Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: DISTANCE (10/08/20)
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TITLE: A Journey of Faith | Previous Challenge Entry
By larry troxell
10/14/20 -
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The sing song sound came from a tall elderly gentleman in front of Roses Department Store as I headed to Sherwin Williams for a gallon of paint. As I approached, I thought I recognized him as he handed out gospel tracts. It was obvious he was a stroke victim as he continued the “Ma, ma, ma” chant.
He reached out a gospel tract to me. I broke into tears when I recognized him. We hugged and I laid my head on his broad shoulders. When I pulled away, his eyes were moist too.
It had been more than a decade since I had seen this loving missionary. He excitedly continued crying out “Ma, ma, ma” as he tried to communicate. It was obvious he recognized me.
Bro. Paul Maines! Wow! It was under his preaching that I accepted Christ and was baptized in a creek in poor Eastern Kentucky.
He and his wife, Grace, and their three daughters came to the poorest section of Kentucky to serve. At the age of 34, they felt led to serve as missionaries. They were willing to surrender their three-bedroom home in Trenton, NJ for Nigeria. But they were considered too old to head to Africa.
When a New York City evangelist, who had preached at the Trenton church they attended, told them about a mission field in the mountains of Kentucky, they were excited and committed to God to head that way. Their church offered them $25 a month in support. They left in their station wagon to Rousseau in “Bloody Breathitt” County known for its violence. As they were leaving a lady gave each of the girls a 50-cent coin. It was all the money the family possessed when they arrived in Kentucky.
They set out planting churches and ministering. No offering was taken since the people were so poor. They survived on the monthly $25 the Trenton Church faithfully sent. They had services at as many as three churches on Sundays. There wasn’t money for gas so they walked.
During World War II, the family moved to New York City to minister to soldiers going to and coming from the battlefields. For more than three years they shared the gospel in the predominantly Jewish city at a storefront church and at street intersections.
The family returned to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky to plant churches and continue sharing God’s Word, even to a bootlegger whose business was threatened by Bro. Maines’ preaching. The bootlegger never came to church but his family did and a sister-in-law was saved.
Once when they were ministering at Mt. Victory in Pulaski County, Grace commented “Paul, I wondered what is on the other side of that mountain.” They drove to where the “grass was a little greener” to the Burnside community of Bunker Hill. They found a home whose owner had been praying for a Christian tenet.
They lived here a couple of years until the government moved them since Burnside would be flooded by the arrival of Lake Cumberland. They rented a small home on East Kentucky 80 at Somerset. Here they had church and found another mission field --- more than 20 public schools in Pulaski County. They were allowed to conduct Sunday School, sing, and even offer an invitation to the students to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts.
Decades passed as they ministered to the poorest in Eastern Kentucky, including not only at churches and schools but at jam-packed Burnside City Hall.
Paul suffered his stroke about three years before Grace died in 1972. He moved to Ferguson to live with his middle daughter Jean.
Despite the stroke he continued to minister. He would fill his satchel with gospel tracts and walk the streets handing them out to neighbors. And on Saturdays Jean would take him to Roses to distribute tracts and minister to shoppers with his famous “Ma, ma, ma” invitation.
After decades of serving as a missionary, including 11 years with a stroke, he died at the age of 82. He has gone the distance and now lives with Grace and their savior Jesus Christ.
I can still here the “Ma, ma, ma” chant reverberating for the lost to hear.
Non-fiction
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