Great Expectations from Reverend Joyce
Dear Unity Friends,
This will be the start of something new…I will be writing a blog often and it will be on our website and perhaps on Facebook and E-news. However, the first commentary I am writing for the next couple issues will be about our beloved Regina Makem who “graduated” from this Earth plane June 14.
Regina: Chapter One
Regina was her name and I’m not sure just when she started coming to our church in the little white house on Buford Road. However, it was when she signed up for the 4T Prosperity Class and began radiating her love, humor and joyful laughter that I felt her name was perfect for her. For as I got to know her, Regina became a queen because her amazing powerful, joyful presence and humor just flowed out wherever she was.
She had a lot of angst about “this 4T class.” She was not at all comfortable with the idea of giving 10% of her income each week at the close of the class when the offering basket was passed. Although she was guaranteed she could have all of her money back at the end of the 10-weeks if she wasn’t satisfied, she still held her check over the basket nervously laughing and saying a prayer that God take care of her money. In the class she humorously made comments that a lot of the class members were feeling, yet not willing to reveal. Ultimately I believe she took the class two or more times, always helping others as well as herself with her questions.
People grew to love her unconditionally and immensely. Her humor and laughter rocked our congregation as we began to grow and ultimately made the decision to build a new church. Somewhere along her life she had learned sign language and stepped up to the podium to sign The Lord’s Prayer as we sang and returned to sign The Peace Song at the close of services.
Regina knew a lot about cars and often helped members who had car problems – basically checking out their vehicles and advising where to take their car for repair. I don’t know how many times she “healed” little dents or helped start cars with her jumper cables.
Soon after I began to know her I shared that she was a natural comedienne and might consider stand-up comedy. She wasn’t interested so I kept mentioning the idea and much later I finally had to let it go.
Now Regina was a tall, muscular woman and usually wore t-shirts and shorts in the summer and jeans in the winter. She did not wear jewelry. So in 2008 when we kicked off a capital campaign to raise one million dollars to build a new church, she came to me asking if she could make and sell Christmas earrings to support the campaign. She asked me with a Cheshire cat grin on her face because she knew it just wasn’t like her to even consider making jewelry and thus, we both knew it was a God-idea.
Regina had tremendous success that first year and continued to have success each following year. In the beginning she accepted the payments as people picked out earrings. It wasn’t long though, before she came to me and said she was just going to place Love Offering baskets on the table and let people give as they wished. People were very generous and thrilled with the earrings. To promote her sale table, she would personally wear a big, outrageous pair of Christmas earrings that hung down to her shoulders at the start of each Sunday service.
After each December Sunday service she had a crowd around the table and her earrings were a smash hit! Regina was overjoyed. That first year she collected more than $1000 for the new church building fund and started work on her earrings for the next year.
Friends, “tune in next week” for Chapter Two.
Peace, love and joy to you all!
Joyce
