People Are People All Around the World with Connie Pritchard
Hi. I'm Eden. Hi. I'm Owen. Hi.
Intro:I'm Anna, and you're listening to Daring life changing lives podcast. Daring life changing Life podcast. And you're listening to the Sharing Life Changing Lives podcast.
Narrator:Welcome to Sharing Life Changing Lives, a podcast brought to you by the Henderson Church of Christ in Henderson, Tennessee. On this podcast, we explore real life examples of how God works through his people to make a difference. Join us each week as we share conversations that inspire, encourage, and remind us all the power of a Christ centered life.
Bill:Welcome to another episode of sharing life changing Lives. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Bill Wade. I'm the family minister here at the Henderson Church of Christ. And I'm privileged to, be a part of this good team. And today, we've got a really good friend of mine, and probably will be yours very soon. Her name is Connie Pritchard. Connie, welcome.
Connie:Hello. Thank you. Glad to be here.
Bill:Tell us a little bit about you.
Connie:Well, how much time do you have?
Bill:We have twenty five minutes.
Connie:I am originally from Steele, Missouri, and I taught school over there for thirty years. I have had two kids and four grandkids, and then I moved over here. I went through nasty relationship and stuff, had to get out of there. You know, it was just like I was dying literally. So I had gone on a few mission trips with these guys, and they kept saying, come over here. Come over here. I told them get me a job and I'd come. So Debbie McLaughlin got me a job. I went to work at Freed Hardman, and I'm here.
Robert:Wow. So you had already been on mission trips with Bill and crew
Connie:Yeah.
Robert:Prior to your moving over here.
Connie:Fact about, what, four or five of them.
Robert:I'm already learning something. So how did that happen?
Connie:Okay. That happened. I had a cousin that well, Josh Ketchum Yeah. Is my cousin.
Robert:Oh, okay.
Connie:Okay. His mom and daddy, said, hey. You need to go on a mission trip with us over there. And so that's where it all started. We went to Guyana First.
Robert:Oh, that's cool.
Connie:Yeah. Yeah. So that was good.
Bill:Yeah. And we went several years, and, Connie, her personality fit right in with all of ours.
Connie:Crazy. I
Robert:was gonna say, how does how does that scale on the spectrum? Is that a good thing or a or not so good thing?
Connie:It was a good thing.
Bill:It was a good thing.
Connie:Good. Good.
Bill:We we blended well, and, we're glad that she is here. Mhmm. So you said the Ketchums encouraged you to do mission work. Is that the first time you had done anything like that?
Connie:That was the first time. Yeah. After I went with y'all a few times, then I went, to Costa Rica with Seventh and Mueller over at Peregrine, Arkansas with some friends. And, of course, that was a little bit different, you know. And but we I at the coffee bean, mansion.
Connie:You might say they had the coffee beans right out there in the field and everything. But, anyway, we did vacation bible school and stuff, and so I did that. And then after I moved over here, you know, I've started coming to church here. And, everybody kept telling me now, you know, you need to go here and you need to go here and find your fit. And I said, well, they are my fit.
Connie:I've already been with them. I know who my fit is, so that's why I'm here.
Robert:It's cool. Bill, you've led I'm sorry. I'm I'm interrupting our script, but you've led a lot of mission campaigns. Mhmm. In part, is it right to say through your when you were a youth minister here at Henderson, or was that in addition to your youth ministry?
Bill:Yeah. That was, primarily, now when we were going to Guyana, Chris Hodges
Connie:was our
Bill:was our team leader. It was a medical mission.
Robert:Oh, okay. Okay.
Bill:And, Chris did a great job leading that. And we just kind of pitched in, you know, where we needed to.
Robert:Okay.
Bill:But then we we led some youth campaigns to Oregon and Michigan and, The Dominican Republic. Mhmm. And, then when I stepped back from youth work, Connie went with, with us to Costa Rica this past summer. Yeah. And, I went just to kinda help Caleb, the new youth guy Yeah.
Bill:Kinda get his feet wet and Mhmm. Established a little bit. And, and it was great for me because, you know, Connie and I had all those experiences before, so we could just kinda pick up. And, it was it was funny because, we were we were some of the older ones, on the trip. And so we're we're looking
Connie:at Oh. I was the older one. Some of.
