Dr. Roberson - now with the Lord

Dr. Roberson was the Founder and President of Tennessee Temple University, Chattanooga, TN. I went to Temple in 1975 as an 18 year old, and felt sorely out of place, primarily because I was an MK. I only stayed 1 semester before being asked by Dr. Roberson to leave (that is a nice way of saying that I was expelled).

I returned 2 years later, stayed another semester, then transferred to Northland Baptist Bible College. There was a young lady at Northland that I had a strong desire to be close to. I stayed at Northland for a single semester, and moved back to Chattanooga to prepare for our wedding. Gloria and I were married in June 1979, started school that fall and only stayed in school for about a month.

We never expected to resume our schooling, but in 1985 I returned to Temple, with Gloria returning in 1986. We graduated in 1990 and 1991 respectively. For me it was 15 years after I had begun school.

I am grateful for the education that I received at Temple, and thankful for Dr. Roberson. It was always a pleasure to see him on campus and to shake his hand.

Dr. Lee Roberson Now with the Lord.
Report from Dr Roberson's funeral
On the Passing of Lee Roberson

1952 - Jack and Doris McKillop arrive in Jamaica

From my dad's memoirs.

It was July 14, 1952 that we loaded the largest airplane that we had ever seen in our lives, a Trans Canada Airline North Star. It even had four motors! And it held 44 passengers! We sat in the tail section, supposing that was the safest place. All aboard with its brakes on the four huge props were screaming, and the plane vibrating like a huge bird eager for flight. It would be ten hours before touch down, counting a one-hour layover in Tampa.

I slept much of the way from Tampa to Kingston. Awakened in time to keep looking for any sign of our little island. Then suddenly I saw little lights glimmering here and there in an ocean of darkness. I bowed my head and prayed, "Dear Lord, make me a little light in that ocean of sin and darkness. Knowing the layout of the airport and runway, I picked out the runway as we circled for landing. It was 9:30 P.M. Peering into the darkness I saw the harbor coming toward us rapidly. Then the touch down, it seemed barely on the end of the runway.

Jim Green, the missionary that we were to relieve for his first furlough, was there to meet us. Edna, Jim's wife, had gone home prior to this for medical reasons. Their first child, a little girl, had been born up in the hills without the help of a doctor, and lived about 15 hours. They called her Lucy. Now Edna was several months pregnant with their second child, and decided since it was furlough time, she would go home early for the birth in Ontario.

Congratulations to my wife on her graduation

Gloria took her final exam on Sunday, and is now finished her graduate program.

You can read her April 30th blog, and see a picture of her Kindergarten teacher and class. In the picture she is on the right in the third row.

Congratulation's dear, you've come a long way!

Mission Trip Financial Support

Here is a portion of my Dad’s memoirs that pertains to the support they needed to go to Jamaica in 1952. Remember as you read this that both of my parents are farm kids from Canada.

Baptist Mid-Missions wanted us to raise $200 per month of pledged support. We had an invitation to speak at a church in Wisconsin for a weekend. We were scheduled to speak in Sunday School, as well the morning and evening services, plus their Monday morning radio broadcast – and of course, we thought that all American churches were wealthy.

We were only lacking $35 in monthly support to meet the budget, which the mission had established for us, so we eagerly drove the more than fifteen hundred miles round trip. On the trip to Wisconsin we slept in the back of our pickup truck, spent more than $45 in gas and meals and received a check from the church for $19.56!

It was a lesson in trusting the Lord, not man for His supply. We would need this lesson many times on the field.

Once we got to $191 of the suggested $200 monthly support, Baptist Mid-Missions agreed for us to proceed to the field. We lacked, as near as we could figure, $325 for our airline tickets and shipping. We made reservations on Trans Canada Airlines (now Air Canada), but had canceled those reservations since we did not have the money for the tickets.

We were living with Doris' parents on the farm. One afternoon we were in the mission office in London, Ontario, which was in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Lankin. Mr. Lankin was aware that we that we had canceled our plane reservations, and he asked us what our plans were. The only answer we could give was that we had none, we were simply waiting on the Lord to supply our need.

