Cory: This is Cory O’Keefe, and I am interviewing JoAnn Hawkins. We are conducting
this interview at her home in Springfield, Missouri. The date is April 3, 2010. This interview is
for the Religious Lives of Ozark Women, Intergenerational Storytelling from the Older to the
Younger conducted through Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri. Ok, what is your
name?
JoAnn: JoAnn Hawkins.
C: And your maiden name?
J: Morris.
C: Morris. And your place of birth?
J: Fagus, Missouri.
C: And your current place of residence?
J: 3515 E. Cinnamon Place, Springfield, Missouri.
C: And what were the other places you’ve lived?
J: I was born in Fagus Missouri and lived then moved to Clay County, Arkansas to the
rural area, the little town next to (inaudible) and lived there for 18 years of my life. At that time I
got married and moved with my husband to DeritterLouie, Indiana where he was in the military.
That was a rather short stay, because he was only in the military for a couple of years. And then
we moved back to Arkansas State College, where we had both gone to school earlier, and
finished his undergraduate degree there. Then we moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas and he got his
masters degree there, after which we moved to Greenville, Texas, where Jim was an extension
agent with the agricultural circuit there. And I was busy having babies and staying at home. We
were there for several years and then moved back to Jonesburo, Arkansas where my husband
sold insurance rather unsuccessfully for a while. And then moved back to Pigett Arkansas, where
we met Landon Sonders at a small Church of Christ at MacDugal, Arkansas. And that’s when we
became interested in, you know, going to church again. We lived there for a couple of years, then
we moved to Corning Arkansas which was a little nearby town, where Jim taught school and I
went back to college as a part-time student, going one full year, commuting quite a distance, to
do that. And after I finished that, I began to teach school in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. And we
continued to live in Corning, though, for I think about 9 years. And then moved to Desoto,
Missouri where I taught high school and Jim taught elementary-jr. high, and then was an
elementary principle, and we lived there for 22 years until we both retired. And then our next
move was to Lake of the Ozarks and we were there about, I think about 9 years at Lake of the
Ozarks. And then moved-7 years ago, we moved here to Springfield, where we now live.
C: Okay, and what’s your current age?
J: I’m 77.
C: Okay, and what was your date of birth?
J: April 13, 1932.
C: And where did you go to school-like all your education and stuff?
J: I went to a little 2-room country school called Wallace Hills, which is in Clay County
Arkansas. I actually started school when I was 5 because we lived with my grandfather. My
mother was widowed when I was 2 and my brothers were 4 and 6, so we lived with my
grandfather and he had a huge fruit orchard just beyond the big mule barn. There were 2 big
barns, the grain barn and the mule barn, and if I could slip away from mother, I could go through
the barn, out the hole in the back of the barn, and through the apple orchard. Apple, peach, plum,
pear, it had everything in it crawl through the fence and be in the little country schoolyard. You
can imagine that I wasn’t really clean and tidy when I was doing all that, and I would sneak into
my brother’s classroom, and kind of slide along the wall and sit down and put my elbows on my
knees and look at everybody. And my brothers would come home and say “Mother! Make her
stay at home!” But I thought it was really neat, I would put on my brother’s cowboy outfit that he
got for Christmas complete with the cap pistols and the chaps and the hat, and I would go and I
would stand up and sing “I want to be a Cowboy’s sweetheart.” And my brothers would be
mortally, mortally embarrassed, and threaten to quit school if mamma didn’t keep me home.
Since her cousin was teaching the elementary grades, she said, “oh just let her come on to
school.” So I started school when I was. That was at Wallace Hill and I went to school there
through the 8th grade, and then started high school at Piggett, AR, in-what was that, ’45? And
graduated in 1949, a couple of weeks after my 17th birthday. And then went to Arkansas State
College at Jonesboro, AR for a year, and then married my high school sweetheart. I was 18 and
he was 19. And did not go back to school again until our 3rd, and youngest daughter started 1st
grade. So I was about 40 years old when I got my undergraduate degree. By then Arkansas State
had become Arkansas State University. So, I got my undergraduate degree there. Then I did, oh,
many graduate hours at various Missouri colleges: MSU, at Edwardsville—at the college there,
Kirksville, I suppose, I don’t know if I’ve left anything out or not, but I did not get a masters
degree because I refused to take any more education courses, finding them to be totally useless.
