted in math. Yet, he became a missionary to the islands of the South Pacific. Do your students think this makes sense?

William’s brother, Samuel, gave his life to Jesus Christ about this time which had a serious effect on William. He “tried to get [out] from under the power of sin, in order that [he] might with more face apply to the Saviour for help; for still my proud heart was unwilling to renounce everything and to receive salvation without price”[3]. Ask your students if they have experienced frustration in trying to approach God. Discuss how the Bible frames the exchange between God and people. Have they encountered anyone who tried to reach God on their own terms? What could William mean by linking his salvation to a commitment to renounce everything? How do the students understand William’s assessment that there is no price that we must pay for salvation? Can your students clearly explain the Christian message of salvation?

Back in Paris, William heard a series of sermons about the Holy Spirit which changed his approach to God. He “abhorred [himself] on account of sin, and the truth that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin’ was very precious to me. I recognized God as my Father, reconciled through His dear Son”[4]. Here William shows that he understands that the Christian doctrine of salvation begins with the recognition that, apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, there is no remedy for sin. With a confession of sin, he realized, there is a way to both approach and become reconciled and accepted by God. The Christian understanding is that this way is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

On New Year’s Day 1825, when William was 20, he wrote a personal dedication to God in His journal. He said, “Now Jehovah, I give myself to Thee, body and soul, and all that Thou hast given me. I place all in the hands of a Faithful Creator. Help me ever to act for Thee, not for myself”[5]. Have any of the students in your youth group made this kind of commitment to God? What led them to do it? How did they specifically dedicate themselves to God? Do any of them keep a spiritual journal that their children and grandchildren may read in years to come? William signed this dedication prayerfully: “Give me humility, whilst I subscribe my worthless name, Wm. P. Alexander”[6].

No one would have predicted that this gifted math student who studied Latin and Greek and was teaching college math by the time he was 19 years old would be one of the early missionaries to the South Pacific, avoiding cannibals and riding on whaling ships. But, once he gave his life to Jesus Christ, he relinquished the rights to predetermine his own path. The path he followed according to his faith in God led him on adventures that no one could have imagined. Are your students ready to trust the adventures that may ensue if they make a similar personal commitment and full dedication to God?

 

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[1] James M. Alexander. Mission Life in Hawaii: Memoirs of Rev. William P. Alexander. 1888. Pacific Press Publishing Co. KINDLE Edition.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Kentucky's Cloud of Witnesses & Emma C. Clement's Story

By Lesley Barker

Each week we introduce another famous Kentucky Christian as an aspirational example for today’s Kentucky children. These men and women make up what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the “great cloud of witnesses”. They are people who were born in Kentucky, lived here and worked here. Some were enslaved. Others were privileged. All of the Kentuckians we feature gave public affirmation that they had believed and accepted the Christian message and were living, as much as they could, in an active relationship and submission to Jesus Christ. All of them have since died but, their faith and their own words attest to the fact that they believed that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they could lay claim to an eternal life. The writer to the Hebrews envisioned the believers who had preceded him in death as a cloud of witnesses who are actively watching what the ones on earth are doing, deciding, enduring, suffering and expecting.

If we were to imagine a Kentucky cloud of such witnesses, one grand-daughter of slaves, Emma C. Clement, would be there. She came to Kentucky with her pastor husband after they both graduated from Livingstone College in North Carolina. This school was run by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) church. Credentialed for the ministry, the Clement’s became the pastors of an AME Zion church in Louisville. They had seven children, all of whom graduated from Livingstone College and became successful in their professions. After her husband died, Emma Clement continued living in Louisville, serving the church and her community. People who knew her called her “the most church-going and charitable woman ever”[1]. People noticed that her life matched her faith. She had a good reputation with her friends and at her church. Other people found out about her. She became known throughout the country. What made her famous? She did not discover the cure for cancer or build an amazing tower or go to the moon. Her fame came from her faithfulness to be a good mother to her children and a good example in her church and community.

On May 1, 1946, Emma Clement became the first African American woman to be named the American Mother-of-the-Year. The citation read: “A mother of children who are devotedly serving their country and their people, a partner in her husband’s ministry in his lifetime, a social and community worker in her own right.”[2]She did not receive this honor in her own right. Instead, she accepted it “in the name of millions of Negroes in the United States and in the name of all mothers”[3]. After she died, an elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia, was named the Emma C. Clement Elementary School.

Emma Clement was a famous Kentucky Christian. Now, according to her faith in God, she is in heaven where she can watch what today’s Kentucky Christians are doing. Her story shows that faithfulness and integrity, friendship and humility are rewarded. People notice these virtues on earth and, if you believe what the Bible indicates, God rewards them in heaven. How do the students in your Sunday School class or youth group want to be remembered? Does this simple story of a famous Kentucky woman who was honored for being a good mother inspire your students to set goals for faith, faithfulness and humility?

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[1] Mildred Europa Taylor. “Emma C. Clement Became the First Black American Mother of the Year Award Winner on This Day in 1946.” Face2Face Africa. 2019. ONLINE at https://face2faceafrica.com/article/emma-c-clement-became-the-first-black-woman-to-win-american-mother-of-the-year-award-on-this-day-in-1946. ACCESSED 10/21/2020

[2] Ibid.

[3] A.A. Dunnigan. “News From Our File: 50 Years Ago”. The Fascinating Story of Black Kentuckians. ONLINE at African American Registry. https://aaregistry.org. ACCESSED 12/5/2019

A President, a Praying Wife and a Plague

 By Lesley Barker

Perhaps your youth group would be interested in drawing a comparison between the cholera epidemic of 1849 and the current COVID-19 pandemic. This may prompt a conversation about the role of prayer and fasting as spiritual strategies to shift adverse circumstances on the earth. It may motivate the students to take more public stands rooted in their personal faith towards God or for an evaluation of how influential their own devotional lives could be.

