August 2018
By Jerome Pearson
There are several New Light Missionary Baptist Churches in the USA, but only one in Davis Station, SC. The one located on what is now called Moses Dingle Road in Davis Station, is the New Light that I attended as a kid and is perhaps the only church I have ever claimed as my own.
It was, perhaps, the first church I have ever attended. I can remember, as a “two-year old”, sitting in that church one Easter staring up at the ceiling. I was staring at the ceiling because it appeared so high up to me. I was used to the ceilings in our home, and those ceilings were not nearly as high.
I had been told about God, and that he was in the sky, so obviously I would be looking up towards the ceiling to see if he were in fact looking down on me. I feared GOD because the picture in our house was of a man with a complexion that resembled the Policemen I used to see running around. I was trying to figure out why he looked like them! They were not so nice, and because I feared them, why wouldn’t I also fear God?
Nevertheless, unlike the men in our town with a similar complexion, I was told that God was nice and different from the others, so I took their word for it. One difference I did notice was that the God in the picture had a more solemn look and plus his hair was longer so that had to be the explanation. The policemen had closely cropped hair and carried big guns on their waist. The pictures I had seen of God showed no evidence of a gun. Of course, one day it was thundering and lightening, and I was thinking that perhaps God did have gun too.
My first Easter speech was made at New Light. I was 3 years old and I was told to say:
What are you looking at me for?
I didn’t come to stay!
I just came to wish you a happy Easter day!
I am sure I learned that in one take, and over the years I would be exceptionally good at reciting any speech given to me, regardless of length.
Over the years my church would have different colors. I can even recall it once having red tar paper as its siding. I don’t know who came up with that bright idea!
There was a time it had no color at all! It was almost as if someone had installed a wooden siding, but church members must have not had enough funds to pay for the paint. Therefore, it remained colorless for a few years!
Yet, despite all, New Light would continue to stand. Bold and beautiful in an understated sort of way! Other churches have rebuilt and sometimes even moved to another plot. But New Light remains where she has always been. She stands on the edge of a main highway.
Before moving to a new house closer to the church we would sporadically attend church from where we are living at the time. We had to walk a long distance to get there but we enjoyed it. One day we showed up, the Preacher, Reverend Mouzon observed a mark in Bobby’s head. He said that it was a mark from God that Bobby would one day become a preacher. I was laughing under my breath because I knew that that mark came from a hatchet that fell on Bobby’s head a few weeks earlier. One day we were trying to pick cherries from a tree. Rather than carefully picking the cherries without damaging the branches, we found an old hatchet and began cutting the entire branches. This would mean there would be no cherries the next year, but we were only concerned about the current year. James was handling the hatchet and cutting the branches when it fell from his hand and popped Bobby in the head. I was thinking to myself that if what the preacher was saying is true, then “God sure enough did work in mysterious ways!”
There was a dirt road leading from the highway and running alongside of the church back into nowhere land. At least until we moved back there in October 1968. Thursday, October 11 to be exact! After we moved into a newly built house about a third of a mile behind New Light, other homes and families began to move into the area. That dirt road which barely existed prior to 1968 became quite busy after that, for more reasons than one. Years later two school buses would be running back and forth alongside and behind that church.
When we first moved to the area in 1968, not far from church lived a Jehovah witness family. They owned a little store that sold snacks and became an immensely popular place for folks in the area. There were a few residents who would leave the store without paying! May be Horace did pay, I am not sure!
However, we always paid for our snacks. We used to take money from our mother’s pocketbook and load up with candy from that store.
We could not take the candy home, so we needed a place to hide it. New Light became our hiding place! We became so bold that we even included the house of worship as part of our little shenanigans. No, we did not hide the candy inside the church! We hid it underneath the church. There was a big difference!
At the rear of the church, there were steps for anyone exiting through the back door. Behind the steps was an area where we could hide a bag of candy and no one would know it was there. On our way to school the next morning, we would surprise the girls, Ethel (3rd grade) and Debra (1st grade) with the bag of candy we had hidden the evening before. That bag would contain nearly 100 pieces of candy. To ensure they would not tell on us, we would give them some of the candy, so they became culprits as well. To my knowledge, they never once told on us.