So my concentration in my graduate work was English, Advanced English courses, Literature,
and Theatre courses. So, when I finally got my degree I began to teach school in Desoto,
Missouri and taught there for 22 years. I taught high school English—for the most part,
Seniors—and drama, directed high school plays, had a speech team, those were extracurricular
things. And-and even today I miss teenagers. And when I say that, sometimes people look at me
a little strangely. But I love teenagers, and love being with them.
C: So, you’ve only been a teacher your whole life?
J: Yes, that’s the only career I’ve ever had, besides being a mother, is being a teacher.
C: And, then your current religion?
J: Church of Christ.
C: Church of Christ. And what’s your husband’s name?
J: James. Jim, actually, but to be formal James. James Herbert, actually.
C: And what have his jobs been?
J: Many, and varied for him. But, of the ones that really-I’m not going to count all those
little things he did to survive when he was an AR school teacher and had 3 children at home and
had to work during the Summer, but his major professional jobs have been as an entomologist
with A and M college, and as a teacher, and then later a school administrator—an elementary
school principle for the last 20 years of his working career and of course we’re both now retired.
C: And, what were your children’s names?
J: I’m sorry?
C: Your children’s names?
J: Oh, ok. James Michael Hawkins, and Paul Byron Hawkins, and Shannon Gayle
Hawkins, and then in about 1970, we had another son who was 14 at the time. Nice thing about
that: he’d already had mumps, measles, and chicken pox, you know: all of his shots like when
you get a puppy at the pound, and he came to live with us, and lived with us until he got married
and has had 3 children and 3 great-grandchildren for us, so that was a good move on our part.
C: Okay. How long have you been a member of this church?
J: Since 1955.
C: And how did you get involved?
J: I married into it. When I was 18, and Jim was 19 we married, and before we married, I
had attended church with him a few times. Was not really impressed with Churches of Christ
with their legalism, and their arrogance, and their thinking they were the only ones to get to
heaven. So it was quite awhile before I became a member, and then I think it was more because I
could see the logic of the plan of salvation, not a whole lot about the spirit of it. But anyway, I
became a member (inaudible) 1955 and as most things in my life that I care about, I was deeply
involved. Taught classes, fed the preachers, was there every time the doors were open, and that
went on for about a quarter of a century. And then I became very disillusioned with organized
religion, and once again the question of the legalism and the making God so small. It was kind of
like, I felt like members of the Churches of Christ felt that they had God in a shoe box, and
they’d open the lid they could look and say, “yep, He’s still there. He’s all ours.” You know?
And it just seemed-there was-one of my favorite writers is Henry David Thoreau, and he said
once that mankind reached its lowest level of degradation in the church houses and I had just
about come to believe that-to believe his philosophy. So for the next quarter of a century, Jim
and I went to church only for funerals, weddings, and were not that involved at all. And then,
guess it will soon be 7 years ago, we moved to Springfield, MO, and more out of curiosity than
anything else, we visited E. Sunshine Church of Christ. Jim’s sister, Julia Maiden and her
husband were attending church there and his family was, and was an elder in the congregation,
and we went to visit, and we were delighted at the changes that had taken place in the Churches
of Christ in the last 25 years, so that many of the old things that were problematic to both of us
no longer were evident. And so, rather quickly Jim put his membership with E. Sunshine. Once
again, it took me a bit longer to reach that conclusion that we loved the people at E. Sunshine, we
love the spirit that’s there, we love the theology of the leaders, and it’s been-we moved to
Springfield mainly because we wanted to be near good medical facilities. The church was just in
a little added absolute positive that made it a good move for us to move to Springfield.
C: Have you been involved with other churches or religions?
