Dear friends of Mexico Ministries:
I met Mary Lou Ross in December, 1956 when I was stationed at Perrin Field Air Force Base in Denison, TX. She was a local girl attending a church I visited and I fell for her in a flash. Five months later, on May 27, 1957, we were joined in holy matrimony and two polar opposite worlds collided! At 17, she was refined and intelligent and beautiful. At 19, I, on the other hand, well, not so much. You might say I was uncultured. You might even say uncivilized. Right off the banks of the Atchafalaya River in South Louisiana, I was more comfortable with the ways of the wild outdoors than with a life of what they call, “domestic tranquility.”
Would it even be possible for two total opposites to succeed in marriage? My dad said no, it wouldn’t be possible. My mom, she just said nothing. Just a few short years after our marriage I was in the ministry. My job was to preach, and Mary Lou’s job was to civilize the preacher! If God ever asked a woman to do the impossible, this might have been the time. I’m sure that she cried out, “God, help me!” many times, and I suspect that on occasion God cried out the same, “Mary Lou, help me!”
62 years later I am still preaching, still ministering the Gospel, and Mary Lou is still working at civilizing me, and likely singing those two Kris Kristofferson songs under her breath,“Why me, Lord?”, and, “Lord help me, Jesus!”
You are receiving this letter early because July 25 is Mary Lou’s 80th birthday, and I will be in Mexico and we will be apart (as so often happens on some of our special days). So as friends to Mary Lou and to me, I’m asking you to send her a text, an email, or a birthday card, and wish her your love and mine too.
David said to the beautiful Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me.” (1 Samuel 25.33). And now, these many decades after the first time I laid eyes on Mary Lou, I continue to echo these words of thanksgiving.
God bless you, and God bless my dear wife Mary Lou Myers,
Larry