A dear friend now with the Lord
May 17, 2012 (Thursday)
Yesterday a memorial service was conducted at the North Fort Worth Baptist Church for David Foster. David was one of those “preacher boys” from Liberty Road Baptist Church in Houston. Just a few weeks ago I published for a second time a picture of those young men, taken around 1950, at the church. There were six of us: Herbie Zimmerman, Maurice Smith, Troy Conner, Townsend Taake, David Foster, and I.
On a Labor Day weekend in 1948, the pastor, Brother Hunt, took a little vacation and asked David and me to preach in his place. I preached in the morning and David preached in the evening. It was the first sermon each of us had ever preached. As I recall, we did pretty well, considering the fact that we had never done it before.
David, Troy and I roomed together at East Texas Baptist College, but I had to leave after 9 weeks because of illness. After college, Troy went into military service and served as Chaplain’s assistant. David served in the Korean War.
David’s life turned toward education, and he served as teacher, administrator and superintendent of schools. Although we lost touch with each other through the years, in recent years we met in Galveston with several others who had been young people in the Liberty Road Baptist Church.
We did this several times, for about a week each time. Those were memorable reunions that allowed us to express our thankfulness to the Lord for allowing our lives to touch. In a very real way, the spiritual lives of all of us were enriched by the dedication to Christ of the others. Now most of us are in our 80’s and some of us are with the Lord in Heaven.
I pray for David’s wife, Shirley, and their daughters and grandchildren as they adjust to life without him. God’s grace is sufficient for every kind of moment in life. They are comforted by their faith and the fact that their loved one was faithful to Christ and helped to make this world a better place.