J: I grew up in the country, where there was only, of course, 1 church, and that was a
little Baptist group that met at the church-at the school house. Most of the time, and there would
not be a regular preacher. Sometimes an itinerant preacher would come and would hold the
gospel sermon, a gospel meeting. And, you know, the sermons were all full of hell, fire, and
damnation, and scary, scary, scary, so, when I was 10 years old and full of sin, I went to the
mourner’s bench, because in those old Baptist churches they had a mourners bench. So you go
up there and you are to pray through until you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well
heaven only knows I prayed mightily as did my neighbors and nothing happened. And painfully
honest I think I was, even as a child, and I didn’t want to tell them that I had had some great
moment of transformation. Finally, I could tell that they were all growing very weary of my
reluctance to say that I had prayed through into bliss so, so I said that I had. I knew Jesus
wouldn’t be too proud of that, but I said that I had. I was baptized in (inaudible) river by an old
friend of the family—Reverend Isaac Runyon. And that, too was a pretty scary proposition, but, I
guess about 3 years later, maybe 2 years later, I told my mother, I said, “don’t bother to send in
any dues for me for membership dues, because this couldn’t possibly be it.” And she thought that
she would scare me off from that, so she told me “you can’t get your name off of the church role,
unless you stand before the church and ask to have it removed.” Which would be a pretty
daunting proposition with your neighbors, your cousins, your aunts and your uncles, and
everybody that made up the congregation. But then what I did when I was 12, I asked them to
take my name off the church role. And so, from that time-from the time that I was 12 until I
started dating Jim when I was 16, we went steady for 2 years, so during those 2 years, I went to
the Church of Christ several times, and as I already told you about my response to that, how I got
into that. That those two groups are the groups that I’ve been connected with.
C: And what was the role of religion in your home when you were growing up?
J: Well, that’s interesting. My grandfather was a very violent man, we lived with him and
he had a tremendous vocabulary of swear words, I often heard God’s name, rarely ever, or like
never in a prayer or in any reverent way. It was always said my grandfather had such incredible
vocabulary, he could swear for 45 minutes and never use the same word twice. So that was the
kind of household I grew up in. It was-it was very interesting, I did not know until I was grown
and married that my mother, when I was less than 2 years old, and my father, who died, about
that time were baptized into the Church of Christ. There was not a Church of Christ in the area,
so, so that was not something that she was able to meet with a group. She did not, there was-it
was quite an interesting thing, I think about their conversion. My father had been in invalid for
several years, and a man who was the local undertaker and his mother, they owned a funeral
home, came to the house and taught my father and my mother the gospel. My father wanted to be
baptized, it was Christmas Eve 1931, I guess. Just before 193-well, no I’m sorry because I was
already about 2 years old by 1934, somewhere in there. Anyway, travel back in those days was
very difficult. The roads were bad, very few people had automobiles. But he convinced someone
to drive them from Fagus, Missouri to Rector Arkansas for baptism. And his friends told him
“That’s very foolish, because if you do this, it will kill you.” And he said, “If I don’t do this, I
have no hope in my life to come.” So, they got in this old vehicle and drove those miles which
would be about 25 miles, I guess. And when they got there, where he was baptized was in the
funeral home, in a bath that was used to wash bodies, and they put him on a chair, and because
he was not able to walk even and baptized him in this vat-both he and my mother. Mother was
baptized first. When he was baptized, he had a heart attack and died. Never spoke again after he
was baptized.
C: Wow.
J: So his friends were right, and perhaps he was right as well.
C: That’s crazy.
J: The fact that the story of their exposure to the Church of Christ early, but anyway,
that’s probably enough on that.
C: What is your strongest childhood memory related to God or religion?
J: Fear.
C: Fear?
J: Total fear.
C: How so?
J: Because that’s the kind of sermons that I heard. Was the Wrath of God. Never-I don’t
think even in the Churches of Christ I ever heard a sermon of grace until I was old. It was always
procedure: do this, or else. And if you do that, it’s (inaudible). it And you know, as a child, when
you hear all of those tales of the Lake of Fire that burns forever and ever, and I can remember as
a child, that I would-you know how sometimes the sky can look really strange in the Spring and
the Summer?
C: Yeah.
J: And I’d be a little kid out playing and having a good time, and I’d look up and I’d, “oh,
no, this is it. Ah, you know, the sky is going to roll back, and here I am, all full of sin.” And so I
think for myself, and from what I could observe of other people the main motivator for being a
member of a church was to avoid hell, and not a whole lot to do with a God of love. There was
always a God of vengeance, so you could see the God who struck poor (inaudible) dead for
touching the Ark of the Covenant. Now that was the kind of God that we lived with and so, when
I say I had no warm, fuzzy feelings about religion as a child…
C: Yeah, that’s not very inviting at all. Do you recall any times as a child that things were
different for you in your religious world because you were a girl and not a boy?
J: There was a great line of demarcation between boys and girls when I was a child.
Because church had such little influence, I don’t think there was, I don’t think there was a
difference, it was-even then and in both to an extent it was a male dominated society as it is
today.
