How old will you be in five years?

    It's no secret that there are signs that the Lord is coming soon, but Christ Himself also said "Occupy until I come" which means stay busy in His service.

    Before I enrolled at Southwestern in 1985, I heard someone say, "If I knew that the Lord would return in ten years, I would spend at least half that time at seminary because I would be more productive with the remainder of time by my time spent in seminary."

    It is the same principle found in the Bible: The Bible says, “If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.” – (Ecclesiastes 10:10).

    Another adage comes from a woodsman who was asked, “What would you do if you had just five minutes to chop down a tree?” He answered, “I would spend the first two and a half minutes sharpening my axe.”

Thomas Calvin and
Laura Kuykendall

    My great grandfather was Thomas Calvin Kuykendall, who came to Poolville in Parker County, Texas, with his parents in 1882 from New Hope Arkansas when he was 16 years old. He did not have a formal education beyond third grade. Born on a farm near Arkadelphia, Arkansas, there was no free public education there and then.

    He came to Christ at the age of 21 and after reading the Bible for three days and nights he was baptized. From then on, his life began to change. He was called to the ministry and felt the need for an education more than ever. He enrolled in the THIRD GRADE at Poolville schools, advancing rapidly and soon received his teaching certificate. As my grandmother told it, he then taught some of the same kids who first laughed at a grown man attending an elementary school.

    He taught school for many years in Wise and Parker Counties and eventually moved with his wife and children to Waco where he attended Baylor University for theological training. Unfortunately, his wife, pregnant with my grandmother, contracted German measles and he was forced to return to Parker County in 1905, the same year my grandmother, Murl Kurkendall, was born.

    He became pastor of Poolville Baptist Church and a year later, in 1906, he was elected missionary of Parker, Palo Pinto, and Wise counties. During his ministry he traveled rugged roads by buggy to little churches in the wildwoods. He was a pioneer preacher and a home missionary. 

    Three years later, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was birthed in Fort Worth. However, commuting to Fort Worth was obviously not as easy in those days, and with a full ministry and a full house, he was always an advocate for higher education, but unfortunately not a recipient.

    He was well known for his faithfulness in visiting the sick and dying in an era when they were cared for in their own homes instead of hospitals. He also comforted families in troubled times and helped collect money and provisions to aid those in need. He conducted training sessions for Sunday school teachers, and church youth leaders, and he held revival meetings under brush arbors dimly lit by little more than the kerosene lamps he always carried.

    He was a strong advocate of education, serving on the board of trustees for Decatur Baptist College, once housed in the county seat of Wise County and has now become Dallas Baptist University. He often asked young men (and women, like my grandmother and his other daughters), and especially those who were called into ministry, two very wise questions:

    "How old will you be in five years?"

    Regardless of their answer, he would then ask,

    "And how old will you be in five years with an education and a degree? Wouldn't it be better to get an education?" They inevitably got the point and enrolled in school.

Article that appeared in
the 1987 edition of
the UMHB News

    Just before the height of the Great Depression, my grandmother and her three sisters were all enrolled in the University of Mary Hardin Baylor as a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, making the national news for such a priority by my great-grandparents, who had ten children in all. All four went on to graduate, as did my great uncles and so many of their children and grandchildren. For years the portrait of Thomas and Laura Kuykendall hung in the halls of the University of Mary Hardin Baylor. (By the way, some of the verbiage above about TC Kuykendall was penned by Elva, who went on to be an accomplished author and journalist in an era when women were not readily received.)

    Although my great-grandfather died nearly three decades before I was born, my grandmother told me that story after I graduated from Texas Tech University and had surrendered to the gospel ministry. As a result, I enrolled in Southwestern Seminary in 1985, young, married, and practically penniless, thanks in part to my grandmother who allowed us to live with her in Weatherford.

    I now have an education and a degree and so thankful for the wisdom of my great-grandfather, T.C., whose initials I bear, and for my grandmother who encouraged me to "sharpen my axe."