Bill:Wow. Well, Connie was the oldest person since she's gonna drag me.
Connie:A mammy with five great grandkids.
Bill:But it was funny, you know, us talking about and just looking at things through a different set of eyes Yeah. Because of the experiences that we've had and and trial and error with what works and what doesn't work. And but that was a great trip too, and and Connie was a blessing too. We wanted her to go so our girls, our teenage girls, could, you know, have someone to take care of them. And I really couldn't think of anybody that I would personally, want taking care of them other than Connie Mhmm.
Bill:For two reasons, and we're gonna get into some of her world travels. She she is, very, very, travel savvy.
Connie:Mhmm.
Bill:But two, she just she puts people at ease with Yeah. The way she carries things. So Mhmm. What was it about the trip to Guyana? Was it was it the people that you went with, or was it the people there that when when the trip rolled around again, you said, I wanna go?
Connie:I think it was the people there. I really do. Because it's such a different culture in everywhere we go. You know, it's all different. But when you're here, it's just easy.
Connie:You go to church. You know? You don't think anything about it. You get up, put on your clothes, you come, you're comfortable, everything. When you go there, they're walking miles and miles to get to church.
Connie:Remember the one we had out there, it was in raining and they were walking in the rain out there and they carried this man in that had to have a leg amputated. I mean, you know, and they don't think anything about it. They come from everywhere. And when they get there, they are dressed to the hilt. And I don't mean fancy, but I mean, white dress is clean and how they clean them.
Connie:I don't have any idea. But they're just so happy to be there and that we're there to help them and not just medically, but they go through a bible study too. And they're they ask questions, you know, they're eager with it. Then you got all the little children there and it just I don't know. It's like you think I'm doing something.
Connie:I'm spreading the word. But then when you leave and you get back home, you realize you got more out of it than what you probably gave or at least what you think you gave. You know? I've grown so much from all of the trips and the Haiti ones, especially.
Bill:So what are some of your most memorable experiences that you've seen on your travels?
Connie:I would say that the most memorable ones came from Haiti. Okay? When we because I've been to Haiti Five, Six, I don't know, seven times. And, with the children's home over there. And the first time I went actually was with Estes right after the earthquake.
Bill:Okay.
Connie:I went with about four or five people there, you know. And honestly, my first impression when I got there to the home that night, you know, and of course it's burning up hot. You know, there's no air conditioning. You're walking into this strange country. You're going through this airport.
Connie:She's like, oh, my word. You know? And I really thought, oh, Connie, what have you done? But by the time we left, because we we we bagged up food and we would take it out to the hillsides where they had all fled to from the earthquake because they were also scared of something else. But then as time went on, then I started going with y'all back over there, and I met Roberta Edwards.
Connie:Mhmm. And Roberta, this is where I'll cry because Roberta and I got to be best friends. I had a well, she had a house here, and I lived in it and took care of it and fixed it up. And we I kept two of the kids here that came to college here there. And, you know, her plan was to bring a lot of kids here.
Connie:And so and then when she would come, she had a place to stay. She was there. And we were so much alike. She had gone through a divorce similar to mine. We had that relationship.
Connie:You know, she had she considered all these kids her kids, and then they became my kids. And even in talking about what the future held, you know, I talked to her the night before she was murdered. She called me and we talked for about thirty minutes and you could tell there was something going on, something she didn't feel right about. I mean, I remember that so distinctly, but I think that was just seeing how they appreciated it. The kids, oh, they would just of course, little kids everywhere I know will come up and love you, but these were different.
Connie:They were. And one time, you don't know if you were with us. You went all the time, didn't you? Yeah. I went one time.
Connie:That was it? Oh, when you did the print the sermon, you did the class down there in
Bill:the Yeah.
Connie:Yeah. That's right. Well, this one time at the bible clinic, this lady gone through, she had a newborn baby. And I was holding the baby while she was getting her medicine and stuff, and she just started to leave. I mean, literally walked out, and we had to stop her.
Connie:And she comes back in, and she's saying something. So we get the interpreter. She wanted me to keep the baby, take the baby, bring the baby back here with her.
