Jerry G Brewster
Though I now live in Colorado I receive the Memphis Conference Communications. I call this my home conference, if a lay person can have a home conference. I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Jim for several years. His gifts were many and his ability to recognize one’s talents and lead us to use our talents was remarkable. I was visiting a daughter in New Jersey some years ago and I took gifts to her one year old daughter. The daughter quickly tore off my very careful wrapping of her gift but then pushed the gift aside and toddled around gleefully swinging the wrapping back and forth! We almost did not get her to even see the real gift! Jim had the ability to recognize the difference between life’s wrappings and the true gifts we are given to share.
One year he and I served as counselors for the senior high camp at Lakeshore. The group he and I were working with seemed to have little interest in the materials we were given to use. After a session and a half, Jim decided to introduce the group to a game I am going to call, “Build Them a House.” The process was for the group to select one member and build a house for that person, from selecting the location to handing the keys to the person, who was only allowed to accept the house or reject it! The group came alive. One young man, pretty laid back and not too active accepted his house, out in the country on a gravel road, car under repair on blocks under a big tree, but he turned down the picket fence across the front because, “It’s painted white and I’d have to repaint it too often!” Jim said he had had a house built for him once and it had a red front door. And when he moved the next time, the house he bought had a red front door!
I am blessed to have known and learned from Jim as he lived and now will recall those memories as he has completed his race. Blessings to each of us for having had Jim as a friend and companion.
Dr. Jerry G. Brewster, 13661 E. Marina Drive, Apt 412, Aurora, CO 80014
