We hear so much bad news, but Mission Mississippi’s march through every county in the state is great news.
The statewide organization has arranged students in each of our 82 Mississippi counties to carry a lighted wooden cross from one end of the county to the next.
At each county border, the students, members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), hand over the cross to students in the next county.
The students are a mix of black and white. The purpose is to highlight the racial reconciliation that is ongoing in Mississippi. It’s a story that is so often ignored.
Prayer rallies are part of the celebration in each county. Recently in Pike County, 300 people attended a celebration of praying and singing and racial reconciliation.
What is it about the nature of media that the good news is ignored while the bad news is trumpeted? Thousands of people across this state will be engaged in this great effort.
The Pike County rally began at sunset in downtown McComb. Fifty students from the Jubilee Performing Arts Center began singing contemporary Christian songs.
Earnestine Varnado of Mission Pike County called the gathering “a momentous occasion.”
“We are all in this together,” she said. “As we get to know each other, we can break those barriers racially and denominationally and that’s our goal.”
Summit Mayor Percy Robinson and McComb Mayor Whitney Rawlings welcomed the crowd, and Judge Keith Starrett delivered an invocation. Then Mission Pike County member James Jenkins asked people to gather in small groups and pray.
The audience broke up into groups of seven or eight people holding hands in circles as designated people prayed.
As Enterprise-Journal reporter Ernest Herndon wrote in his account of the evening, “The sounds of their prayers mingled with the rhythmic hum of crickets from the railroad tracks. Everyone applauded as the prayers ended.”
FCA spokesman Chris Weaver, a basketball coach at Parklane Academy, said he accompanied athletes from Parklane and North Pike as they carried the cross into McComb, and they got lots of waves of support from passing drivers.
“I don’t think we would have the problems that we have in the world today if we were so focused on what God has in store for us,” Weaver said. “I know if God can change me, he can change anybody.”
They’re calling it “Mississippi Glowing.” It’s a refutation of “Mississippi Burning,” which the rest of the nation still uses to stereotype us.
To mark Mission Mississippi’s 20th year of promoting racial and denominational reconciliation within the body of Christ, the walk kicked off at the State Capitol Building Aug. 7 and will stop in all 82 counties in 82 days before returning to Jackson for a statewide celebration Oct. 27.
“The Ku Klux Klan burned the cross. This is a lighted cross. If you burn something, it’s short-lived. If you light it, light travels for millions of years. That’ll preach,” said Mission Mississippi board member Lee Paris.
Nissan North America built the 11-pound cross with the help of Yates Construction. FCA athletes will take turns carrying it on the walk, which will include a celebration service in each county seat.
Two stops will be made at football games: Alcorn State University at Mississippi State University Sept. 7, and Texas A&M University at the University of Mississippi Oct. 12.
The Ole Miss/Texas A&M game has “a 100-percent chance of being on national TV,” Paris said.
“The university was very gracious. We’re going to be in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium during the game, not before the game. We want to bring honor to the Lord, but this will also be good press for our state.”
The celebrations in each county will look a lot like church, with prayer, singing, testimony from the athletes who’ve been carrying the cross, and even an invitation from Mission Mississippi “to follow the cross to Christ and to their communities,” said Mission Mississippi President Neddie Winters.
Mississippi is not a state. It’s a club. Lee Paris, founder of Mission Mississippi, is one of my closest friends. I have watched the amazing growth of Mission Mississippi through my friendship with Lee.
Not only is Lee my friend but his beautiful wife, Lisa, an accomplished artist, remembers going on a date with me to the Pizza Hut in Greenwood in my orange 1965 Mustang.
Lee and I have battled each other on the tennis court for two decades. He has kept the score of every match and contends he is in the lead. The length of our matches is a running joke at River Hills Tennis Club. We play points longer than most people’s games.
Over those years on the court, Lee has bolstered my faith. We have prayed together right there on the green clay, which I’m sure seemed pretty weird to any onlookers.
Lee and I have shared mystical moments on those courts that we’ll never forget. After a conversation about the sovereignty of God, we played a point in which shot after shot hit the outside of the line or the top of the net cord — until it became inexplicable. At the end of the point, we just looked at each other across the net and said, “Wow!”
Another time Lee lost his keys on the tennis courts. “It’s okay,” he told me. “I prayed I would find them.” I laughed at him for wasting prayers on such a trivial thing. “Oh no,” he said. “Nothing is trivial to God.” A week later, I was on a back court and noticed a glint behind a crevice. Curious, I bent down to look. It was a set of keys with an Ole Miss insignia. I called and confirmed they were his keys. “See!” he said.
A few months ago, Lee and I were playing tennis and I asked about a business deal he was working on. He told me it collapsed, completely unexpectedly. A year of work down the drain.
“But the next day, I was in a Mission Mississippi meeting and we were trying to figure out what to do to celebrate our 20th anniversary and God just spoke to me and told me what He wanted us to do. It’s a blessing my business deal failed. Now I can concentrate on this.”
It’s a great privilege that I find myself in a position where I can encourage newspapers around the state to offer front-page coverage for this great celebration of racial reconciliation. My personal connection with Lee makes it all seem that much more special.
Fall and redemption is fundamental to the human experience. Mississippi’s fall during the civil rights era gives our state a great chance to show the rest of the world what racial redemption looks like.
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream that even Mississippi, sweltering with the heat of injustice, with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
As the Mission Mississippi cross makes its way across our state and thousands dedicate themselves to racial reconciliation, King’s dream seems much more real.