That evening we made the financial need a special matter of prayer. Had God not promised in Philippians 4:19 to supply all our need “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus"? We believed He would supply, but when? I don't want to say that we demanded that the Lord meet our need. That is not the right wording. But we reminded Him how he had met our need many times before! We knew nothing was too hard for Him.

As I drove back to the mission office the following morning I was thinking of the $325 shortfall of funds that would get us on our way. There were three letters waiting for us. The first letter that I opened had a single dollar bill in it. The second letter contained a $14 check. There was a $300 check enclosed with the third letter! I sat there at the dining room table trying to get my eyes adjusted to the $300. My faith was weak. My initial reaction was that I had misread the number – that I saw more zeros than were actually there? I called Doris, and while I was trying to tell her about the checks I had, she was trying to tell me that a $100 check had arrived in the mail from our supporting church in Woodstock, Ontario – Oxford Baptist. We only needed $325 and we had $415. We immediately made reservations to fly to Jamaica on July 14, 1952. The Lord was teaching us to trust Him fully. And how we would need this precious lesson in the twenty-four years ahead.

My parents have told me that the $191 was raised from churches that committed to $5 in monthly support and families or individuals who committed to $1 in monthly support. The cost for our 2007 trip is $2250, slightly more than ten times the amount of monthly support that my parents needed. In that regard, and to honor the families and individuals that supported them with $1 gifts, we are requesting that those of you who give via PayPal limit your gift to $10.

This photo of Cataboo Baptist Church shows their new building, which because of limited space surrounds the building that my dad built. The new roof will cost almost $4000. If you would like to give more than $10, the additional funds will be used for the roof.

The email address for PayPal donations is cataboo07 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration of this need.

Jamaica Mission Trip - July 13-23, 2007

Let me tell you a story about 3 churches:

Cataboo Baptist Church (St Elizabeth, Jamaica) is the first church where my folks ministered when they arrived in Jamaica in 1952. My dad wrote the following in his memoirs of life as a missionary:

The Cataboo Baptist Church was nothing but a large shack with a thatch roof, in a swamp area at sea level. The church had bought a new piece of land with the hopes of building a better building.

The Cataboo people were a wonderful people. The men would go out along the river to plant rice at daybreak, then by nine or before would be at the church to work. The women would come to cook rice, yam, and other vegetables in kerosene tins sitting on three or four rocks high enough for the fire beneath.

In 1975 before leaving to attend college in Tennessee, I traveled with my dad and sang at Cataboo on the last Sunday that I was in Jamaica.

Ardella Baptist Church (Lakeland, FL) was our home church when we lived in Florida. In both 1997 and 2000, our family hosted mission trips to Jamaica with the young people. Matt McCraw, one of the young men who was with us on both trips, later went to Boyce College (Louisville, KY) to prepare for the ministry.

North Naples Baptist Church (Naples, FL) is the church where Matt currently serves as Youth Pastor. Matt contacted me last year to inquire about taking a VBS team to Jamaica.



My eldest daughter Sarah, will accompany me as we host the group from North Naples Baptist Church, and return to Cataboo, to conduct VBS during the week of July 16. We will be leaving Columbia on the 13th and returning on the 23rd.



Will you prayerfully consider partnering with us to pray for and financially support the trip? The total cost is $2,250. You may donate online via PayPal – cataboo07 (at) gmail (dot) com – or send a check to:

J. Brian McKillop
7103 Frost Ave, Lot 36
Columbia, SC 29203

Moving Notice

My blog used to be at Xanga:

www.xanga.com/jbmckillop

I recently moved here and changed the name. I also copied all of my Xanga posts here.

Having more than 1 email account - Part 2

In my previous post I wrote the following:

We may have to change to (a) Road Runner account to save money. I could buy 4 more boxes of Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream (when it's BOGO) with the monthly savings. Now that is a real incentive. But I would make the change only if I could keep the same email prefix - you know, the letters before the @.

Well, after much thought (mostly about the extra Breyers ice-cream I could buy), I have decided to change my primary email account. I will be using my Gmail account as my primary-primary account, and using my Hotmail account as my primary-secondary account.

In a few days I will be sending an email to my entire mailing list to inform them of this dramatic change in my life. Many of those addresses will bounce because there are others who have changed their email address and have never notified me of the change (should that tell me something?).