GALILEE WANDERINGS: 39 years assigned to the Holy Land

By Ray G Register

• Tourists spend several days glimpsing people and places around Galilee. Dr. Ray Register lived 39 years interacting with persons of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths from Haifa to Nazareth to Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Prepared with excellent academic training the author knew the history of the land and its peoples and the great r

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Educational Advance, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781950839186

Ray G Register

The Author lived 39 years interacting with persons of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths from Haifa to Nazareth to Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Prepared with excellent academic training, Ray knew the history of the land and its peoples and the great religious traditions. As a missionary, he had the heart for both a tender and a tough love in the critical junctures of issues of war and peace, of persons accepting the Christian message and of denying it, of the complexities of politics and religion, and of the sacrifices a convert to Christ had to make.

Book preview

Section 1

Preparation and Initiation

Ray (on right) with Whitakers Baptist Church leaders, c. 1963

Chapter 1

CAN PREACHERS GROW CORN?

What more unlikely place to train for service in the Middle East than Eastern North Carolina? Never in a lifetime would I chose the corn and tobacco fields of 1960’s Nash and Edgecombe counties and the little town of Whitakers, population 1,000; 600 whites and 400 blacks. They drew the town limits so that the whites would be a majority. The outhouses lining Highway 301 coming up from Rocky Mount were my first impression of the 4-year journey with the people of Eastern North Carolina. As I look back, I can realize how gracious they were to accept me, a young, inexperienced pastor with a wife and two kids. My fieldwork supervisor from Southeastern Seminary, Dr. Garland Hendricks, recommended me to the Whitakers Baptist Church so I could get pastoral experience before I went overseas with the Foreign Mission Board. He was a native of the area. His wise counsel was to keep me there. Having been raised in the Piedmont and the more sophisticated environs of Charlotte, Whitakers offered me a taste of the culture shock I would face in overseas service.

Whitakers shared the danger of other towns on Highway 301. The railroad ran through the center of town. Almost every year the train killed someone who got their car stuck on the tracks. Our little frame church sat right beside the highway and shook every time a truck roared by! The town had one caution light. A cop in a pickup truck used to arrest New Yorkers on the way to Florida for speeding. Our aging congregation numbered about 100 souls. It is not surprising that in my four years in Whitakers I had probably a dozen funerals and only three or four weddings.

Three leaders in the church, along with their wives and families, influenced us; the Dixons, the Reids and the Rossers. Mr. Dixon was senior deacon. He acted as wise counselor and disciplinarian for seminary students like myself who were trying their wings in their first pastorate. Bob Reid was a young businessman who acted the part of a friend and occasional rescuer. Bill Rosser was a lawyer and son of one of the former pastors. He carried a large roll of dollar bills stuffed in his pocket. His and his beautiful wife Lillian were social leaders of the community and his daughter Claire played the organ. Her younger sister Janet was blooming into a challenging teenage beauty. His mother ‘Miz Rosser’, a former pastor’s wife, was my encourager and critic, and had the world on her heart. They were a family about whom you could write a book. The Rossers entertained us for Sunday lunch every few months and our boys enjoyed playing with their son,