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Last Thursday I attended a special meeting of the Henderson County Republican Women’s Club (HCRWC). For those wondering, the Club welcomes men as Associate Members, and men comprise roughly 25% of the membership.
I recently stepped down from serving as Chaplain for about two years, and the Christian ladies now alternating are doing a fine job. I still serve on the Legislation/Constitution Committee.
The luncheon last Thursday (it usually on Tuesday) was presumably to accommodate the schedule of our keynote speaker, Lt. Col. Allen West. Col. West had been our guest about a year ago and I recall friendly “jousting” with him from the podium before I gave the invocation.
I arrived early at this meeting to have a few minutes to chat with him. Here is a selfie of the two of us.
Here are some biographical excerpts taken from the HCRWC flier. QUOTE:
Lt. Col. Allen West (ret.) is a constitutional conservative, combat veteran, and former member of the U.S. Congress. West is the third of four generations of military servicemen in his family.
During his 22-year career in the U.S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel West served in several combat zones and received many honors, including a Bronze Star, three Meritorious Service Medals, three Army Commendation Medals, one with valor device, and a Valorous Unit Award. In 1993, he was named the US Army ROTC Instructor of the Year.
He is also a former commissioned officer in the Texas State Guard. In November 2010, West was elected to the United States Congress, representing Florida’s 22nd District. He is also the former elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas… END QUOTE
In our private chat, we discussed the politics of Palm Beach County where I had lived in the 1980s. As a Congressman, West’s Congressional District included Palm Beach County. He later moved to Texas where he still resides.
His speech was excellent and well-tuned to address the recent devastation of Western North Carolina by the hellish Hurricane Hellene. His oratory was inspirational, Christian-oriented, and centered around the theme of resilience.
His talk was not merely Christian-oriented. Having specialized in the subject of the sovereignty of God in all things, I could not have asked for a better exhortation to all the listeners to trust in the heavenly Father’s complete direction and control of this recent catastrophe in our region.
Though many have lost one or more family members—some lost eight or more!—and a large percentage of the regional population have lost their businesses and/or have suffered damage to their homes and property (including myself, but that’s for a later blog), West’s encouragement bolstered our faith in God.
But it did not stop there, he drew on his personal experiences in combat to drive home the resilience theme, that despite the tragedies around us, we must have courage and the Christian character to pull together as neighborhood communities to rebuild.
It will surely be a long and arduous journey to restore what can be restored, but this is the calling in our lives at this particular season.
In the Q & A session, West, whether wittingly or not, emphasized the need for all of us impacted by Hellene to not let this deter us from voting; that this election is indeed existential for the survival of our republic for untold generations to come.
I say “wittingly or not” because I had recently also attended a small meeting with our current Congressional Representative Chuck Edwards. Chuck had suspended his re-election campaign to assist his constituents in getting help at the state and federal levels.
Before being elected to Congress in 2022, Chuck had been our NC State Senator, and obviously still maintains a lot of “pull” or connections with our current Statehouse leaders.
And Chuck’s constant refrain post-Hellene has been to encourage us all to help one another in every way possible, including and very importantly to not let the catastrophe deter us from getting to the polls…to help anyone needing transportation, etc.
Chuck’s wife, Theresa, had also been asked to speak. She spoke for about 15 minutes before Col. West came to the podium. She announced that while she is happy to have us men in the audience, she was directing her talk to the women.
She, too, was very inspiring, and brought tears to the eyes of many as she related to the difficulties peculiar to women during such trying times as Hellene has wrought.
Such that she said she knew that almost all women do the work first, and then go in the bedroom or the bathroom and just “have a good cry. Then we dab our eyes and come out and continue where we left off.”
And talk about a Christian testimony… this lady, Theresa Edwards, spoke with the conviction and boldness that only a truly converted (aka, born again, born from above) Christian can do.
It was genuine, sincere, heartfelt, transparently Godly; not phony platitudes as we have heard recently about a certain presidential candidate who in one “rally,” when someone shouted out “Jesus is Lord,” she told them they were in the wrong gathering and they should leave.
Then just a couple days later (this past Sunday), she shows up in the pulpit of a black church and quotes Scripture with a phony accent.
Thank you, Theresa, for your stirring testimony and encouragement to all the ladies of the HCRWC—and to us men who also heard you!
By the way, before the meeting had been called to order, I spoke with Chuck and Theresa and asked them for a favor. I will share what that was in the next (or a soon-coming) blog.
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