DECATUR - "God will see us through," said Betty Hunter to her husband Robert. The year was 1957, and Robert Hunter had just been laid off from his longtime job at General Motors in Cleveland. He had also recently finished study at Cleveland's Baptist Seminary of the Bible. Noting the proximity of the two events, Hunter felt in his heart that it was time for him to take a chance. He ultimately moved to Decatur, where he spent almost 40 years founding a new church and working his way into the heart of the
community.
Today, Robert Hunter is 96 years old, afflicted by dementia, and residing in an Ohio care facility. With the help of family and friends, however, he has managed to put the finishing touches on an autobiography he has worked on for over 20 years, titled "Don't Ever Give Up." The book will finally become available in June.
"He was writing it before we got married, over 20 years ago," said Shirley Hunter, Robert's second wife. "He was writing it for the glory of God, and to tell the story of how things had changed there over time."
In Decatur, Robert Hunter settled his family and superintended at Baptist Bible Center for Riverside Baptist Church. He harbored a dream of turning the Bible Center into an official Baptist church but faced opposition at every turn because of the color of his skin.
"I contacted every Baptist fundamental mission board I could find, but everyone said that they were not accepting applications from black men to go to the mission field," Hunter said in his biography. "I was very disappointed, because I did not believe a man should try to start a church on his own."
However, over the next two years and with the support of churches throughout Illinois, Hunter and the advisory committee of Baptist Bible Center were able to successfully create the constitution, bylaws and doctrinal statement of a new church. In 1959, the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches first recognized Decatur's Baptist Bible Church. Robert Hunter served as pastor for the next 34 years.
Even as an officially recognized church, however, Hunter's struggle for recognition wasn't over. Baptist Bible Church's request for membership in the Illinois Fellowship of Regular Baptist Churches was stopped without ratification, and wouldn't be accepted for over 20 years. When Baptist Bible Church was finally accepted over two decades later, Hunter received an apology, a standing ovation, and a plaque from the organization that read "Here is a man who loved us when we didn't love him."
"It was God who had led me to believe that these were the men he wanted me to work with," Hunter said in his biography.
Shirley Hunter says this mixture of humbleness and stubbornness was typical of Hunter during his time in Decatur.
"Most of the churches didn't want to have anything to do with him when he arrived, but he wouldn't compromise his beliefs," she said. "You can't budge him when his mind is made up. But he was an extremely gentle, soft-spoken person who would always think of what he was going to say before he actually said it."
Today, Robert Hunter spends his time in the Pataskala, Ohio, care facility, where he is occasionally able to contribute to the book's final planning. His wife reports that his faith remains as strong as ever, and that he doesn't linger on the book's completion.
"He's still extremely strong of faith in the facility, always speaking to the other patients about God and being saved," she said. "He wants to see the book published, but I don't think he's dwelling on that."
In completing the book, Hunter has had a little help from close friends. Dr. Frank Gainer helped compile the book's last chapter, which is filled with contributions and recollections from those who knew Robert Hunter best throughout his life, including his time in Decatur.
"Robert wrote 99 percent of the book, I just put the last chapter together and helped with the editing and getting it to the publisher," Gainer said. "The finished book has a wonderful message of God, integrity, humbleness and persevering against what seems like insurmountable odds. It's full of love and joy and humor, clearly depicting the life of a man of integrity and his life serving God."
Robert Hunter's "Don't Ever Give Up" will be released by Regular Baptist Press in June, and will be available through the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association, which Hunter once directed. Readers will find Hunter's firsthand perspective of the civil rights movement in Decatur from 1959 onward, a story that his family and friends gently pushed him to share with the world.
"Some of us insisted he keep working on the book," Gainer said. "We knew that he had a powerful story, a life story to tell. We knew he would depict the journey well." |