Bill:Oh. And,
Connie:of course, they had to explain to her we couldn't. And then kinda sad note, Roberta went back several days later trying to find the woman and the baby. Couldn't find him anywhere.
Bill:Find him. Oh, man.
Connie:And so, I mean, that's sad. That was sad. But then you see the joyousness of them all. Of Of course, you weren't there that much, so I can't talk. But, anyway, you should've come back with me more.
Connie:But they were always so eager to get in. Of course, it was a medical clinic.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:But then you would do some bible studies with them. We'd do a little vacation bible school with them, you know, and they were eager to hear that too. And they were always thankful, polite, you know, they still were dressed, you know, nice when they would come in. And you just wonder how they live in their poverty that they live in. How do they do that?
Bill:Yeah. Yeah. I have a couple of memories from my one trip from Haiti. I mean, it was hot.
Connie:It's very hot.
Robert:What time of year? Was it in the summer?
Bill:Oh, yeah. Yeah. July. Yes. It is such a dry heat.
Connie:And You don't sweat. You're drinking water all day long, and you don't even go to the bathroom.
Bill:Yes. Oh. Yes. It's unreal. Oh.
Bill:I did get my head shaved with just a guy holding a straight razor, like like something that would fit in
Connie:it. Yeah.
Bill:He was just holding the little square Right. Shaving my head, and I was nervous the entire time. Luke Fader decided to do it too, and and he had a lumpy head because he had Oh, no. Cuts all over my Oh, no. Mine was perfect.
Bill:I remember that. And then me and Taylor Hodges somehow got trapped outside the gates, and we were surrounded by, like, 300 Haitian stores.
Connie:I don't
Bill:even fucking And I thought,
Connie:how old were
Bill:we gonna get back in because they wanted inside the gates. We did too. Right. If we open the gates, they would just kinda shove in.
Connie:Yeah. We were up on the balcony watching this Oh, yeah. Of the house.
Bill:It was crazy. It was, pretty pretty intense there for a minute. They weren't Yeah. They weren't trying to harm us in any way. And Mhmm.
Bill:And I remember Taylor just looking at me like, mister Bill, what we gonna do? And I said, just stay by me. That's all you need to do. I didn't know what I was
Connie:gonna do. Is that where David Jackson got in the doorway?
Bill:Yeah. Big Harry showed up.
Connie:Woah. Yeah. Oh, it was that bad. And then a Haitian man bigger than David showed up, and he's he wouldn't even come into the clinic. He says, I'll take care of this.
Connie:He stood in the doorway
Bill:Yep.
Connie:And stopped them all, and they would pass kids under between his legs to get in there to see them first.
Bill:Wow. Wow.
Connie:So And
Bill:Shay loved it. You know, Shay out of our family, Shay kept going back and back and back. And and I remember you called me the night Roberta was shot, and Shay was down there. And I just remember feeling so hopeless. Uh-huh.
Bill:Not hopeless, but helpless Yeah. Because I couldn't I couldn't do anything. And and then Frank, Bradford called and said, hey. We're coming home. And so, that was that was terrible.
Connie:It was it was terrible. Mhmm. I had to go to the college and get Mishmala. That was one of her kids that was here at the dorm and tell her, it was like. Yeah.
Connie:Then she of course, course, I brought her back to the house to stay, but it was just but, you know, but on a on a happy note, though, there was a lot of laughing all
Bill:the time. Absolutely.
Connie:You'd sit around. I mean, we have we'd have meals with them and eat their food, you know, and laughing and cutting up and carrying on. And they're just, you know, like like here. I mean, the kids are. It's great, and they appreciate everything that's going on too, and they always have.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:But and then all the airport experiences that we had, of course, you that's going anywhere in there.
Robert:Flights are always on time, and they're never delayed or canceled.
Connie:Alright. Talking about Bobby Ketchum and them, you were you that was probably the trip to Guyana. We were in the airport in DC, I think. And, anyway, they had a gold blanket that somebody had given them as a warm blanket kind if you got caught in the airport. We're about four or five of us under that blanket in the airport.
Bill:And Bob eating ice cream.
Connie:Yes. Yes. Always. No matter where we went.
