From the Pastor Emeritus

John Murray Smoot

Old-timers hardly need read this, but after several years of silence, I now pass this on to the fine newer members of this fellowship.

After restarting up CPC in "the old Brown Manse" in the fall of 1948, I retired as Pastor and Doris as Matron of the Manse in the summer of 1983. Shortly before retiring from Central, I earned another Masters' Degree and a Ph.D. at St. Mary's Seminary and University.

We served as Pastor and wife at the Dhaka International Christian Church in Bangladesh for two years. I then served as Interim of the First Church of Westminster, MD; taught Philosophy for a year at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan; and a year as a professor in schools in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa. Doris and I enjoyed a fruitful pastorate in two rural parishes of Durris and Drumoak in Scotland.

This past year I finally published a distillation of my ministries entitled Predestined in Love. It is available in Central's library along with my doctoral dissertation, "Presbyterianism in Revolutionary Pennsylvania," and my unpublished memoirs, "Under Rower."

For the past year and a half I have been around-the-clock caregiver for Doris due to complications of diabetes. She has been dearly loved here as the ideal companion of the Pastor and mother of five (including Jan Turnbaugh, in our choir and at the Christian Community Center).

For more than forty years I've taught the Ladies Bible Class on Monday mornings. I also teach an evening Bible class at Oak Crest (where I reside). I've even had the high privilege of preaching at Central a couple times this past year, as well as pulpit supply at other local congregations.

God is so good; so is life...

In Christ,
John Murray Smoot

P.S. On the Sunday before Christmas Eve, December 23, 2001, the ideal Pastor's wife and my dearest companion got a higher call to be an eternal companion to the "Great Shepherd of the Sheep."