The gardener said, “Spread a smattering of blood and bone meal deep into the soil to draw roots down where they will grow and thrive.” Like a man or woman, I thought, whose roots go deep into good soil then branch out in all directions to impact others.

When Roots Run Deep

by Bill and Brenda Evans

Robert Bilton Perry’s roots certainly run deep and spread wide. His soul’s calling is to be a good messenger of the Gospel. “I love people. My desire is to connect with them and influence them for Christ,” he says.

Like his father before him, Robert was born in a two-story log house in Pardee, West Virginia, built in the 1850s by Robert’s grandparents. It was in that same house that his life first turned toward God. When he was five, his grandmother took him to church where he learned Bible stories from tiny picture cards.

Early Examples

He learned early what a compelling love for the lost would do to a man. His Uncle Bud Perry rode horseback hundreds of miles over remote and dangerous West Virginia mountains to preach the Word. Robert recalls family members “chiseling” Uncle Bud’s stiff, weary bones out of the saddle after his long preaching tours.

Robert’s mother nourished his spiritual soil as well. “She showed me what it means to care for people. Dad bought flour in 55-gallon barrels. When women from the neighborhood visited and Mother saw a need, she sacked up flour and sent it home with them. No one was going hungry as long as we had food. At times, our home was like a hotel with both Mother and Dad cooking. Everyone was welcomed and fed.”

Indeed, Robert’s family has been blood-nourished soil for his spiritual growth. His face breaks into a smile when he talks about Katheryn, his only sibling. “She’s one smart gal. Always has been. And she’s like me—loves people,” he says.

Then there is the 1920s photograph of his father on his horse along with fellow West Virginia Mounted State Police. “My father is one of the few mounted police that rode out of the mountains alive during the Prohibition of the 1920s. Most who went into a moonshiner’s territory did not live to tell about it.”

Beyond blood kinship, a second blood-rich soil sustains Robert—his church. His early memories include a red-hot pot-bellied stove, women with starched flour-sack dresses, four neighborhood brothers who were ministers, and Mrs. Bailey, the local midwife who swung perilously close to the red-hot stove when she “got happy in the Lord,” as Robert calls it.

“I thank the Lord for those who delivered the Word in those hard times. I was 18 when I was saved. It was the fall of 1946. My father had been killed in a mine accident in the spring of that year. I had a college scholarship but needed to provide for my mother and aunt, so I worked instead of going on with my education.”

Work was something Robert already knew. By age nine he kept the furnace and fireplaces going for a neighbor’s large house and cut their grass during the summer. At 13, he worked at the coal company’s store on Saturday. His senior year in high school, he got off the bus every afternoon, went to the Lorado Coal Company’s payroll office and kept books at a tall ledger desk “posting charges in red, payroll in black,” as he recalls.

Eventually he was elevated to assistant manager in charge of all the buying and employees for six coal company stores.

Sharing His Faith

He also had a youthful exuberance for getting people to listen to the gospel in those early days. “I bought cigarettes for two army buddies early in the 1950s just so they’d go to chapel with me. I never smoked myself, but I found that was a way to get them to hear the message,” Robert says. “I also had a plan to teach the jitterbug to some of my friends in exchange for their going to church with me.”

By his mid-20s, Robert was active in community organizations like the Rotary Club which gave aid and gifts to children impaired by polio and poverty. His church, too, gave “poundings” for those needing food and basic life provisions. These early demonstrations of Christian love added to the model his parents had left him: A good man loves and helps his neighbors.

On a damp November day in 2009—almost 60 years later—we visited Robert and found him still at this thing of loving others. We rode along with him while he made three food deliveries to neighbors. Though 81, he serves the hungry, the homebound, and the aged. “I find great reward and satisfaction in doing things for people,” he says. His zeal for bringing people to Christ has not waned, though he hasn’t bought cigarettes or jitterbugged lately. Twenty-nine years as a business owner of Man Clothing and Jewelry brought him in contact with hundreds of people, and he learned that friendliness and kindness are not only good business, they are good Christianity. A smile, a handshake, an arm around your shoulder—that is the real Robert Perry, a man who knows how to demonstrate Christ’s command to love others.

Ending Well

“Even now in my late years, I want to meet new people, make friends, and impact them for Christ. I have a contact list of about 100 people that I call or visit. One young mother I’ve worked with for two years got saved recently. I had knocked on her door lots of times and told her if she’d get her children ready, I’d take them to Sunday School. Eventually she came, too, and finally found the Lord.”

Robert’s community roots branch out far. If he invites you to lunch with a few friends, 50 people may show up as they did the November day we ate with him. With a gleam in his eye and a wide grin, he introduced us to his “extended family” at START, an acronym for Seniors Taking Active Roles Today. START is a community organization that brings together seniors from around the city for fellowship and service projects.

Other civic and social issues occupy him as well because, as Roberts says, “A little nudge, a little help changes people.” So he gives time and energy to the Corridor G road project that will improve travel in southwestern West Virginia, the local library, Salvation Army projects, a neighborhood food pantry, and a much-needed bridge in the town of Man. Robert does what he can to make his community a better place to live.

While Robert’s hands spread out across his state, his heart is reserved for the Lord’s work. “I love our denomination, our doctrine—free will, free grace, free salvation—and our people.” He goes to the national convention every year, as well as state and district meetings. He has taught Sunday School for more than 40 years and regularly leads congregational singing at his church. He is currently working to bring independent Free Will Baptist churches into the West Virginia State Association.

Furthermore, Robert puts his money where his heart is. In his will, he benefits three denominational agencies, as well as his home church. “I’ve had a real good journey with the Lord. Stewardship brings out the servant in us, and it gives me satisfaction to be a good steward. I hold to being trustworthy in everything, including what happens to my assets. I want them to be used wisely. Making a will and benefiting my denomination is the way I can do that.”

As we said, Robert Perry’s roots run deep and spread wide.

About the Writers: Bill Evans, former director of the Free Will Baptist Foundation, lives in Catlettsburg, KY, with his wife Brenda, a retired English teacher. They are proud grandparents of seven. To learn more planned-giving options offered by the Foundation, visit www.fwbgifts.org.