The Celebration began with some of Daddy's favorite Bluegrass Music to be played: Tell It On That Mountain, I'll Fly Away, Daddy's Hands, You Can Let Go Now Daddy and Will The Circle Be Unbroken as well as some of ours. We are going to enjoy the music which was some of J.C.Card's favorite songs as well as some of the daughter's favorite songs. They are lovely, you are gonna hear alot about J.C. tonight. This is not going to be, I took my tie off cause I realized I was going to be overdress, this is a Celebration of J.C. Card’s from the swamps of Mississippi, this is a Celebration of his life. J.C. Card was a believer in Jesus, you'll hear us talk about that tonight from some of the very special people in his life and we are excited that you are here, what I would like to do is to begin with prayer and then introduce special music tonight that really bless you and we are going to have a wonderful time together then we are going to be able to share with the family as they eat the meal and as they celebrate the memory of J.C. Card. So would you bow your heads with me and pray, “Father, thank you for tonight, thank you for your presence, thank you for the promise that when we go thru hard times you promised us that you would comfort us and that you would give us a comfort that we can even share with others and I thank you for that. I thank you for the promise that you give to us as followers of Christ, that death is not the end. “Brave where is our victory.” For those of us who know Christ, we merely leave this life and we go to a much broader more wonderful life than we would ever know in his presence in Heaven forever and ever and ever…. Thank you for the family, thank you for the memories of J.C. and thank you for tonight, the opportunity to celebrate with bluegrass music, we are going to celebrate with some funny stories and we just pray that you receive all glory and we love you and we pray this in Christ’s name”…. Amen. We will now here Beth and Lance Buchanon as they sing two special songs and then we will hear from some of J.C. special friends. Beth and her husband Lance accompanied her on his guitar sang “See you on the other side which was written by Beth and then they did they own twist to Amazing Grace. Beth sang is country/rock & roll for me and then she said, “And this is for J.C.” She and Lance added a little bit of bluegrass and a lot of heart in the remainder of that song and I believe Daddy would have loved it. Pastor Ray: I want to read a little background,(See Obit in Susan's Journal) We have the distinct and I got to tell you I love services like this when people who have special little intersections in a person’s life, when they get up to speak and share some of their memories, to me that makes the services quite special. Connie Knight was a long time Village member, and a great friend of Susan’s, and she has some special memories of J.C. So give a warm round of applause for Miss Connie Knight. Connie Knight: I want to start out how I first met J.C. I went to the hospital and I did visitation a lot. Susie let me know that her mother was in the hospital and I had worked long hours that day and I thought, “I’ll go the next day!” So I went ahead and got ready for bed and it just came all over me to go to the hospital. So I went and changed clothes and came out and my Mother said, “Where you going?” And it was late at night, I said, “I’ve got to go the hospital and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” That’s when I got to really meet his whole family and all the girls and J.C. And it was a blessing to me, I thought it was going to be just there to meet her and be with the family to relieve her and to give them a break so they could go out of the room, because the Mother was having a hard time. Well, that was just the beginning of knowing J.C. Card. I stayed till late in the night and then I left and she passed away the next day. Then I got to have the blessings and pleasures of going to the hospital and hearing so many stories, I am telling you – you don’t go to the hospital to see J.C. Card for 15 to 30 minutes, it was usually a 2 – 3 hour visit. You would listen to his stories you just didn’t want him to stop, you would laugh with him and cry with him and he would always tell you about all of his surgeries. I use to know the count because he told you every time and he knew when they were. He always said, I don’t know why the Lord is still letting me hang on!” I said, “J.C., one day we will know that.” It was truly just visiting him and listening to the stories and just loving him. And one day I ask him, I said, "you know I got to ask you something", he had heard about my background, and he had told me all his stories and this man, and I don’t mean it disrespectful, for he lived hard, and he loved hard and he was a man. There’s nothing he couldn’t build, there was long hours he worked, and he loved his girls. There’s never a visit I didn’t hear about, he loved his grandchildren,and he loved family. He was so proud even though it was late in life to be in church. But he carried such