Crossing Paths With a True Man of God

In Sacred & Profane by Donna Johnsonleave a COMMENT

Jeff Hill loved four things: God, his wife, Suzy, his grandkids, and antique cars. And I like to think he loved me a little bit. Certainly, he helped me far beyond the call of duty. This story is to honor and remember him, and to thank the church he so graciously represented, Fellowship Church on Middlebrook Pike, which sought as far as possible to follow God’s teachings in word and in deed. They did so with me.

I was no different 10 years ago than I am now. Shopping was my passion, shopping was my undoing. I still had a car then and was constantly running out of gas, since I put the bare minimum into my small Toyota Corolla, preferring to spend my money on ever-increasing useless, shiny objects. The store Bombay was a favorite of mine at the time: strings of shiny beads, large wind chimes that were more like gongs calling Tibetan monks for prayer, and sarongs of brilliant yellows, purples, and reds—one of which I would wear out of the store along with a pair of multi-colored earrings that dangled to my shoulders. I would pile the rest of my purchases into the back seat and go flying down the highway with the windows down, colorful sarongs flapping behind me. I was able to forget for a few moments that I was three months behind on my rent and on the edge of eviction.

As I sang “Angels We Have Heard on High” at the top of my lungs, I realized that I was, without a shadow of a doubt, running out of gas. I usually knew almost exactly how far I could go below empty without actually running out of gas, but in my Christmas glee I had miscalculated. I barely made it to the curb before the car stopped dead on Middlebrook Pike. I could see a gas station in the distance, but all my money was gone and I wasn’t about to leave all my fabulous merchandise in the car for some teen-age West Knoxville thugs to break in and steal it. So there I sat, smoking, thumping my fingers against the steering wheel, thinking about what I should do next. After about a half-hour, a man drove up in an old Mustang convertible and got out.

“You look like you could use some help,” said the man, who was dressed in a white shirt and khakis. He had very kind eyes. “I happen to carry a gas can in my car. I’ll go and get you enough gas to get to the gas station. Then I’ll follow you to the gas station and we can fill your car up.”

I was nonplussed.

“Are you an angel?” I asked, partly in jest, partly in earnest.

“Oh, no,” the man said. “I’m no angel. I’m just fortunate enough that God chose me to do His will. Right now, His will is for us to go and fill up your car.”

“Well, thank you,” I stammered.

He put out his hand. “I’m Jeff Hill,” he said. “I’m manage the finances of Fellowship Church over yonder.”

I took his hand and told him my name. I knew of Fellowship Church—it was enormous, with many green-roofed buildings that stretched over a couple of blocks. An old roommate of mine went there.

After he filled up my car, I followed him back to his church, where he asked me if I had been saved.

“I’ve been saved several times,” I told him, having gone up the aisle to rededicate my life many, many times in Fentress County at the First Baptist Church I was raised in.

Jeff smiled gently at me and his eyes twinkled from behind his black-rimmed glasses.

“You only need to be saved once,” he said softly. “How is everything else in your life going?”

I began to cry and told him I was about to be evicted. If he saw all the newly bought, expensive merchandise in my car, he was kind enough not to comment on it. He simply got out a checkbook and wrote me a check for the amount of rent I was behind, approximately $1,800.

“I can’t thank you enough,” I said. “I promise I will never ask you again.”

“Now, we don’t know what the future holds for us, so you needn’t make rash promises,” he said in his ever-gracious way.

In an effusion of gratitude and an impulse I would later regret, I asked if there was some way I could pay at least part of that money back to the church. That’s how my friend, David, and I came to do janitorial work at Fellowship Church, which meant we would push brooms back and forth over the halls and wipe down the nurseries with wet rags sprayed with disinfectant—always looking at our watches to see how fast we could get out of there. Mostly, we sneaked out the back door to smoke cigarettes. Eventually my car broke down and I did not have transportation to get there, but I think I managed to pay back $200 to $300 from my lackadaisical janitorial work. I sent a couple of payments after that, borrowed a couple more times.