C: What differences have you experienced in religious life because you’re a woman?
J: Being a second-class citizen in the Kingdom. I find it extremely unsupportable that
women are treated as lesser people in the Kingdom, and there for-and you understand as well,
because you know that your female counterparts are not allowed to do the things you’re allowed
to do. They cannot pray, they cannot lead singing they cannot even pass the basket, which is a
servant’s role. It surprises me that some women are not doing that, because that’s a servant’s
role. Had I had any kind of prominent position in the assembly-and I feel that that was peculiar
to people my age. Offensive to people my daughter’s age, and then my granddaughters won’t put
up with it. And changes are going to need to be made. Because I really believe that the Apostle
Paul had to say when he said there is neither Jew, nor Greek, bound, nor free, male, nor female—
that there is equality in the Kingdom. And women should be able to use their gifts as fully as
men. And that doesn’t mean having authority, it just means using your gifts, and that’s one thing
I have observed at E. Sunshine that has been refreshing and encouraging is the increasing
number of times when women’s voices are heard in the assembly. And I think that is a move in
the right direction, and I may even live long enough to see that we get equality. It hasn’t
happened yet.
C: Yeah. What challenges or struggles have you faced in your religious life?
J: I think probably in, oh, early on, some of it I’ve already mentioned to you. One
example that kind of stands out with me is when segregation was outlawed by our political
government and yet there was so much reluctance on the part of Christians to grant that equality
to anyone who wasn’t white, Anglo-Saxon. And so I did have some major confrontations with
some elders and a minister because I was so offended like, I guess it was in the sermons that
were preached around at that time, like we are law abiding, and we will obey the law, but we’re
not happy about it. And so I told them, I said, “What is wrong here?” I said, “Back in the little
room in the back, my children are singing red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in
His sight. And you, the leaders of this church are standing before the congregation saying that
they’re only semi-precious. Only white people are precious. They’re less than. That’s not
acceptable to me. Why are we doing this?” And so we had that was several bumps of contention.
Just different foolish things that would come up. Like, once we were in a church that split
absolutely split down the middle over the issues over whether or not we could have orphans’
homes, we could support orphans’ homes. Whether we could pay a preacher-a located preacher.
There were all these kinds of issues. Some people thought that women must wear hats to church,
and then when women began to wear pant suits everywhere, the last place that wore them was to
church. And then that was a big issue. Cannot do that, that is wrong, because it goes back to that
concept that people seem to have that church is something that you costume for and journey to
rather than something that you are seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It was like suddenly,
Sunday comes around and we become something totally different—we costume, we go to
church, we step through those doors into the sanctuary and we become totally different. The
language is different, everything is different as long as you’re in that closed space. And most of
the things that I’ve observed in my years that have caused divisions in churches is what occurs
after you step inside those doors, and those no-absolutely no pattern for that anywhere in the
New Testament, or anywhere in the teachings of Jesus, that we would go in there and become
something different. Yes, we are to become something different, we are to be transformed, but
that’s for every day.
C: Yeah.
J: It’s not just what we do when we go in there, and we sit, and we do. Our whole
language is different, our bodies are different, everything. And then first when you begin to see
people not costuming so much for church, they can wear their blue jeans, and their clogs, and
their whatever. Still if you look around, Cory, you’ll see that old holdouts, you’ll see those old
guys that just feel like they’re not praising God if they don’t come in their suits and their ties.
C: Yeah.
J: Well, you know what? That’s okay, as long as they’re not offended with you if you
don’t wear a tie or a shirt to church, you know, it’s that kind of deal. Well I think-I think that the
thing that creates the most difficulty is when we take things that are not bound by scripture and
try to bind them on each other, when really I’ve-oh, I guess it was a couple of years ago, I read
the New Testament, and underlined everything that Jesus said or did that was procedural, the
way things should be done in blue ink, and everything that he said or did that was relational
about how to be in this world with each other in green ink, and I hardly used any blue ink. So
thus, he was all about relationships, not about how to do certain things.
C: Yeah.
J: But about how we are to be with one another, that is the big difference. It’s so easy to
set a set of rules out here and try to brush is and shine and polish those, it has nothing to do with
who you are. Nothing whatsoever.
C: Yeah.
J: But the way I am with you, and the way I am with the girl that’s checking me out at
WalMart, and the kid that’s washing my car and doesn’t get all the spots off of it. That’s a Jesus
thing.
