Flatwoods - Part 1

Where did it get it's name? Did a tornado, whisking through the vast forest flatten trees, leaving a clearing where a small town was born? Or, was it, perhaps, the work of sawyers and sawmills? Whatever the origin, the term, "flatwoods" has been a part of my vocabulary from childhood - as have a dozen or so other names of towns and villages in the heart of my native Louisiana, where my father pioneered churches.

My father, William Cullen Haymon, Sr., received the Holy Ghost baptism and the revelation of truth in 1919. Several years earlier, in 1914, Eula Pearl Willis received the same experience. They were married on June 15, 1924. In the year of 1943 they started their twelfth church, in Shreveport, and had by then birthed nine children! I was seventh-born. Mother often amused her friends by rapidly repeating the names of all nine of us: Norma Lea, Olgia V., W. C., Elga B., Gwendole, O. D., Donald E.,Vonda Rea, and Ronald Z.! Dad said, "If there's another, we're naming Quit-a-B!"

Early in his ministry, Dad and Brother Adras Fuselier worked as a team in revival campaigns. Having just concluded one campaign, Dad must have been wondering in what town or community the next revival would be held, when something totally unexpected happened.

The younger of the team, Dad didn't expect a great share of what was left of the accumulated pounding (food stuffs) and offerings for himself, his wife and three little ones, but he was totally unprepared for what was to happen.

Imagine my dad's sudden distress when Brother Fuselier loaded all the groceries into his car, handed him a fifty-cent piece and, bidding farewell, drove off leaving the little family standing alongside a dusty road! It was only later that Dad would understand that, at that moment, Brother Fuselier was wisely teaching him a life-long lesson of faith and trust in God's providential care.