All in all, over the course of five or so years, I “borrowed” $5,000 or so from the church. They never asked me to pay the money back and the church members were invariably kind and loving to me no matter what I did.

During this period I had acquired several speeding tickets. Though I had a payee through the East Tennessee Human Resource Agency, it was pretty useless since she would give me the entire sum of my check at the beginning of the month, which I would then squander within hours. My ETHRA payee was supposed to be making payments on my traffic tickets and due to her failure to do so, a warrant was taken out on me, served, and I went straight to jail. No one could have been more surprised than me, and I sat stunned and not a little angry. This incident not only caused me to spend a night in jail, but also served to get my driver’s license suspended and later revoked. I have never gotten it back.

For those of you who have never been to the Knox County jail, it is no picnic. You are stripped of your dignity as they strip you of your clothes and do a search to make sure you have no weapons or drugs stowed in the various crevices of your body. Because of my insubordination and, later, tears, I was put in solitary confinement with only a paper gown to wear, in a room that was freezing. Because of my weeping, I had to keep ripping off pieces of my paper gown to blow my nose, so that within a couple of hours I was practically naked. I sat in a corner on the floor, rocking myself back and forth, trying to think of a way out of jail.

I had not used my one phone call, so when they brought my dinner—a bologna sandwich on stale bread—I asked to use the phone. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, three days before Christmas, the likelihood that Jeff Hill would be in his office was not great. Saying a small prayer before I dialed, I hoped for the best. Since all the secretaries had left for the Christmas holidays, it was Jeff himself who answered the phone.

“Jeff, I’m in jail and I need $900 to get out. Can you help?”

Ever being the compassionate person he was, he did not ask whether I had bounced another check, gotten arrested for drunk driving, or knocked an old lady down carrying her packages out to the car, but only, “Are you all right?” and then, “When do you need the money and where do I bring it?”

“I need it now!” I hollered into the phone, and after a pause at the other end: “Oh, and Jeff, it has to be in cash.” My voice trailed off at this last. It was really too much even for God’s people.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Jeff said, and hung up the phone.

True to his word, within two hours, Jeff arrived with nine crisp $100 bills. I and the clerk watched mesmerized as he counted the bills out and laid them on the counter.

“Now,” he said firmly, “I’d like to take this young lady home.” Within minutes, Jeff was driving me to my apartment, even stopping to get me a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, though he grimaced at this. As I turned to wave back at Jeff, he had already vanished like the angelic being he was.

It’s been years since I talked to Jeff Hill, at least in person, for he died a year later from colon cancer, going to be with his God as courteously and joyfully as he had lived his whole life. I shall never forget the kindness that he and Fellowship Church showed me. They were unfailingly gracious and loving toward me and exemplified the love of Christ in magnanimous ways, as stated in the best sermon I ever heard, which happened to be at Fellowship Church:

If you meet someone who is hungry, don’t just say I’ll pray for you, feed them…

If they are without shelter, don’t just say I’ll pray for you, take them in,

If one you meet is lonely, don’t just say I’ll pray for you and lay it at the alter of Jesus…. Listen to them, notice who they are and what they are about, make them feel as special as they truly are—for everyone is, on some level.

I try to remember these words every day, and as best as I can, try to live by them, for life itself is such a gift. We are all living on the planet together, and, as much abundance as most of us have, is it really so hard to stop for a few moments and help someone in need? I think not, and though I often forget to do it, or fail to do it quite right.

There will always be another opportunity, for there are plenty of people in need.

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Donna Johnson describes herself as a person who thrives on breaking the rules other people have made while also creating rules for herself that do make sense. “My rules do not necessarily follow the law set out by the government and law-abiding citizens,” she says. “They follow an inner law, one unto myself, and when I attempt to go outside this, to conform, disaster follows.” Her stories are often about people who are not recognized by others, who may even seem invisible, but “they often have a great truth to share if one but listens.”

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