The woman standing in Renata Connor’s office looked like she’d just walked straight out of the Amen Corner. Rich, camel-colored suit—matched perfectly with hat, earrings, gloves, and shoes—she stood flagpole straight. She held a Bible in her right hand and had eyes that looked straight down into Renata’s soul. The only thing that kept Renata from shouting, “Glory be to God!” was the pound cake in the woman’s left hand that smelled freshly baked and made her mouth water.
“May I help you?” Renata asked, recognizing more than the woman’s countenance.
“I hope you can help me eat this cake,” the woman said, setting the delicious-looking dessert on the desk between them and taking a seat.
Renata smiled, and for the moment forgot about the past-due utility bill for her agency, Success Unlimited. “I think I can help you with that,” she responded, against her better judgment. She chastised herself in her mind. She didn’t know this woman from Eve. She could be a crazy cook who put cough medicine in the cake mix and had no idea where she was right now.
“I’m Mother Maybelle. I attend Red Oaks Christian Fellowship Church, and I was at the Farmer’s Market yesterday.”
Now it came back to her. Renata had been pouring her heart out to her assistant, Gidget, while shopping for fresh vegetables at one of the town’s most popular attractions.
Renata’s business was failing. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to provide “world of work” assistance to at-risk young men. The economy was taking a toll. Just last week she’d had a meeting with one of her most ardent business supporters. But even B and B Tele-marketing, one of the largest employers in Red Oaks, Georgia, couldn’t contribute in the way that they had in the past.
Renata had noticed Mother Maybelle. The older woman had been searching through bushels of greens like a woman on a mission. She just stood out from the crowd. She was impeccably dressed for an afternoon of shopping for collards in an open-air market.
But soon the impressive image of the woman was overshadowed by her own concern over the dire straits of her agency. The woman must have heard Renata’s tales of woe and was here trying to cheer her up.
“I remember you,” Renata said. “Those greens looked awfully good.”
“And they will be, sugar. As soon as I cook ’em!” Mother Maybelle chuckled. “If you come by the church tomorrow for our Saturday evening potluck, you can have you some.”
Renata searched her brain, hoping to find an appointment. The last place she wanted to be was in anybody’s church.
“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll probably be trying to drum up some support for my business,” she said.
Mother Maybelle sat forward, and Renata’s eyes darted over to the pound cake, looking utterly delectable in the cellophane. She knew that at any moment her stomach would growl like a wild animal.
“That’s why I’m here,” Mother Maybelle said, breaking Renata from her hunger. “I heard you talking about your business like it had one foot in the grave. So, I came to see if I could help.”
Hope rushed inside Renata as if she’d just been handed a check for a million dollars. But what could this little old lady do to help her, she wondered. Maybe she’s rich and is about to hand over a check along with her cake.
“How?” Renata asked eagerly. “How can you help?”
“Well, not me personally, but my church.”
Renata’s hopes fell like the stock market on a really bad day. Her mind flooded with images of bake sales, fish fries, and, worst of all, prayer circles.
“Now what you lookin’ so down in the mouth for? A church on a mission is one of the most powerful forces on Earth. Against that, no evil can prosper. Now, we have an outreach ministry at Red Oaks that may be able to sponsor one or two of those boys you’re trying to help.”
Mother Maybelle sat back in the chair and folded her arms, letting her words settle into Renata’s mind. Renata liked the sound of her proposal.
“That would be wonderful,” she said, knowing that if even one young man could be sponsored, that was one less financial drain on her dwindling budget. It might just keep the agency going for a while.
She glanced at that past-due bill, along with all the others piling up on her desk. “That’s…that’s…I mean…I don’t know what to say or how to thank you.”
“Well, chile, it’s still up to the members of the ministry as to whether to take you on. But I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”
Renata was celebrating early and thinking about Malcolm Goodwin. He was the next youth on her growing list of young men who needed job training. Already she was restructuring her week in her mind, hoping to meet with a representative from the church as soon as possible. She was imagining talking about her agency and conveying all the wonderful aspects of it with warmth and enthusiasm—enough enthusiasm to make any person jump at the chance to work with her organization.
Mother Maybelle strummed her arthritic fingers against a Bible that looked like it had seen decades of use. “Well, I can see the wheels are already turnin’ inside that cute little head of yours.”
Mother Maybelle rose, tucked her Bible under her arm, and offered her hand. Renata shook it with full appreciation.
“Someone from the outreach ministry will be by to see you. Next week.”
“I’ll be ready, Mother Maybelle,” Renata said, sounding and feeling happier than she had in days. “I’ll be ready.”
Devin McKenna sat ramrod straight in the pew. Reverend Terrance Paul Avery was delivering his usual “take all sinners” sermon, the kind no unsaved soul could resist. Devin believed that Pastor Avery probably had the highest conversion rate in the entire South. Over the years, he’d learned that if one entered the Red Oaks Christian Fellowship Church as a sinner, chances were that they wouldn’t leave that way. By the time the call to a church home came at the end of the sermon, God found his way into all unholy souls and turned them to his face.
By the shouts, testimonies, and body praises of the parishioners, Pastor Avery’s talk was especially moving.
Too bad Devin couldn’t feel it.
He hadn’t felt it, the spirit that is, for some time now. And it wasn’t the fact that his wife had divorced him and joined another church. It was as if he’d lost the taste for good sermons, along with a thousand other things which involved leaving his house and being social.
Devin grunted and stood for the doxology along with several others who’d chosen that particular moment to show the youth choir just how much their rendition of “The Sweet Name of Jesus” was appreciated. He wanted to encourage them. Keep them moving in the footsteps of the Lord.
Even though he tried to make it clear with every action that he was enthusiastic about what was happening, underneath lay a different reality. Devin’s life had become too monotonous. Too tedious. Too routine. Since he and Helen had divorced, he’d stopped pushing himself in new directions, stopped growing, both personally and professionally. He’d just settled for the same ol’ same ol’ and thought he would be comfortable with it.
He was wrong.
The change he’d planned was drastic. He looked around, settled back down on the pew, and pushed out a breath. He would miss this church, but a clean break would do him good. His writing held the only excitement in his life right now. He’d written freelance magazine articles for eight years, and he could do that anywhere—not just Red Oaks, GA.
His goal was clear. He would turn in his resignations from the outreach ministry and the entrepreneurial ministry in a few days. Devin was determined to start over. He had been a decent ministry member and steady church-goer. He anticipated that there may be some—especially Mother Maybelle—who might try to persuade him to stay. But his mind was made up. And nothing was going to change it.
Devin recognized her march and tried, unsuccessfully, to thread his way through the throng of parishioners funneling out the church doors. That march, and the determined gaze of the eyes that came with it, told him one scary thing: Mother Maybelle was on a mission. And, although he was having difficulty just keeping up with the flow of people who were headed in his same direction, Mother Maybelle was having no trouble at all.
Damn it, he thought. Then cursed himself for cursing in church. Whenever Mother Maybelle came after someone in the church like that, it meant that she had a job for them to do. And, more than likely, she believed that job was requested by God and it was his Christian duty to fulfill it.
He had to make a decision. Either he made a quick-step to the door and tried to out walk the old lady, or he let her do what she was bound and determined to do, which could delay the much needed changes in his life.
As she approached and a sense of inevitability fell upon him, he decided that Mother Maybelle wasn’t changing his plans to leave the church. Just postponing them.
“Brother McKenna,” she said, placing a wrinkled but surprisingly firm hand on his shoulder.
“I know,” he said, feeling a smile lift his spirits. “You’re on a mission from God.”