Dear editor,

This letter is to honor a friend who died this spring. She was Rae Howell, a blind lady I met through our friend Paulette Wilson. For years I had heard Paulette speak of her friend Rae. Rae had a job up north somewhere, but, according to her, did not have much family and did not receive the help from churches and friends like Paulette had here in Selma.  Paulette, blind also, was always helping Rae over the phone or Skype with computer problems. That is all I knew until, a few years back, after retiring from a career with some government agency, Rae moved to Selma. I will never forget the first time we met.

They were coming to our house for dinner.  Paulette is a white lady with a blonde lab and Rae a black lady with a black lab. As they got out of the car somehow they got the dogs mixed up … so, the blonde dog was leading the black lady and the black dog leading the white lady! Did not seem to make a difference to the dogs or the ladies. We all got inside up the ramp.

I wanted to tell you of a service Rae provided for me that keeps on blessing. I had many vinyl recordings by contemporary Christian artists and groups but it was really hard to play them as the record player was not readily accessible. Rae told me she had a computer program where she could make CDs from these LPs. And she did. I would take her a stack of vinyls in their jackets and send her an email of the order of the stack. She would type out a CD jacket with the album name and artist on it, record the music to CD and return it all … so neat and so orderly.

I was and still am so appreciative of her sharing this gift of service with me. She also kept copies on CD of the records that she liked. I would bake pumpkin bread which was her favorite, and I taught her to cook fresh collard greens! She truly was a neat lady who loved the Lord.

Rae’s body succumbed to cancer after a valiant fight to the end. She seemed never to really fear going home to heaven, just kind of sad that her retirement got ruined by that disease. While I am writing this tribute to a brave lady, I would also like to thank Crosspoint Church for being so very supportive of Rae the last years of her life. Food, fellowship, countless trips to and from Montgomery or Prattville for treatments, dog sitting, you name it, the people were there for her. It was beautiful to see and hear of.

I know this may not be of interest to you, but rejoice in the fact that someone needy came to our town of Selma for help and she found it. Also, she gave it as she could.  Thanks, Rae Howell, for the beautiful music I can still listen to. Thank you, Crosspoint Church Family, for being Jesus to this one and others.

 

Gail Box Ingram
Selma