More than a pastor

My business was hanging by a thread. So was my spirit. Then my good friend and mentor was struck down by Covid-19

- BILL COURTNEY

The call came late on a mon-day evening. It was an elder at my church.

“Bill, I just heard from Kathe,” he said. “Tim died.”

Tim Russell was an assistant pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, where my family had worshipped for years. He’d been diagnosed with Covid-19 a little more than two weeks earlier. He was gasping for breath the last time I’d called him. Now he was gone. No visitors had been allowed at the hospital, not even Tim’s wife, Kathe. He’d died alone. He was 62.

Tim was more than my pastor. He was a good friend. A spiritual mentor. The man who’d taught me more about God and being a person of faith than just about anyone I knew.

There would be no funeral. Memphis was on lockdown, and public gatherings were prohibited. I hung up the phone, feeling shattered. How would I get through this coronavirus pandemic without Tim’s guidance?

I’d leaned on Tim for years, especially recently. I own a lumber mill, and starting in 2018 an international trade dispute had wiped out a third of my revenue. I’d laid off nearly half my workforce, sold equipment, sold my car and cut my salary by a third. After two years, I remained in the most tenuous financial position imaginable, just hanging on and praying to avoid another setback.

Then the virus hit. The market for my mill’s American hardwoods cratered. Supply chains froze. My operations manager and I oversaw a skeleton crew at the mill and sent everyone else home to quarantine with their families.