Bill:Everywhere. Just he had
Connie:to have
Bill:a cup of ice cream.
Connie:That's it right there. But that's what.
Bill:So besides Guyana and Haiti, where else have you done mission work?
Connie:Well, Costa Rica. That's it for the mission work.
Bill:Mhmm. Okay.
Connie:I have well, I did when I was in college, my freshman year, we went down to the Gulf Coast and knocked on doors. That was an experience. You know, we don't do that nowadays much.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:But then you could just go knock on doors and not be afraid.
Robert:Yeah. Yeah.
Connie:And, we went I remember meeting and then coming back the next day with some people, a man, some man with us, you know, and sitting down and talking to some people with some ideas about worshiping God. That's all I can say. Not like ours. Okay. It's a learning experience.
Connie:Oh, and Guyana too one time. This lady I was doing the bible study with before she saw the doctors, she was like, I wanna say, like, a voodoo princess or something the way she her her beliefs were. I mean, she was really out there. Yeah.
Bill:Yeah.
Connie:It was wild talking to her. But I mean, she talked to us about that.
Robert:I was gonna say, like, what how do you how do you respond to people with such different ideas from what we encounter?
Connie:We kinda had, I think they gave us a sheet with some scriptures on it that would help with some things. Good. And so you just kind of talk to them from the heart and start asking them, but what about this, though? Well, what about this? You know, making them think this way.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:But they it's different. It was different. I was like, oh my. You know? And then why we I'm we invited her to come back and talk to somebody else too the next day.
Connie:Of course, they don't usually.
Robert:Right.
Bill:But big religions in Guyana are
Connie:Islam Uh-huh.
Bill:Hindu, and, there were some challenges. Yeah. Now when you came to Freedom Hardeman, you started doing some overseas traveling too with students.
Connie:I've been, I think, five times to overseas to Europe with freed hardman students. And, of course, when we go to church there, you know, the church there in the building we own this building, and there's a church that meets downstairs in it. And, of course, they speak French. You know? And they did for a long time have an interpreter, but that just got to make the service so long.
Connie:And so they decided they didn't want that as much anymore. But, you know, we had your songbooks so we could sing. And, you know, we would try to sing in their language, and all the kids would make fun of me because even with my southern accent, when I try to say the French words, they weren't coming out exactly right. So I finally would sing like this. But everybody and they had, a Thursday night little bible study.
Connie:I went to it a couple of times, you know, because, you know, the bible, we had that and they would be reading and they're just, you know, they're so happy to see you too. And this is not like a poverty place that we're talking about here. But it's like Christians everywhere have the love for God, and they have a love for fellow people, fellow Christians, and they'll just do whatever for each other. You saw that with them even. And this man that did interpreting actually was from The United States.
Connie:I had just went over there years ago and had married somebody and he'd been there forever. And, I think he and her were divorced and he would come down by car every Sunday. I think it was an hour drive from where he had where he lived to do this, to worship with them there and help them.
Bill:So what all countries on on that side of things did you get to see while you were there?
Connie:Well, we've been to England, to France, to Ireland, to Scotland, think all of them up there. I haven't been. Okay. I haven't been to Norway in Sweden. Not easier to
Robert:say where
Connie:she has it. Switzerland. You know? I haven't been up in that part.
Robert:Okay.
Connie:And pretty much down in here, all of it. You know? And so the one thing we had trouble with there when we would go on, free travel, they called it, where the kids could go, you know, and you have to turn an itinerary where you're going. And so I went with these two girls. One of them had been one of my tutors at school because I was over tutoring and testing.
Connie:That was my first trip, really. I took a job here in July. Come January, they come to me and say, hey. We've got this already okayed with everybody. You have a passport and you're single.
Connie:Would you want to go to Europe in February? Oh, wow. Oh my. Okay. Yeah.
Connie:We'll do this. Okay. So one of my SIs, my supplemental instructors, I was telling her, she says, oh, miss Connie, Don't worry about it. I'll take care of you. She did.
Connie:Oh, she did. She did. She trained me well over there with everything. But well, you can't find grape juice. It is hard.
Connie:You can find all kinds of juices, but it's hard to find grape juice. And so we had gone up to, Moscow Mhmm. On our free travel.