a guilt trip cause he was in his 70’s and what broke my heart is when you hear that when you are in your 70’s and 80’s or 60’s and they think they have been bad too long for the Lord to love them. And when he shared and touched on that one day I knew that I knew what had to be done. I wanted to know are you saved for life, and I asked Susan, “Go get some water” so I could truly get down deeper with Jesus. And I ask him, I said, “J.C. are you saved?” And I mean tear crocodile tears rolled and he said, “Connie, I lived such a hard life.” And I laughed and I said, “You know about the Samaritan Woman and what did you do? You loved me anyway.” And I said, “It’s never too late.” And he looked at me and said, “I don’t know how to do it, I’ve never prayed, I wasn’t in church and what do I do? How do you change how you lived for so long? What he didn’t see is how he loved his family. While he was looking at the bad I was looking at the good in J.C. When I explained to him how easy it was, he kept coming back and saying, “But I did this and I did that”, I started to tell J.C. let’s just take a minute and everything that you are weighing the guilt on your shoulders put it on that board at the end of your bed. You don‘t have to speak it out loud, visibly just see it and give it to the Lord and he did and he said, “Now what do I do?“ I said, “It is time to pray the prayer and ask for forgiveness for everything you did.” And I said, “You keep telling me you have always been in control of your life”, and I started laughing and I said, “somebody wants’ the control now.” He prayed the prayer and I have never seen a MAN and the tough guy he thought he was, be so humble and real, not a shadow of a doubt that MAN gave his life to the Lord and anytime I got back to visit after that, he would be telling his stories and I would just look at him and just smile and say, “Now whose in control?” And I never heard the words sound so sweetly as “Jesus”. Well then, he prayed the prayer and we meet visit and talked and one day I called him and said, “Can I meet you at the Waffle House.” So we got here and J.C. thought it was about his stories, so he told his stories and the lady that was working the counter who was listening was so enthused with his stories and I said, “J.C. now is the time I got to ask you one more thing, you gonna need to be baptized and I said “somebody wants’ the control now.” He prayed the prayer and I have never seen a MAN and the tough guy he thought he was, be so humble and real, not a shadow of a doubt that MAN gave his life to the Lord and anytime I got back to visit after that, he would be telling his stories and I would just look at him and just smile and say, “Now whose in control?” And I never heard the words sound so sweetly as “Jesus”. Well then, he prayed the prayer and we meet visit and talked and one day I called him and said, “Can I meet you at the Waffle House.” So we got here and J.C. thought it was about his stories, so he told his stories and the lady that was working the counter who was listening was so enthused with his stories and I said, “J.C. now is the time I got to ask you one more thing, you gonna need to be baptized.” and I said, “You are already saved and you are going to go to the other side like the song said, also if God can spread his arms and die for you and not be ashamed and stand before the church family” At 70 something years old you are going to touch a lot of hearts and He is gonna used you. How do you know how many people sitting out here and they are shame to say, “I don’t know Him in my heart, I am too old, too bad, I just didn’t have it together, I failed too many times!” Well, tears started rolling and I said, “Susie thought, hey he’s not going to do it and he was afraid and he was.” “I asked him why? And he said, “Connie I broke my back and I am not going to be able to lean over I am so afraid.” Well, I got tickled and I started telling about his stories and how many surgeries he has been thru and I said, “J.C. He saved you that many times we will find a way to get you thru that water if that is what you want to do.” I remember literally running into Ray’s office and grabbing Don Towe, I asked Don, “Can you baptize somebody in a wheelchair?” Ray kinda laughed and he said, “We have never done it but I guess we can.” The man was so proud walking around the building to walk up here and get in that water and lean back. And then he said, “I gonna ask you something?” And I said, “What’s that?” He said, “Will you be right there?” I wasn’t expecting that and I said, “Sure” I wore my capri’s and stood up on those steps ad held onto his hand and right away they were fixing to lower him back and I felt this is going good, he didn’t let go of my hand and I kinda went in the water with him. But ya’ll that man was so excited, so excited cause he loved the Lord and that day I am sure Ray remembers it for it was a packed house, there was not one person sitting and not one person crying and I believe he planned a lot of seeds at the age of 70. He use to always say, “Connie I don’t know why he’s