“Jerry, you will need a Faculty Advisor”.
I had begun ticking whatever boxes needed ticking, in the effort to comply with university protocol for registering a viable campus student organization. The entity we would formalize, it was decided, would bear the label, International Student Ministries.
As things evolved in our quest for birthing, by God’s grace, a vital spiritual presence among female and male students from across the world, a professor’s name emerged on our radar. What if our faculty-advisor-to-be were right this moment moving from classroom to lab over in ‘Keplinger’ – the facility housing the College of Engineering?
Jerry McCoy, a bona fide son of the Sooner State, had grown up in the shadow of the University of Tulsa where his father had taught before him. With a keen aptitude for the sciences, Jerry then studied at TU, and afterwards taking up an assignment as Professor of Physics.
Beyond the credentials and his status as an admired faculty member, Professor McCoy carried sure marks on and off campus of a devoted Christ-follower.
The day Jerry accepted the invitation to advisership marked one of ISM’s best moments!
A serendipitous sidebar played out in time, giving rise to smiles in the Lout/McCoy households. Jerry and Jerry in the service of a common ministry. . . Spouses Anne and Ann, each happy mothers of an ‘Amy’. . . both Amys working concurrently as coffee house baristas!
Occasional catch-up times between Professor McCoy and I affirmed our regard for student ministry, while deepening our friendship in a long obedience in the same direction*.
©2024 Jerry Lout *Eugene Peterson