70 Years of Volunteers

By Kimberly Thigpen

In 1952, before Source of Light had an official name, two men brought a typewriter to the home of a 15-year-old girl named Mary. They set up a small office on her porch, and Mary learned to “hunt and peck” the keys to type response cards for the newly born, rapidly expanding ministry.

Thus, SLM’s need for and provision of volunteer help began, and has not ceased for seven decades. Currently, SLM has 130 missionaries and 524 full-time volunteers worldwide, an astonishing ratio that does not include thousands more part-time and one-time volunteers. This year, SLM expects to surpass 20,000 volunteer hours logged, saving the ministry hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor.

From the early years until now, God’s people, alone or in groups small to large, have sorted files, stuffed envelopes, and shredded documents. They have built and fixed equipment, boxed and shipped lessons, and encouraged weary missionaries.

Church groups from Alabama to Pennsylvania come year after year. A doctor once visited and offered his services to the missionaries for free. Today, a local chiropractor does the same. Campers set up to offer summers. Some end up staying long term.

Missionary retirees from fields around the world come here to continue to serve. Others retired from secular business use their retirement funds and their business experience, not to vacation or travel, but to spread the Gospel.

Schoolchildren help organize dusty archive lessons created before their parents were born. A blind woman preps Braille materials for shipping. An online group, made up of volunteers around the country, edit new courses.

Service groups have torn down old buildings and constructed new ones, remodeled missionary houses, and made the grounds beautiful.

In recent years, volunteers have offered discounted legal help or computer expertise. Some have traveled to SLM foreign fields to serve.

Only God knows the total number of volunteers who have impacted and helped sustain the ministry of SLM for 70 years, but the souls that unknown number represents, the gifts that they brought and the gifts that they are, are eternal treasures, precious to the SLM family, priceless to God.

What Our Volunteers Say:

• I love to go because of the group working together to help a mission with their needs. It’s a way of moving missions from the head to the heart.
• We love to go because after serving there for 14 years, SLM folks are still family to us. It’s like going “home” each year for a visit. To be able to help save SLM money and time that could be spent on getting the lessons/Gospel out, it’s something you can’t put a price tag on.
• I enjoyed every minute working with people devoted to the Lord. My spiritual beliefs were greatly lifted.

Betty Ingalsbe Remembers:

Morris and Mary Esther Messmore were farmers. When the doctor told Morris he needed to get out of the Indiana winters, they headed to Florida. Used to being busy on the farm, they found themselves with too much idle time. When we learned they were not satisfied there, we encouraged them to come check out Source of Light. It didn’t take long for them to realize this is where they should be. Morris worked in maintenance and Mary Esther worked in the Madison School grading prisoner Bible lessons. They served from 1982 till 1992. Both were a great asset to SLM.

Dave Newell Remembers:

The 1996 Olympics came to Atlanta, Georgia, just a few miles to the west of Madison. SLM planned an International Field Conference to coincide with the Olympic events. Three couples from Anna Gay Newell’s home church in West Virginia volunteered to prepare and cook meals during the field conference, freeing SLM Home Office staff to handle event logistics. They were a blessing as they spent long hours in the kitchen each day!

Branch directors and representatives came to Madison for the conference, and many stayed to share the Gospel in their language with people who came to the Olympics from many countries. The mission field came to us!

Ray Walker Remembers:

Julia and Bill Scifres were members of Colonial Hills Baptist Church in East Point, Georgia. A group of ladies from the church would come down once a month and help this struggling mission as we barely had sufficient staff to keep everything going. I was a struggling young administrator with the desperate need for a secretary. Julia would take dictation to help me get caught up with my correspondence. She would not tell me how to phrase something, but she would tell me, “Let’s not say it like that.” So, she would make me re-state it in my own words. She did this over several months, helping me with vital correspondence, and helping to guide me for future ministry.

Phil Winder Remembers:

My son, Dan, met his wife Leah here. Leah was on a mission trip with her church from Indiana. They were both in the tenth grade. They dated long distance through high school and Leah’s college years and were married seven years after they started dating.

Many of our staff began their ministry with Source of Light as volunteers.

Mary Eaton Remembers:

One summer [1953] I volunteered at the mission when they were downtown. Charles and Betty Gilmore would take us [girl workers] home for lunch, and they would take a can of tuna fish and some mushroom soup and she’d make a meal out of that. They were so generous with what they had. That was a good summer. Joyce Dix gave me a check for three dollars. I still have that check.

Ron Barnes Remembers:

Martha of “Martha’s Cottage” may be one of the first volunteers of SLM. She came from Second Baptist Church of Auburn. She heard that balancing kids and the ministry at SLM had its challenges so she moved to SLM to volunteer to babysit the missionary kids who needed watching while parents worked. That was what her cottage was built for. She babysat my mom.