Remembering Bonaldo Baptist Church
“Are ye not my joy in the presence of the Lord at His coming?” I Thes. 2:19
While I was attending ETBC in Marshall, Texas in the late 50’s, a small church in Nacogdoches County called me to be their Pastor. Their partially collapsed log cabin parsonage and old outhouse had become the home for numerous spiders, rats and long chicken snakes.
The well was filled with the carcasses of a number of hapless critters and the left-overs of many all-day dinners. A Pastor friend helped me clean out the well while I was there. After loading bucketfuls of armadillo hulls, bottles and other garbage from deep in the well, I began gasping for breath. By the grace of God, a rope, and Buddy Pratt’s strong arms, I got out alive.
Most of the church families, the Acostas, Busters, Molandes and Ariolas, were related. They decided to name the church after one of their local creeks (the Loco or the Bonaldo) and wisely chose the latter. Several missing window panes in the church building permitted a wren to nest under the pulpit every year and I was careful not to ever let her eggs get cold.
That was over fifty years ago, so I know where Manuel, Vick, Bessie and the older folks are now. But I wonder about Pat Smith, James Molandes and the other youth. They’d be reaching retirement age about now. I probably won’t see them again before I see the older generation. But that’s aright… as long as they’re all there, too.
By Doug Fincher March 27, 2006
While I was attending ETBC in Marshall, Texas in the late 50’s, a small church in Nacogdoches County called me to be their Pastor. Their partially collapsed log cabin parsonage and old outhouse had become the home for numerous spiders, rats and long chicken snakes.
The well was filled with the carcasses of a number of hapless critters and the left-overs of many all-day dinners. A Pastor friend helped me clean out the well while I was there. After loading bucketfuls of armadillo hulls, bottles and other garbage from deep in the well, I began gasping for breath. By the grace of God, a rope, and Buddy Pratt’s strong arms, I got out alive.
Most of the church families, the Acostas, Busters, Molandes and Ariolas, were related. They decided to name the church after one of their local creeks (the Loco or the Bonaldo) and wisely chose the latter. Several missing window panes in the church building permitted a wren to nest under the pulpit every year and I was careful not to ever let her eggs get cold.
That was over fifty years ago, so I know where Manuel, Vick, Bessie and the older folks are now. But I wonder about Pat Smith, James Molandes and the other youth. They’d be reaching retirement age about now. I probably won’t see them again before I see the older generation. But that’s aright… as long as they’re all there, too.
By Doug Fincher March 27, 2006