Everyday Hero #5

 September 18, 2022

Everyday Hero #5 is John Helwig.

In 1960, I was the sullen kid dragged to church and Sunday School by my parents. If that weren’t bad enough, I had to attend Sunday night youth meetings, too. Those were the days of Sunday evenings’ “The Wonderful World of Disney,” and “Wild Kingdom” with Marlin Perkins, both holding forth adventures and wonders designed to appeal to an 11 year-old boy. Having to miss those TV shows didn’t do much to endear me to church.

But on this particular evening as we kids sat in the long, narrow room in the basement corner next to the church kitchen, a short, stocky, bald elderly gentleman stepped into the room with a contraption he had put together, consisting of a light fixture wired to a bowl of water, with an ordinary household plug on the other end. The extension cord from which this was made had one of its wires cut in the middle; each end was submerged in the bowl of water while the other wire was unbroken to the plug, which was inserted into the outlet in the wall.

He began talking about Jesus being the light of the world, and how he said we are to be the salt of the earth. As he spoke, he slowly stirred table salt into the water, and the lightbulb began to glow, dimly at first, but more brightly as he continued stirring salt into the water. I don’t remember all that he said, but I was impressed enough that when he asked if anyone wanted to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, I raised my hand. 

After the meeting, I talked with the pastor’s wife, who explained to me repentance and faith in Christ, and how to be saved. I prayed that evening to receive Jesus into my heart, and in my youthful way, knew something had shifted inside me. The following Sunday when the invitation was given, I stepped out of my seat, walked down the aisle, and publicly proclaimed my faith in Christ. I was baptized soon after. Much has changed in the intervening years. That church grew and added a more contemporary worship space and the sanctuary became a gymnasium, but I could walk in there today, down the steps to the fellowship hall and that room by the kitchen, and point out the very spot where I stood and prayed, and was born again.

A few years after that night, John Helwig, the (as he described himself) “German Squarehead who brought me to Christ, became my grandfather, Poppa Helwig, when he married my widowed grandmother. Years later as he lay in the hospital dying, I visited him and reminded him of his influence in my life. Life hadn’t been easy for him in those latter years, but the smile that crept over his face that evening said everything I wanted to hear. Poppa Helwig is another Everyday Hero to me.