keeping me around, there is just some reason.” And it was to mend a lot of stuff with his girls. He love them, he loved them, he loved them and he was able to say, “I Love You” and if there is anything to bring honor and show the love if there is one soul lost here, go to somebody and know it is not too late, J.C. will tell you it is better on the other side, it’s better on the other side. One more story I am going to share, Susie came to me one day and said, “Connie we got one more problem!” And I said, “What’s that?” She said, “I don’t know what I am going to tell my sisters but Dad wants to marry you!” I said, “What!!!! Me!!!” It was not a love of man and wife but we truly loved each other. I told Susie, I said, “Let’s see if he won’t let me be his adopted as his daughter.” It was truly an honor to say I truly felt like a daughter and a sister. And anything to bring glory and honor to the Lord today and to show our love for J.C. don’t stop repeating the stories and know that you know that he wasn’t ashamed to say that Jesus was in control of his life and he was loved very much. Pastor Ray: Thank you Connie, that was very, very wonderful. Well, the next story is going to bless you very very much from a guy who constantly surprise me with his heart and the things that he did, I am excited Ashley Flournoy going to share, give a round of applause please. Ashley Flournoy So I was fliting around the church one day like I usually do like a ping pong ball, Susan walks up to me and she says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I was wondering what have I done to make her mad cause I really don’t know her and anybody in her family so I have got to offended somebody. She said, “I understand you like to hunt.” Yell, I love to hunt. She said, “Will you do me a favor?” I said, “Ok??? Take you hunting??” She said my Dad loves to hunt and fish he never gets out to do anything would you by chance be interested in taking him hunting sometimes just take him out and sit out there in the woods”. I said, “Sure, I would love to.” So I went to talk to J.C. I said to J.C., “I hear you like to hunt.” He said, “Oh yeah, I love to hunt.” Man that is all I need to say, the next 45 minutes later it was hunt, hunt, hunt. I told him I tell you what, “J.C. I would like to take you hunting sometimes and then you could see him get all excited, he started shaking, tears well up in his eyes, it’s like man, I am going hunting. So we schedule it and I was going to pick him up at Loretta’s house about 4:30 – 5:00 in the morning. So I get there and I am thinking “O.K. he’s probably a little older and a little slower and it probably will take some time to get him up.” So I knock on the door, Loretta answered the door and says, “I am so glad you are here, he has been up for two hours and all he has talked about was hunting and hunting”. I am like, “Is he ready to go?” She said, “He has slept in his clothes.” I said, “Not the best thing when going hunting in the woods but it will work.” So here comes J.C. and we go out and get his guns and we get his oxygen tank and we get it all loaded up in the car and we get all the way to the woods and he’s talking, huntin, huntin, he is telling me about the deer’s he use to shoot, the guns he use to shoot, how many he has seen, how many he has shot and about how many he has missed. All the way, I am thinking “this is going to be a really interesting hunt.” This man likes to talk about huntin and if there is one thing you don’t do in the woods is talk. Don’t tell J.C. that. Ok, so we get out in the woods and we sit down and find us a nice spot and I told him to sit right there and I’ll go park the car and I’ll be back, and when I get back I sit down and it is quiet for about 30 seconds and J.C. starts telling me about this one time he was sitting down and he was leaned his back up against a tree and they didn’t use stands back then, you back up against the tree and he held his guns, we didn’t have scopes he just had his rifles, the more he talked the more I thought “ Ya, it’s getting later, and the later it gets the chances any chance of seeing anything.” Well, all of a sudden it didn’t matter cause he would tell me about sittin in the woods by himself and how great it was to be out there. I thought, “He doesn’t care if he sees a deer or not, I think he is just excited to be out here and I don’t think he wants to go home, I think he just wants to hang out in the woods.” And that is pretty much the way most of our hunts went. And we went huntin probably I don’t know 4, 5 or 6 times, and each time we went huntin I never really expected to see anything and I thought, “You know, I’m not even going to take my guns sometimes, it ain’t going to matter.” One day we were was sitting out in the middle of this field up under this tree in the middle of this field trying to camouflaging and hide in the trees, we had this line of trees all the way around us and right here in the middle of this field behind the blind and J.C’s just talk, talk, talk. All of a sudden here comes this buck, right on the edge of the woods