In 1955, Martha, recently married to Wesley Stoltzfus and pregnant with their first child, moved from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Bowlings Creek in Eastern Kentucky to help with the church plant there. Life in those early years was not easy. In her book Hope in the Deepest Hollow, she described her trip as a 23-year-old to the hospital for the birth of her first child. “One afternoon in August, I was spending time with Gertrude (Dutcher) and the three Smith children they were fostering. Without warning, my water broke! I wasn’t prepared for that. ‘What does that mean?’ I asked Gertrude. ‘That means,’ she said calmly, ‘you are going to have a baby and you’d better get to the hospital.’ ‘Oh.’ Gertrude saddled up Bird, the horse, and quickly rode to the mill where Wesley and Frank were working. Wesley came back on the run and helped me into the cab of the truck. ‘I can’t ride here,’ I said. ‘The jostling is too miserable!’ So, I rode in the back, like a cow, flexing my knees against the cruel jolts up Bowlings Creek and down Feb Fork. Our car was parked at Gays Creek. From there we drove 60 miles to Hyden where the Frontier Nurses had a hospital.”
It was [Martha’s] conviction that staying true to the Word would bring maturity in our walk with Jesus.
In 2008, five years after Wesley’s death, Martha moved to Turners Creek to be closer to us. At times she joined our church activities here, but her heart was still at Bowlings Creek. She was faithful to her call. She drove there every Sunday as long as she was able. Then, her church people graciously provided transportation for her.
On March 8, 2022, at the age of 89, Martha, my mother-in-law, left this world to go to her eternal reward. I imagine Jesus saying to Martha, “Well done. For these 67 years you have been faithful to the call I gave you and Wesley to minister to the people of Bowlings Creek. Welcome HOME.”
Martha’s life embodies our CMC commission to mature and multiply churches. She spent hours studying, memorizing, and teaching the Bible. She often admonished me to “Preach the Word.” It was her conviction that staying true to the Word would bring maturity in our walk with Jesus. She was an intercessor, praying for the salvation and other needs of people in Eastern Kentucky and around the world. Martha’s passion to see people come to Jesus never faded. In fact, this passion seemed to intensify as she approached the end of life.
For the last three years, I have had the privilege of serving as moderator of CMC. As my term ends this summer, I am encouraged by what God is doing in and through CMC. We are not a perfect conference, nor are we made up of perfect churches, but we strive to remain faithful to a perfect, compassionate, and powerful God.
I sense among our churches a strong and growing commitment to the authority of Scripture. In a world that is uncertain about where to find truth, where many adopt God’s Word to fit their desires, I hear over and over from our church leaders, “We have to stay true to God’s Word.”
I am seeing a commitment and passion to take the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ to a world that desperately needs to hear. The COVID years have necessitated creativity in the way we do church and mission. There have been coffee-shop Bible studies, on-line church services, disaster-relief ministry, church gatherings in a tent or down by the river. These are a few of the ways our churches are ministering to the body of Christ while making the gospel accessible to people who do not go to church. Jesus came to earth and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. He does not excuse or overlook our sin; he forgives and cleanses us. He sets us free to live a life of holiness. So, the message of the gospel never changes but our methods of presenting the gospel must. I don’t believe Paul did on-line church services in Ephesus! I pray that God will continue to give us creative vision to reach people with the gospel of Jesus.
The Eastern Kentucky churches and Martha’s call came out of a stirring of the Holy Spirit in CMC 75 years ago. God is again stirring us in CMC to take the gospel to our world and plant churches. May we be faithful to this call.
