Spotlights – Fall 2020
Ray and Linda Walker
By Kimberly Rae Thigpen
Ray Walker joined Source of Light 57 years ago. During those nearly six decades, he has served as Field Director, Director of Ministries, Literature Coordinator, Director of Publications, and Chief Financial Officer, as well as several other positions. For many years, he served in leadership over the Associate Discipleship Schools (ADSs) and the Order Department.
From his childhood home on a farm in the mountains of western North Carolina, Ray accepted Christ at age twelve. His three years of active service in the U.S. Army, which he joined in 1953, took him as far away as Germany. His two years of Bible training at the Baptist Bible Seminary in New York, two courses in Accounting at the University of Georgia, and travel overseas for missions have all helped equip Ray to fill needed holes over the years within the ministry.
Ray and his wife, Peggy Walker, were blessed with six children. One is with the Lord and the other five are married and on their own. Peggy served in the Order Department at SLM, carrying considerable responsibility there for 40 years until the Lord took her Home to Glory on April 11, 2018.
These days, at 86 years old, Ray lives within a mile of the mission and comes in or works from home part-time, helping with accounting, editing, and proofing. He is also available for consultation on things of historical significance with the ministry.
Last fall, things changed significantly in Ray’s life. Ray asked Linda Storms if she would become his wife. She said yes and they were married at Bethany Baptist Church on October 26, 2019.
Linda, currently an Administrative Assistant to the Global Outreach Department, working with Asia, Europe, and South America, had a history of mission work before coming to Source of Light. She grew up in rural western New York and accepted Christ as a little girl. After teaching in a Christian school in Florida, studying at Columbia International University, and working several years at a Christian radio station, she moved to Brazil in 1989 to teach in a school for children of missionaries.
Linda says, “I had heard about Source of Light, as my church in New York supported SLM missionaries. During my years in Brazil I had had colleagues return to the States and minister at SLM. Various times during my ‘Brazil days,’ I visited SLM and wondered if the Lord would have this be a ministry in my future. In 2016, I returned to the States and in 2017 became part of the ministry of Source of Light. I settled into life in Georgia and enjoyed it.”
When Ray and Linda began spending time together, she was “impressed with his love for the Lord and his patience. This was demonstrated as he waited for me to decide if I was ready to leave my comfortable single state. This also entailed the long-forgotten thought of a future as a wife, as I had never been married. I am thankful to the Lord for bringing us together and am looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us in the future.”
And Ray? He says, “I thank God for such a wonderful blessing in my life.”
When asked about how God carried the ministry all these years, Ray says, “Our ministry was/is greatly blessed by God as our dependence was on Him for His provision as we sought to get His Word out to the world. Faith and prayer were primary… God promised that He would bless His Word. It was my joy and privilege to do my best to get it out where it was needed and would be best used.”
Source of Light is blessed to have them both.
Essential Workers
By Ron Barnes
A Word of Thanks, from the CEO, for the “Essential” Worker
Let me start by saying EVERY SINGLE volunteer, missionary, donor, and prayer partner is essential to us and we want to give thanks for each of you. When the SLM Headquarters was forced into a position of practicing social distancing, even before the governor made it mandatory, we at SLM made the decision to keep our many particularly “at risk” volunteer staff and missionaries safe by enforcing very strict sanitation standards at the mission and eventually closing the office.
We tried to help each of them understand they ARE essential, but we needed to thin out the office to keep each other safe and particularly at-risk family members who might not even come into the office. This was hard because our staff and missionaries who serve in Madison are some of the hardest working, committed people I have ever served with. In fact, periodically I would have to kick them out because they kept sneaking in. Actually, many were able to come in for a few minutes to at least try to keep up with the work as much as possible.
But while many of us had the luxury of working from home with reduced hours, many in Operations, Orders, Accounting, and Publications still needed to come into the office. So I would like to say, “thank you” to all of you who came in to SLM and carried out your duties at greater risk for exposure. Thank you to those who did your best to keep up with your responsibilities from outside the office, and thank you to those who continued to support and pray for SLM even though you yourselves have been affected adversely by the financial impact this virus has had on you.
Another thank you goes out to all of you who supported SLM until you could no longer afford to do so. Please know that we understand your predicament and how hard the decision to postpone your support of SLM must have been. Know also that we have been in prayer for you through this hard time and that we all live by faith, and that faith will sustain SLM through these times and will sustain you as well. God bless all of you for the part you play at SLM!