For the past eight months the COVID-19 virus has ravaged the world, interrupting everything. People have compared this plague to the Spanish Flu from a century ago. In 1849, the world was touched by a different illness, cholera. About 150,000 Americans died that year from cholera. It was such a serious problem that Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, who is not known for his personal prayer life, sponsored a joint resolution in Congress to ask the president to declare a “Day of Public Humiliation, Prayer and Fasting to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity”[1]. The president, who was not very religious either, agreed. On July 3, 1849 President Taylor made a proclamation setting the first Friday of August, a month later, for the whole country to put aside time for prayer. It may be fitting to contrast the humility of this petition with our nation’s attitude towards our current pandemic. This is the proclamation that President Taylor made:

“At a season when the providence of God has manifested itself in the visitation of a fearful pestilence which is spreading itself throughout the land, it is fitting that a people whose reliance has ever been in His protection should humble themselves before His throne, and, while acknowledging past transgressions, ask a continuance of the Divine mercy. It is therefore earnestly recommended that the first Friday in August be observed throughout the United States as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer… It is recommended to all persons of all religious denominations to abstain as far as practical from secular occupations and to assemble in their respective places of public worship, to acknowledge the Infinite Goodness which has watched over our existence as a nation, and so long crowned us with manifold blessings, and to implore the Almighty in His own good time to stay the destroying hand which is now lifted up against us.”[2]

 Zachary Taylor, from Louisville, Kentucky, was the twelfth president of the United States. President Taylor did not belong to any church. He was not known to be particularly religious. However, he did fear God enough to refuse to take the presidential oath of office on a Sunday. His wife, Peggy, though, was a devout Christian. She spent her days in prayer beginning each morning at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House.  Mrs. Taylor neither hosted nor attended galas at the White House. Her daughter, Betty, took that role. Mrs. Taylor did involve herself in more intimate meetings and dinners with dignitaries and politicians but she has been judged to have been one of the least effective first ladies in history. When a Baptist Sunday School group visited the White House on July 4, 1849, Peggy Taylor was there to receive them. Later that year she was honored with a lifetime membership in the American Sunday School Union. [3]

Could it be that Mrs. Taylor was the influence behind president’s decision to call for a national day of humiliation? According to author, Tim O’Neil, this was effective to turn the tide. He wrote: “The number of deaths [from cholera] dropped suddenly in August.”

Do your students think this example from history has any relevance for today?

 

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[1] Federer, Bill. “President Zachary Taylor- Man of Faith”. A Minute with Bill Federer.July 9, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] First Lady Biography: Margaret Taylor. ONLINE. www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=13. Accessed 4/27/2020.

Carl Brashear's Superpower Was Faith in Jesus Christ

 

By Lesley Barker PhD

Children are infatuated with superheroes. They talk about their special powers. They watch cartoons where superhero characters depend on their super powers. They play video games where they take on the personae of superheroes who can gain power and even additional lives to use after they have “died”. These imaginary adventures can seem to be more compelling than what happens in real life unless the children can be introduced to people whose lives prove that it is possible to be an overcomer. For the Christian, the superpower that works against all odds is faith in Jesus Christ. One way to introduce the idea of overcoming by faith is to share the stories of famous Kentucky Christians who had to face obstacles and still achieved amazing things. Carl Brashear is one such person. This is the story of his life.

Carl Brashear was born on January 19, 1931. He was one of eight children. The family lived in Larue County in a small house without running water or electricity. He attended a small segregated school and, when he was 17, he enlisted in the United States Navy where he became a diver. When Brashear reflected on his childhood he said “My father was my inspiration”. He remembered that “we had a lot of love in our family”. He thought “our faith is what kept us going”. However, his life was not always easy. As an African American diver in the Navy, Brashear faced a lot of prejudice. He wanted to be a Master Diver but no African Americans had ever qualified for that rank. Some people tried to keep him from advancing. Then, he went on a dive to disable a bomb but it exploded under water and he lost one of his legs. Did this disaster stop Carl Brashear from his goal of becoming a Master Diver with the Navy? He did not need two legs to dive or swim. He could still do a good job. He never quit. He kept working and retired as the first African American Master Diver. He said, “It’s not a sin to get knocked down. It’s a sin to stay down.” Talking about Carl Brashear, his brother Philip said, “With God’s help no dream is impossible”.

These broad strokes of Carl Brashear’s life paint a picture of a man who overcame many difficulties. He grew up poor. He faced persecution because of his race. His goal was to be the first African American to do something that many people did not want him to accomplish but he kept going. He suffered pain and became disabled but even that did not stop him from doing what he had set out to do.  He honored his father and he did not turn away from the faith his parents instilled in him when he was a child.

The children in your Sunday School classes and youth groups may have faced similar adversities including poverty, prejudice and pain. They may feel that God has abandoned them or that their parents do not understand what they are going through. By combining what the Bible has to say about overcoming by faith with the true story of this famous Kentucky Christian, your students may be challenged to pattern themselves after Carl Brashear’s testimony. Hold up his example as a famous Kentucky Christian and set it as a goal. How will you become a famous Kentucky Christian? How will you use your superpower of faith in Jesus Christ to inspire others to know and follow Him?

Follow this blog to learn more stories of famous Kentucky Christians that you can use with your children’s church, Sunday School or youth group. Post about how the children you minister to respond to these simple stories. Send us suggestions for famous Kentucky Christians that we may not know about.