Bill:And we
Connie:wanna have our little worship service, the three of us, you know, where we had the crackers. We found them, and we finally just got a grape soda. We couldn't find any grape juice. And we said, dear God, will you not know you will accept this because this is all we can find.
Robert:Sometimes we just have to make do, don't
Connie:we? Yeah. And then, oh, in Italy, they serve real wine.
Robert:Mhmm.
Connie:And we told the kids that before we went to church. Yeah. You know? And I don't know if they just didn't remember or what, but, oh, my word. They took a sip and then they go.
Connie:And just look around. It was like, oh, and I'd go. So when we got outside and got away, then we talked to them again about it. But, you know, they thought they were sinning.
Robert:You know, those Italian Christians over there, they're just waiting for the poor little
Connie:Americans. That's it. That's it. Right there. But you can still find churches.
Connie:Church of Christ there if you look. Yes. Oh, Athens, Greece. Right. You know, we went there, and the the man, he has he does a lot of work over in Athens, and he even has a tour guide thing where he can take you to the islands and to Patmos and all that too.
Robert:Mhmm.
Connie:So, you know
Bill:Well, I don't know if you remember, but the time I was in Haiti, Roy is preaching, and it comes time for the Lord's supper. And there's so many people in this little church that we're actually sitting on the stage behind the pulpit. Mhmm. And Linda Hodges is sitting next to me, and they passed the and I looked at it, and I remember thinking, okay. It's purple.
Bill:And, of course, we sipped it. And, I remember thinking, okay. This is something that you'd find out of your uncle John's basement. Oh, no. There was nothing Sorry, uncle John.
Bill:And and Linda leans over to me and says, this is not Welch's. And I'm
Connie:like, no. That's it right there.
Bill:So would you say in in all of your travels, you know, obviously, you're seeing lots and lots of people. Mhmm. Are you more impressed with people from different cultures or disappointed or or or what?
Connie:I think I'm probably more impressed with the third world country cultures.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:Because they have nothing literally, you know, and yet they are making the biggest sacrifices to come to worship and to do right and to take care of their kids and just try to stay clean. You know, they walk around with buckets like this on their head, carrying water because they don't have water in their homes. And then when they come to church, oh, their kids, they don't act up in church. Let me tell you this one place. We went one time there in Haiti.
Connie:We're sitting there and all of a sudden, we see this man get up, and he didn't have really a stick. But he has something in his hand, and he went back there and he got a few of those little kids and
Robert:Oh, no.
Connie:Straightened them out. And I sat there good the rest of the service, but, you know but you see that they take it. I don't wanna say more seriously than us. It's just a different culture.
Robert:Mhmm.
Connie:It's just a different culture. You know, sometimes it seems like some people are coming and I've been guilty of this too. Just, I gotta hurry up and get to church. Mhmm. That attitude where they're making plans to get there no matter how long it takes them to get there.
Robert:Yeah. Great sacrifice.
Connie:Yes. Yeah. Big sacrifices. You know, not like in France and some of those places, you know, it's not that big a sacrifice for them. But still some of them have to travel, you know, an hour to get there because they don't have them on every corner in those foreign countries.
Connie:But I think the third world countries were the ones that made me appreciate, not necessarily God more, but appreciate what we have and how much we have resources we have that they don't have. And that we just take it too much for granted and we need to be you know, they'd love to have the opportunity to study like we can.
Robert:Yes.
Connie:And they don't have that. That's the ones you come home and cry.
Bill:Have you ever regretted going on on a mission trip or anything like that?
Connie:Just that one moment, the first time I went to Haiti. Oh, no. But then, like I said, by the end, no. I've never never regretted it.
Bill:Well, reason reason I'm asking is, you you know, there's gonna be people that that hopefully will watch this and and and hear your story and think, well, I can't do this.
Connie:You can. Yeah. So But there's something for everybody to do on a mission trip, just like Shay. Now Shay doesn't wanna go out knocking on the doors or do anything like that. She's in the kitchen.
Connie:She's taking care of all that. She's making sure we're all fed. That's her job. And we gotta have everybody has a job to do. The bus the drivers, they have a job.