and it stopped not 15 yards from us and J.C’s just a talking. And I see this deer and I go, (In a whisper) “J.C. shhhh, and J.C. said, “huh!” I said, “ No, shhh” and J.C. said. “huh”. When a deer comes out J.C. knows how to……., he knows how to talk and I go, (In a whisper) “J.C. quiet there is a deer, he says, “huh", I said, “J.C. shhhh”. So I get my gun, and the county we were hunting in is a managed county so the bucks have to have a certain amount of points on their antlers and what not, so I got to check to see if it is legal to shoot, and all of a sudden J.C. goes. “There is a deer!!!” And I am going, “I know, I see it.” I am counting, 1.2.3, and I raise my gun up, he says, “It’s a buck!!!” and I said, “It’s ain’t going to be there long, just be quiet!” So I raised my gun up and looked thru my scope and I am counting the points, 1.2., “SHOOT IT”!!!!!!!!, I going, “J.C. please …. we will never going to get anywhere like this.” The thing that kills me is deer are skidish so they say, this deer just stood there looking at us and I am convince to this day, that was an Angel in Disguise, just to give him a thrill and me a seriously false hope of a really nice buck. Because the whole time he’s sittin there hollering at me to shoot this deer and I am hollering to be quiet, the deer is looking at us like, “we are both too stupid to know what to do with a gun." For 10 minutes, I kid you not, for 10 minutes we stood there going back and forth, me telling him to “shut up and him telling me to shoot it.” “I am trying to go, J.C. I don’t know if it is legal”, it just looked at us and after about 10 minutes it just turned it’s head and just took it’s time and walked on off cause it knew it was in no fear for his life. I mean deer know, deer know that when J.C.’s in the woods, man they ain’t nothing to worry about. But I tell you what, he loved being out there and I tell you I loved being out there with him. Cause if you are a hunter you know, your sittin out in the woods for 2, 3, 4, 6 hours it gets pretty lonely if you don’t see a deer, but it don’t get lonely with J.C. not at all and they ain’t a thing wrong with it. He taught me more about huntin than I have learned in the whole ten years than I’ve been huntin. He loved to fish and we took him one day, it was me, my boys, Lee, Jimmy and Justin went, and we took J.C. and the boat and too him out on the lake, Lake Jackson and took him fishing we were out there riding around and everybody was fishing but J.C. I said, “J.C. what’s wrong?” He said, “I am just so happy to be here.” I said, “Well, fish!!!!!” J.C. said, “I can’t fish, I am so happy to be here.” He just talked about fishing that is what he did, he loved to be outdoors, he loved being in the woods, pretending to hunt and pretending to fish he really didn’t care. We had two or three years and each year I thought you know what, I was so afraid that this might his last year and I wanted so bad be able to shoot a dear and eventually I just wanted him to be out there the next year, whether he got to see anything or not, it didn’t really matter. Just one more year cause I can’t drag you and the deer both out of the woods you are going to have to help me. Get your strength up for we are going to shoot that big one and it’s going to take both of us to pull it out. We never saw it, but it never did matter. Well I got the phone call from Lee, couple weeks, a week ago he was in the hospital and I went to see him, it was two Wednesday’s ago and I come in after work and I walked in and Susan said, “Daddy, hasn’t spoke much in the past week or so and hadn’t anything since Friday.” So I said. “I will sit down and talk to him. ” He opened his eyes, and Susan said, “Daddy, you know who this is?” J.C. said. “Ya, I know who this is, it is Ashley.” I said, “Hey Buddy, how is my hunting buddy doing?” Well, that is all it took, we talked about huntin’, we talked about huntin’ for two and ½ hours. Two and ½ hours, Susan said he hadn’t talked more than five minutes in six days. In that two and ½ hours we talked about huntin’ and they brought in that wonderful hospital food and I fed him dinner and between bites we talked about huntin’ and he ate almost the whole lousy meal. She said, “it’s just amazing, I can’t believe what you have done, it’s a miracle.” I said, “No, you just got to know what to talk to him about, you got to talk about huntin’. She said, “Daddy you ain’t talk to none of us like you talk to Ashley.” He said, “Ya’ll don’t ask me no questions.” I said, “You just got to know what to talk about, what interests the man.” I tell you what I think, “J.C.’s is probably up in Heaven, I don’t know if God allows huntin’ on his grounds or not, but maybe who knows, if he does, he has to be sittin’ high up in his stand, he got to be looking down on the biggest buck he has ever seen, saying your mine. ” Just like God looked at J.C. and said, “Your Mine.” Pastor Ray: Ashley that was great. Pastor Ray: Jill is the youngest daughter so I am going to ask her to come up and share her memories. So give a round of applause for Miss Jill