James was the oldest, and he was the main one who would take the money out our mother’s purse. There was another brother, Glendell, who also participated when he was visiting. Of the four of us boys, I was the one who was the most reluctant when it came to taking money. Perhaps, this had to do with the fact that I was a cousin as oppose to a brother, although we were being raised as such. There was always a part me that felt that I should not have the same liberties, or perhaps audacity, as the others.
However, we ran into a dilemma a couple years later! James turned 12 and had to be baptized. New Light had a little pool behind the main pulpit. When Reverend Mouzon dipped James below the waters in that pool and brought him back up in his white outfit, James was now baptized, which meant that he was now saved. And while he could continue to eat the candy from the stolen money, he was no longer able to take the money himself because he was no longer allowed to sin. To us there was no sin in benefiting from something being stolen if you didn’t steal it yourself.
The rest of us boys who had not yet reached the age of 12 were free to sin and had to take up the slack. But because of my reluctance, this would now mean that the burden of taking the money was basically left with Bobby who was only 9.
Lucky for us, James only remained saved for about two weeks before he began sinning again! He could now resume his responsibility of taking the money! The baptism had only caused us about two weeks of interruption!
As the years went by, my family and I became especially important to New Light. We were among the most faithful being that we were there every Sunday, and on time at that. We lived so close to the church there could be no excuse.
During those early years we had to share our preacher with another Church called Bethlehem. We had Reverend Mouzon on the 2nd and 4th Sundays, and Bethlehem had him on 1st, 3rd, and 5th! That meant that he was at Bethlehem more often than New Light. That would also mean that church services were shorter on the days when there was no preaching! We could then go home a bit earlier, maybe in 2 hours as opposed to 5 hours.
Sunday school at New Light would often begin around 9:30. There was one family that never showed up before 11:30 as they basically ignored Sunday school altogether. They didn’t even bother about showing up on days when there was no preaching because, due to their lateness, they would only be arriving to an empty building.
When I was 15 years old, I was asked to teach the Junior Sunday School class at New Light. There was an age gap at New light during this period because the church seemed to be missing teenagers. Actually, there few if any members between the ages of 15 and 25; if nothing else, there were few from that age group who would actually show up, unless there was a special event. The church basically had old people and kids. The Lady who taught the adult class was the granddaughter of the superintendent. Barbara was a very pleasant lady who seemed to have little, if any, social life outside of the church. She was a good teacher and I learned from her. She taught the adult class and I taught the junior class.
However, nearly a year later we showed up at church and there was no Barbara! Barbara had abruptly moved away to Baltimore, Maryland.
As the older folks tried to figure out who would now teach the adults, they were at a loss. Admittedly, some of this had to do with the fact that few of them felt that they read well enough to teach a class.
Then, all eyes settled on me! Someone said, “Let Jerome teach the adult class, and we will all help him!” I was thinking to myself if you all are truly capable of helping me, then why can’t you teach it yourselves?
That is how I became head Sunday School Teacher at New Light at 16 years old. Over the years I would receive many compliments about my teaching Sunday school. But the one that I remember the most was given by a Deacon from the Black River Baptist Association. This man’s job was to routinely visit the various churches within the “association” and offer feedback. After I finished teaching Sunday school on that particular morning, he reviewed the lesson and said:
“I have heard good Sunday school teaching in the past, but never in my life have I heard such good teaching from someone who is so young.”
Over the years I have realized that New Light was never one of the richer churches in our community. As a matter of fact, it has always been quite poor. However, it was strong in spirit. I remember during Easter of 1969, New Light requested that several of us young kids attend another church in the community just to participate in their program. As a friendly gesture, the Church collected some money to donate as a gift as part of our visit.
When we were at that church, there were two Christian ladies counting the money collected. Among their donation was a small envelope from my church, New Light. One of the two Christian ladies said to the other, “why is New Light giving us money, with their raggedy old church?”
They did not know that a little boy sitting near them was from New Light.
And they certainly did not know one day that little boy might just put them on “blast!”
50 years later!
Jerome