DANIEL TYLER GOODEN / L’Observateur / September 27, 2000

GRAMERCY – While handing out Bibles in a Russian city park, a crowd began to gather around and request a sermon. Snow began to drift down from thewinter clouds as he preached. Then 3,000 Bibles later, the first sermon, thena second and a third had passed, and the Rev. Sam Jones was left withanother special memory of his 60 years preaching the word of God.

Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gramercy, Jones has spent his life preaching, not only in Gramercy and Lutcher and the southern United States, but across the globe from Zimbabwe, Africa, to Eastern Europe and Korea.

Jones began his life devoted to God early on in Ashville, Ala. “I acceptedChrist at 14. It was August. Within a week I felt the strange urging topreach,” said Jones. Naturally a timid young man, the urging went against hisshyness, but he knew the only thing he wanted to do was preach.

Contacting a local minister and asking advice, the minister asked him to preach the sermon at the next Sunday service. One month after his turntoward Christ, he became a pastor.

The rural church he was to speak at had about 50 or 60 members. When itcame time for the service there was nearly 500 people there.

“They came from everywhere. A 14-year-old preaching was quite a novelty,”said Jones. Though nervous and excited, Jones made it through his firstservice and knew he’d never be happy doing anything else.

At 15 he married Betty Robert and headed to New Orleans to study at the Baptist Theological Seminary, one of only three in the United States in 1952.

“I have always been glad I came to New Orleans. If I had gone anywhere else Icouldn’t have enjoyed it as much,” said Jones.

After a few weeks a friend, who had two invitations to preach, asked if Jones would like to cover one for him. He went to Hammond, and Jones went to theFirst Baptist Church of Lutcher.

“Being from Alabama I thought as a First Baptist Church it would be huge,” said Jones. When he got into town he asked around and nobody knew of it.Finally, he found it at the end of a dirt street with 15 people attending, more than they had for a while, said Jones.

They asked him to come again the next Sunday. He had no plans to becomethe pastor of a church yet, but the congregation quickly asked, and he quickly accepted. For eight months he traveled between New Orleans andLutcher before renting a small apartment in Lutcher. “I fell madly in love withthe people and the community, especially Gramercy, Lutcher and St. JamesParish,” he said.

By 1956 the church which could hold 75 seats was busting at the seams and moved to Airline Avenue in Gramercy. With the Kaiser Aluminum plant inoperation, many new families moved into the parish. People of alldenominations came to the Baptist church, filling up the pews.

In his 60 years of preaching, Jones spent nearly 31 of them in Gramercy. For12 years, then 14 and now five, Jones stayed in Gramercy. The rest of histime he shared with the world.

Feeling the pull of mission work Jones has taken the word of God to all classes, races and people in over 10 countries. Brimming over with stories,some of his experiences are wonderfully beautiful while others testify to the harsh realities of life.

In Russia during November, eight people accepted the word of Christ and wished to be baptized into the church. The pastor of the church advised, dueto the freezing cold, that the members wait for their baptism until spring.

There were no inside pools or anything big enough for a baptism in the whole town. The eight were so eager to come to the church, they would not wait.”They had to chop a hole in the ice the day of the baptism,” said Jones.

“Their desire to follow Christ was so great that no matter the conditions they were ready,” he added.

Within a hour of arriving in Moscow, Jones found himself in Red Square preaching to another gathered crowd, 150 feet away from Lenin’s Tomb.

They had 70 converts that day, said Jones.

In Africa Jones came to a service under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere.

Many people had arrived, and “I thought ‘where did all these people come from?’,” said Jones. One old blind man had walked miles because he had heardthat Jones would be there. He told Jones he had came because never in hislife had he seen, or rather been close to, a white man before.

In Zimbabwe Jones traveled out into the bush to find a congregation gathering under a cardboard shack supported by the surrounding trees.

Seventy-five people had gathered for the service. One 15 year-old girldirected the music.

“She was so talented, and she sang absolutely beautifully,” said Jones. Thegirls was dressed in only rags. “It brought tears to my eyes. What a joythere was in her,” said Jones.

She was a orphan that went house to house to survive, he found out later.

Soon Jones plans to return to Russia and Zimbabwe and go to India for the first time.

The mission work improves his preaching, said Jones. To see so manydifferent cultures and people really gives a dimension to his life, he added.

“I’m far more sensitive to the needs of the congregation, food, clothing, guidance, whatever,” he said, Also bringing back the knowledge of what other churches need and donating supplies to places he has traveled is rewarding for his church in Gramercy.

Jones says God, his wife and family, as well as his church, have made him what he is.

“The church has been far above average, where it was and how far it has come,” said Jones.

There is no other way his life could have turned that would have made him happier.

“If I had gone where I planned to go, it never would have brought me joy like here in Gramercy. If I was allowed to go 60 more years, I’d ask God to let mestay right here,” said Jones.

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