It happened about 8:45 this morning. The worship team was practicing for the 10 am service when Cheryl H. ran into the sanctuary screaming something. We didn’t understand exactly what she said (above our loud music), but we knew it was very urgent. I assumed there was a fire; so did several others. I leaped off the platform and ran down the aisle, with the other guys following close behind.
Cheryl pointed toward the glass double doors leading to the back parking lot. One car was parked there, on the thick ice, and someone was laying down, not moving. By the time I descended the steps, I had heard enough pieces–“They took her purse,” “There were two guys”–to give me the idea of what happened. Basically, it was a mugging of an old lady on her way to church.
The lady was Joanna Herrick, one of the oldest members of our church, somewhere in her 70s. As she left her car and headed toward the door, two young men in perhaps their twenties approached her–they happened to be black, but could as easily have been white hoodlums in our area of town. They wrestled her purse from her grasp, then threw her to the ice. She was hurt, couldn’t move. Cheryl, from inside, heard Joanna cry “Help me!” She ran to a window in time to see the two guys disappear around the side of the church.
Joanna is a unique individual. This fall, she joined some of our youth leaders in attending a Youth Specialties Conference in Atlanta. A 70-plus woman among a bunch of wild and crazy youth workers. She volunteers three days a week at our drop-in youth center. She was in my 40 Days of Purpose group this fall, and I grew to greatly appreciate the progressive attitude of this godly person raised in a fairly traditional church. She’s not that crazy about the music we do, but if it appeals to people in our neighborhood, she’s for it. She never complains about anything. Over her lifetime, she has accumulated a ton of ministry experience. And she won’t quit.
Joanna was hurt bad. Couldn’t move. So she just lay on the ice for a good 20 minutes until the police (several cars) and ambulance arrived. Chris, our worship leader, knelt on the ice beside her and held her hand. There was pain in her leg. She told Chris, “I don’t have time to have a broken leg!”
But that’s what she’s got. The femur is broke near the hip. She’ll have surgery tomorrow. She has been active and independent, but this will change all of that. At least for a while. Fortunately, she’s got some great family members living in town, plus a church that loves her.
Our first year at Anchor, back in 1998, Pam had her purse stolen from the church foyer on a Sunday morning‚Äîagain, during worship team practice. So we spent the afternoon canceling all kinds of accounts, and on Monday had the locks on our house changed. At night, when a woman leaves the church, a guy always goes with her, watching until her car pulls away. It’s just prudent in our neighborhood. But this happened in broad daylight. Pam had taken the mace off of her key ring. I think she decided to put it back on.