Connie:The medical team has a job. The ones that are doing the bible studies before, the ones that are taking care of the little kids that come. Everybody on a mission trip has a certain job. And, you know, you don't feel comfortable doing bible studies. You don't have to.
Connie:There's plenty of work. And, you know, just like in any, well, even any organization, any business, you gotta have everybody in it for it to work coherently. And that's the way God's word is over there trying to get the word across and his and his love. Because I think sometimes we're sharing his love more than we're sharing his word. We got the bible.
Connie:We're talking to him about it. We're trying to get him to come if we're having a service or anything in some of the places, but it's his love that we're showing him.
Bill:Mhmm. Yeah. My experience with MissionWorks has always been, kinda like what you said. I have felt that I grew more. Yeah.
Bill:Now one of the things that I've always appreciated about the folks that we go specifically to work with, you know, like our host, they are so gracious. They're so thankful. Mhmm. They are providing for us. In a lot of ways, they are sacrificing their personal time, even finances that they really don't have to take care of us because they recognize that we're there for them.
Bill:Right. That motivates me to sacrifice, you know, a little bit of my time, a little bit of my energy and my sweat, and and share life with them because one huge takeaway is we're all created by the same creator.
Robert:You
Bill:know, he is all of our God. And and and so taking the message of him, to folks who may or may not have ever learned
Connie:Right.
Bill:Is a special thing.
Connie:Right. That's like in you know, we went to, Costa Rica this summer. You know, at that little congregation, they all had a job there to do. Even the little kids, they had them doing some stuff,
Bill:you know,
Connie:and the women making all the food for all of us coming in at different times and the drivers they had for us. So so Mhmm.
Robert:Is there a universal challenge that you've seen that people have in all the different places that you've been? We've talked about how some of the third world countries are are different. But are there similarities, but among the peoples that you've experienced in all your travels or universal challenges that they face?
Connie:Well, I think that in the mission field, especially, not necessarily the Europe trips, you know, because that's a whole different ballgame.
Bill:Yeah.
Connie:But, you know, their challenge is just how am I going to get there? How am I going to come to no cross better? How am I gonna you're having something, their poverty level, you know, they don't have food. They don't have housing. They don't have some of them live in tents all the time over in Guy in Haiti.
Connie:And but yet they're more eager to get there. And I think we have a challenge in that. So that's what I kinda gained from the Haiti trips. More of it is is what we're lacking here in The United States because we take everything for granted. And over there, they don't because they don't have anything, but they've got the smile on their face.
Connie:They got the prayerful heart, and they have got the spirit that we need to follow after.
Robert:So those people have a lot to teach us.
Connie:They do. That's
Robert:what you're saying.
Connie:They do. You learn a lot, don't you, Bill?
Bill:You do.
Connie:Yeah. When you go.
Bill:Well, believe it or not, we're through.
Connie:Oh, wow. I can't believe it. I have so much more to say. More notes. We need to my second page.
Connie:The page.
Bill:Well, we'll get to part six later.
Connie:Okay.
Bill:Thank you, Connie, for being here.
Connie:Thank you for asking. Everybody, you can do this.
Bill:Mhmm.
Connie:There's a place for you somewhere, and it doesn't have to be an eight hour trip. Okay? Mhmm. It can be closer. It can be here.
Bill:And people are people.
Connie:People are people everywhere.
Bill:Everywhere. We hope you'll keep joining us, for future episodes, and you never know who you're gonna see. That's right.
Narrator:Thank you for listening to Sharing Life Changing Lives, a podcast from the Henderson Church of Christ in Henderson, Tennessee. We hope you've been encouraged by today's conversation and inspired to live a life of faith in Christ. You and your family are always welcomed with us at the Henderson Church of Christ. Join us on Sundays at 9AM for bible classes. We have classes that everyone in the family will enjoy.
Narrator:We meet for worship at 10AM and 5PM on Sundays. Our midweek Bible study takes place each Wednesday at 06:30PM. We'd love to see you anytime. Be sure to subscribe and share this podcast with others who might be blessed by it. To learn more about the Henderson Church of Christ, visit us online at hendersoncoc.com.
Narrator:Until next time, let's keep sharing life and changing lives for his glory.
