Terry Vaughan has gone home to be with the Lord after being diagnosed with cancer just three months ago. Please pray for his family. I met Terry for the first time more than 23 years ago, and we quickly became friends. It was like I had known him my whole life. Terry served on the Pastor Search Team that brought us to Cross Lanes Baptist Church. In life, we all have acquaintances, friends, and then we have friends who become family. Terry and Darlene Vaughan and family have been like that to our family.

Terry was known through his work with Union Carbide, where he retired. Many knew him as the highly skilled fiddle player that he was, and still others knew him through his service with the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists in past years. He treasured the opportunity to serve in our state and considered himself a missionary to West Virginia.  He deeply loved his family and showed all of us what sacrificial love looked like in caring for his wife, Darlene, during her extended illness. He would not have had it any other way.

Terry was one of the quickest-witted, genuinely funniest people I have ever known. If you couldn’t enjoy his company, something was just wrong with you. I laughed with him until I cried more times than I can count, and I will always cherish these memories of him.

Having come to know Jesus Christ somewhat later in life, when he got saved, he got radically saved and never got over it! He loved the Lord, and he loved people. He shaped my ministry in so many ways over the years. Terry was a faithful Deacon, serving Christ in His church with the utmost sincerity and integrity. I never had to worry that he wasn’t going to support me, pray for me, and say what he needed to say when it needed to be said. For decades, he led a New Christian Class for children. He had a deep love for children and a special gift in ministering to them. Countless children came to faith and/or were discipled because of Terry’s dedication. He was a passionate evangelist everywhere he went.

I was introduced to mission work in Moldova by Terry in connection with our friend and brother in Christ, Dearing Garner. We traveled there together so many times, sharing the Gospel, serving children, working in churches, and more. I have spent more weeks than I can count on mission in Jamaica with Terry, walking the hillsides sharing Jesus from house to house, and serving in the churches. We worked in Disaster Relief in places like Louisiana and Mississippi post-Katrina, when Terry was the blue hat on our site. He knew how to do most everything and would quickly put his head down and go to work.

Terry will be greatly missed. Friends and family members like him cannot be replaced. At the same time, we rejoice. The last time I talked to Terry, my son Nathan read Psalm 23 to him, and I prayed for him. I told him, “Terry, the Lord has been with you every step of the way, and He is going to be with you from here forward. You can count on it.” He looked at me and said, “EVERY STEP.” The promise of Scripture is to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Psalm 116:15 “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

We will gather soon for his homegoing celebration. I am reminded of the promise of Revelation 14:13 ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

For now, I say so long, Brother Terry. I’ll see you again, old friend, on the other side of the Jordan, in the presence of our Lord.