Hazard. (See Memories by Jill in Susan’s Journal) Pastor Ray: The next gentleman was a part of J.C’s life as a part of the Village life for a long time here, Mr. Don Towe, would you give a warm round of applause to Don Towe. I like Ashley I met J.C.’s through Susan and Lee in the Café’ and he talked about fishing and stuff like that. J.C. enjoyed fishing a lot and we had a Men’s Retreat and we were going to go up to my father in law’s cabin up at Lake Hartwell. Susan said, “Daddy would really like to go”. I said, “Tell him to come on.” They got J.C. up there, it’s kind of a small cabin, two bedrooms and everything, J.C. already got one room, he took that and he was gone. We tried to plan it everything and get him in the boat, for that’s what he really wanted to do. So we got in down there and to go down there is this steep hill and we had guys on each side, I was in the back, we didn’t want to bring him down there we wanted him to do it on his own. There he is, this man had his oxygen bottle and he is going down there and it just touched our hearts that we can do this for him and he was really wanting to fish. Well we got him in the boat, he gets in the boat and he is fishing, catching some fish and he calls his daughters and tears were just rolling down and he said, “Don if I go today, this is the best I’ve been in a long time and he was just so joyful.” He’s got the name, J.C. Card, he’s a Card. Like Ashley said, you don’t take 15 minutes to talk to J.C., you gonna take a couple of hours. Those were the best hours that I had, I enjoyed the man, he meant a lot to me and I think of him as a brother in Christ, girls, he ain’t just gone, he’s gone fishing. Pastor Ray: Thanks, Don I remember that Men’s Retreat and I remember J.C. getting in that boat and that was great. I want to share a couple of things the other two daughters have given me. (Loretta – see Loretta Memories in Susan’s Journal) Pastor Ray: Susan had shared some of her memories of her Daddy. (See Memories of my Daddy in Susan's Journal) Pastor Ray: A couple of thoughts that I had. When I would see him in the hospital his eyes would light up any time a pretty nurse would come into room and I just made that observation. A pretty nurse came in and J.C. woke up. He was a flirt. But I went to see J.C. after his most recent stroke, the girls were in the room and they said, “Daddy squeeze your boob", and I didn’t know what they are talking about m they showed me it was a balloon that he squeezed to help him get his strength back, so when they said, “Squeeze the boob, he knew what to do.” I remember what Connie said that was beautiful and there was a lot going on behind the scene, but we had a big bridge built on our stage and we had a service and we said, “If you have never made a profession publicly we want to give you an opportunity and some people began to file across the bridge symbolizing their devotion to Christ and with J.C. and his oxygen tank walked across the bridge there wasn’t a dry eye in our congregation. I was blessed by the other testimonies that Susan told me that Connie and another friend of ours Neville O’Meally prayed with J.C. and it meant a lot to him. I was blessed the Saturday before his passing, when Susan called and asked us to come, so a bunch of us from the church went to their house and all of her family was there and it was, it was like, the old days when everybody was there. We were able to pray and the family was crying because we thought it might be that moment. We were able to pray and spend some good time there and it was wonderful to feel God’s presence and then those of us who weren’t family left and the family stayed but then on Tuesday morning And about 10 after 4, the family called me and they said, “He’s just passed”. And I could hear in the background family members saying, “We Love You Daddy”, and grandson saying, “I love You Papa”, and as I listen in my bedroom to those sounds I thought this is the way it is suppose to be, to be able to leave this life with those people most precious to you all around you and what a wonderful gift it was, the family had prayed that J.C. would go in his sleep and he did. The family knows and J.C. knows, he knew that because of his faith in Christ, he was not to be alone when he left this world for Jesus was going to escort into the next. And he would be escorted into a place more wonderful than he could ever imagine and that is what happened at 4:12 Tuesday morning. This has been a wonderful time to celebrate his life and I have enjoyed every story but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and so we want to show you a little multi-media of J.C., but I want to pray with you and I close with some thoughts. Father, thank you for what he have heard thus far, thank you for every story, thank you for every friend that is in this place, thank you for the promise of eternity with you and those who have gone on before us and we pray this in Christ’s name. We went into the church Café and had a meal of coconut cake, banana pudding, chicken, green beans, cookies, potato salad and such.