Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the Oconee Historical Society.
About The Oconee enterprise. (Watkinsville, Oconee County, Ga.) 1887-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 2013)
DECEMBER 19, 2013 THE OCONEE ENTERPRISE B5 Well-known Baptist missionary once lived in Farmington Famous Southern Baptist missionary Lottie Moon once lived in Farmington where she tutored children. Area churches financed her travel to China. [Submitted photo] by Blake Giles Ask a Southern Baptist who Lottie Moon is, and they can probably tell you about the diminutive missionary who went to China at the end of the 19th century. But not one in a thousand knows that she once lived in Oconee County and was able to leave for China because of the generosity of local churches. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which funds the foreign mission work of the Southern Baptist Convention, is the most successful missionary offering of its kind in his tory, said Charles Jones, historian for the Georgia Baptist Convention. The part of the Moon story that is told in Baptist churches every year details her nearly four decades as a missionary to China. She went in 1873. On her final return home in 1912, she died in Japan, partly from malnu trition. “She had health problems, but there was a famine in China, and she started giving away her food,” said Jones, the former pastor of Mars Hills Baptist Church in Watkinsville. Bom Charlotte Digges Moon Dec. 12, 1840 in Albemarle County, Va., she grew up on a plantation. Her fam ily’s wealth helped finance her edu cation. Jones said she was “arguably one of the best educated women in the South.” Part of her extended fam ily purchased Monticello from the Thomas Jefferson estate. One of her sisters, Orianna, was one of the South’s first liqensed female physi cians. She served as a Confederate Army doctor during the Civil War. Moon’s intersection with Oconee County began during the Civil War when she was a tutor to the Middlebrooks children at their home in Farmington. Zach and Sarah Brendel recently renovated the historic home. Moon’s former apartment is now a bathroom. The room is small, but so was Moon. She was 4-foot-3. Part of Moon’s contract with the Middlebrooks family was that she could set aside time in the afternoon for quiet time, prayer and Bible study. Sometimes she did this out side. One day geese were pestering her, so she paid young Percy Middlebrooks to keep the geese away. “He discovered this was a way he could make money,” Jones said. “So he started seeing that something would disturb her so that she would pay him to keep those disturbances away.” She left Oconee to teach at female academies, including Danville, Ky., and Cartersville. It was while she was at the latter that she prayed and felt the call to go to China. She began to make arrangements with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board to become the first single female to be sent to the foreign mis sion field. Moon’s call was a big deal in the Athens area. The Sarepta Baptist Association, a group of Southern Baptist churches in the area, raised the money to fund her passage to China. Jones said it was $600. “The church in Farmington was not a part of Sarepta,” Jones said, “but this was a pretty big deal that a mis sionary from Farmington was going on the foreign mission field.” In 1881, the men and women of the Cartersville Baptist Church decided to collect money one Christmas in support of Moon. That proved to be a forerunner of the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. A few years later when she wanted to come home on furlough, she need ed a replacement missionary in China. So a number of churches in Georgia banded together to collect funds to send a replacement to China so Moon could come home. Moon died on Christmas Eve, 1912, in Kobe Harbor, Japan. Six years later the Southern Baptists named their Christmas for eign mission appeal after Lottie Moon. The national goal this year is $175 million. Benson’s Bakery DOCK SALE NOW OPEN! Only 3 more days! Open through December 21 st with $20 minimum purchase- Wednesday, Thursday & Friday 9:00 a.m. - 4:30p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. - 1:00p.m. 134 Elder Street • Bogart 770-725-5711 * aX&Bmnwm. ■ nns(;i*Ki if n t.s n ;/ i ro 1 ••. J-i 35 3* )/ ■ vi ■'!? IVJi'l. l.ll 51 52 53 55 55 V> V X 55 «S : * 1, K/ 7\ n n 2<t n n 77 /wto ■ ■ 5 5 S3 U tin BWfttiwmtw C3GO Malcom Bridge Elementary School Principal Andrea Roper celebrates her last year at the school. She is pictured here with kindergarteners of Krystie Hassemer’s classroom. [Photo by Michael Prochaska] MBES Principal Roper announces retirement by Michael Prochaska Malcom Bridge Elementary School Principal Andrea Roper couldn’t fathom becoming an empty nester twice over when her own children went off to college a few years ago. She is regarded as a mother figure to students at the school. But come May, she will say her goodbyes and truly settle down in an empty nest. “[She] treats her staff as profes sionals, but also as a family,” said kindergarten teacher Krystie Hassemer. “She always called me her ‘baby teacher’ because she has i ‘raised’ me from a student teacher to a paraprofessional and through nine years in the classroom. She has challenged me to never stop learning and growing as a teacher.” Roper has been principal at MBES since 2002, before which she served as assistant principal for two years. At the onset of her career she was a teacher at Greensboro Primary School, where she later took on an administrative role. In- between, she taught at Oconee Primary School and was a Northeast Georgia Regional Education specialist. The moments Roper can spend in teachers’ classes are the best days. “Children are what keep you going. It’s the reason that we are all here,” she said. “It is our job to take care of them all and to make sure we take care of each other.” Roper grew up on a dairy farm playing teacher with her cousins and brother. She went on to gradu ate from the University of Georgia, where one of her children is cur rently a senior. “It’s fascinating to see them growing up,” “said Roper of her own and of the collective children that pass through the halls of MBES each day. Last year was the first time a child of a woman she taught decades ago had enrolled at MBES. “That’s when it’s time to think about retiring,” she quipped. Two of her proudest accomplish ments occurred in 2010. MBES received the Georgia School of Excellence title, and Hassamer was named Teacher of the Year. “I felt like the proud mom,” said Roper of Hassamer’s award. Day-to-day duties will remain the same for the remainder of the school year, but memories will be more vivid while retirement plan ning can only be described as surre al. ' “I’ll reflect and think, ‘What is this going to feel like when it’s not a part of me?”’ she said. “Andrea has always done a fan tastic job supporting her staff and parents,” said Colham Ferry Elementary School Principal Keith Carter, who was a teacher at MBES when she was assistant principal. “I wish her joy and happiness. I hope she enjoys retirement. She deserves it.” Roper does have some plans that are percolating in the interim time. She will hone her bridge skills playing cards with fellow retired teachers. “They are teaching me the ropes,” said Roper. “I’m not excep tionally good at math so it will be a challenge.” 2,000,000 Yep, that’s two million! ...Bags of Litter Picked up YEARLY IN GEORGIA ALONE Who pays for this? 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