World Renewal International

Growing up next to my grandparents was awesome. Grandmother was a stay-at-home mom and grandmother. Grandmother Milner was the worst checkers player in the world. She always lost. I am not sure when I realized she did this on purpose. It may have been when I realized my cousins always won too. She wanted to encourage us and build us up and that was one thing she did. This was her MO for grandkids. She would listen to your problems and was so encouraging.
[Pictured right are my grandparents Paul and Luella Milner on their 50th Wedding Anniversary November 19,1975]
Grandmother was a sewer. She made a lot of clothes for my female cousins. One of the things she did each year I was in grade school was to make my costumes for Halloween. The school would have contests each year for who had the best costumes. It was a big deal. We would go single file into the gymnasium and be judged in several categories. The school would have a panel of judges who gave prizes for most creative, or most original, etc. There was not the awareness at this time about Halloween’s connections to the occult and such. It was just about dressing up, candy and parties. One year grandmother took a pair of my pants and a long sleeve shirt and sewed the Sunday comics on them. I think I had a hat as well. I was just one big Sunday Comic! I won that year, in fact, I usually won something. My favorite was being a hobo. I do not know what the prize was for being a hobo but I won several.
Our house and grandpa and grandma’s house were only about 25’ apart. There was no air conditioning in the summer when it was hot. We just opened windows and turned on the fans. Often, at night after we were in bed I would sing. I mostly sang songs I learned in church. I always liked singing. Dad sang and whistled all the time. Mom loved music but couldn’t sing. My grandparents’ bathroom was across from the room I was in. Grandma would call out to me, “Gary that sure sounds pretty!” I was an only child for my first nine years. I am pretty sure I had it made. I was well cared for by mom and grandmother and had dad and grandpa for male role models.
For some reason when I was a child, I was scared of the dark. I was certain that there was something crouching in the darkness to get me. Shadows on the ceiling and walking between the two houses after dark were frightening. So my mom taught me to call grandma on the phone and ask her to “Watch me” as I would run between her house and ours. She would “Watch Me” and my mom or dad did the same from our house. Although they tried to explain I had nothing to fear, I was never convinced. They did not make fun of me, the just “watched me” and let me outgrow it. Today, I see this as very loving and kind. I will never forget a night in Haiti when I lay in bed next to my cousin Max and thought about how dark it was in Haiti when there is no electricity for lights. Suddenly I thought about our orphans and how they had once lived on the streets without lights because most had been abandoned. I have never gotten over the awareness of their plight in the darkness. It still drives me on their behalf today.
I know I have been blessed with family who loved me and were so kind. I believe they are a part of that mighty cloud of witnesses cheering us on that Hebrews makes reference. Those four have cheered me on since birth. Why would they stop now? I do live with an awareness of not wanting to disappoint them or failing them and the standard they set. I do not see that as an unhealthy pressure. I am blessed and I just wanted you to know.