C: Yeah. What person has influenced you the most in your religious life and then how?
J: Landon Sonders. A man that we met-I was trying to think how many years ago it’s
been now, 45 years ago, maybe? 40 years ago at least. Anyway, I think I mentioned him before
that we met him at a little Church of Christ at McDougal, AR. Then his has gone on since then to
become the founder, president, CEO of Heartbeat, which is a not-for-profit organization that
focuses on-right now their theme is-their study is what really matters as opposed to what really
doesn’t matter. And we spend so much of our time worrying about what really doesn’t matter,
and not nearly enough time focusing on what does matter, and he-his philosophy, his theology,
his scholarly way that he is convicted, his life-the way that he has lived his life, that is the thing
that has influenced me more than any other single human being in the world.
C: And, how do you think religious life is different for kids today than it was for you?
J: Well it’s very different, because for me it was so easy, because there was just one.
There wasn’t any problem. Your parents did your thinking for you-you went there, you did that.
And that was pretty well through for kids through high school. Now then, you know, we knew
who all of our friends were. I grew up in the country-they were cousins, they were neighbors,
they were people known for generations, so the world was extremely small—mine was. And I
think that’s true for many people my age, even if they’ve lived in town, they were small towns
and everybody knew everybody. Now I didn’t have any exposure much to kids. People my age
who grew up in large cities, so there could be a difference, except that I feel that even in large
cities, there was an emphasis on a nuclear family. So there was a family and pretty well the
mother stayed home and the father went out and earned a living. And after WWII, and during
WWII, the mothers left home to go work in the factories, and they never came home again. So
when you watch those old reruns of “Leave it to Beaver.” Have you ever watched those?
C: Yeah.
J: And “Ozzie and Harriet”. It’s kind of an idealized view of what life was like in the
50’s. Not that it was quite like that, because you’d never see anyone black on the programs, you
don’t see any real social issues, probably the worst thing we ever dealt with was Eddie Hascals’
kind of weasily ways that he had. But your world is a very scary world. Even though we can
fight against those things-kids sneak around and go beer illegally and smoke cigarettes you
know. I can remember my brothers and I used to smoke grape vine out in the-they’d make a hash
and we just felt like we were really smoky. Bottom line is, when I tried to smoke in high schoolcouple of puffs and that was it for me. Couple of smokes and that was pretty obnoxious. But now
then, not only is the nuclear family been destroyed in that, and this is not a condemnation of
working mothers, but we feel like we have to have so many things, that it takes both parents
working to get those things. We have to have more than one television and usually more than one
car, and we have to have the latest fashions to some extent. Wearing blue jeans from WalMart
that will have a special sign of the pocket kind of mmm, you don’t like to do that. You know, so
we want those things, well there’s a price for things, and the price has been a very costly price.
When I taught high school, I was amazed and appalled at the number of high school seniors who
almost never saw their parents, because where we lived in DeSoto was kind of a bedroom
community that people-the-maybe the mother and father both worked in factories or someplace
in St .Louis, so they would get up in the morning and leave before their children got up to go to
school, so there was no one there to see them off. But then, because I taught seniors, most of
them worked so they went to their jobs after school, and by the times they got home from their
jobs, their parents were in bed, asleep. I even ran a pole once to see how many of them had a
meal with their parents. And I said it doesn’t count if television is on. I mean, you sat at the table
and you had a meal and conversation with parents—many of them never had one. Because they
worked weekends, when their parents were off. They’d work all day Saturday and Sunday so
there was no connection-very little. And what did the parent do? See my theory of what is wrong
with the American family is McDonalds, and Burger King and all of those places. Because the
kids can go there and get a job and at the end of the month they’d have more money than their
parents. Usually, they’d but a vehicle they’d have to pay. It’s just kind of a vicious cycle. So
yeah, I think it’s a scary world you live in. Another thing, for a girl, when I started college, there
were not very many career possibilities. If you didn’t go on to school, you became a waitress or
you went to beauty school or you took a little business course, and got a little job as a
receptionist. If you went on to college, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fields open to you, but
the most common things were, you were a teacher, or a nurse, or you might get a degree in
business and be an executive secretary you never thought you were going to be the CEO, and
you might be the nurse, but you rarely thought you’d be the doctor. Those were kind of male
dominated professions, and they still are today. And even today, in this enlightened age, men are
still being paid more for the same job than females. And, so anyway, I didn’t have a whole lot of
choices. And since I spent my first anniversary in the hospital giving birth to my first child, I had
to think of a career that would go with raising children. And I didn’t-I didn’t go to work until,
like I said, our youngest started 1st grade. Then she could go to school with her daddy who was
teaching in that elementary school, and come home with him. But now, then, what is it that
you’re going to prepare for? My word-the jobs that you’re going to prepare for, I had never heard
of, no one else had. Even 3 years ago didn’t exist. And so you’re trying to think what do I wasn’t
to be in this myriad of things to choose from. Then, like I said, not having the close family unit
that is so true of many kids, it makes it scary to be sort of out there on your own having to make
all those decisions because it’s really such a relief to say, I can’t (inaudible) but my mom would
kill me. But if mom’s not there and doesn’t notice and not’s saying attention then… My kids
had-my high school kids they would tell me sometimes more than I wanted to know. And I’d tell
them “don’t tell me of a party that your parents are having, and their providing beer for you.
Because I will call the police, and have them raid it, I just want to tell you up front. Because not
only is that illegal, that is so immoral. And so don’t tell me about it, okay?” Because they would
want to tell me about all these things. And so it’s a different world. Your world is a different
world, and the thing-and you can correct me if I’m wrong on this-the thing I’ve observed on
most young people is they don’t want anything phony. We could go for phony when I was a kid,
because one, that’s just the way it is, you know? But I think you question that at an earlier age,
and you demand something that’s more authentic and more real, and that’s good.
C: Yeah.
J: That’s a very good thing. Everything comes with a price. So that’s a high price, too.
When you’re looking for that. And so I think right now, we’re seeing across the country, in
many, many different fellowships, not just in Churches of Christ, that there’s a kind of severe
scarcity of kids-young people in the 18-29 year old age bracket. They’re just not, you know,
once they get away from high school, they aren’t under their parent’s disciple.
C: Kind of stray away.
J: They give up on organized religion. I think that makes it different-well, considerably
different, than when I was your age long, long ago.
C: And finally, how would you like the church to remember you?
J: As a servant.
C: As a servant?
J: Mmhmm. I try to-I feel like-my personal feeling is, that we spend way too much of our
money and our resources on ourselves. I would say that we spend 85 cents out of every dollar on
ourselves. Our utility bill alone is 5000 dollars a month in order to have the (inaudible) where
they are. That really bothers me, because when I think if the people who are poor and homeless
don’t know where we are and who we are, then I keep thinking if a prophet came to Springfield
today, and spoke as the voice of God, what would he say? Because when you read the prophetsboth major and minor- there are two things that they are very upset with the people about in
every instance, almost. And that is their failure to love God totally, and their failure to take care
of the poor. Oppression of the poor—those are the 2 things. So when-I said back when I taught
school, kids always wanted to know what’s going to be on the final exam. Yeah, what is going to
be on the test, is this going to be on the test because it isn’t, I’m not going to pay any attention to
it, I’m not going to take any notes. But I feel like when we look at the great commandment, the
greatest commandment is to love God totally and your neighbor as yourself. That’s what we’re
supposed to do, that’s it. And then the final exam, you’ll find in Matt 25, in that judgment scene.
When some people are being rewarded, and some people are not being rewarded, they’re being
punished. It’s all on the basis of a single criterion. And that is, inasmuch as you did it, unto the
least of these. That’s it, it doesn’t say anything about wow, you were the son of God every
Sabbath, you were at the church-when it became the church every Lord’s day, you served on
every committee, you know, you did all the-it all boiled down to just that one thing. I was
hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, and you visited me. That was it. So I think people get so
stressed over trying to understand everything that’s in scripture that it-and to get it right, working
and working to get church right, so therefore we have who knows how many different
denominations, each one figuring out how to get it right, when really it’s just that-just that
simple. Jesus didn’t come to leave a complicated system of belief. It’s all based on whether or
not we believe he was the Son of God, that he was God incarnate here on earth, that he was
crucified, and that he was resurrected. And then he told us what it was we had to do. It’s all
pretty simple, because you know look at the people, they weren’t the (inaudible) giants.
Fishermen, common people, so, that’s the-I don’t even remember the question now, but I hope I
answered it.
C: Oh, you answered it. Thank you.