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None of the rest of you my fellow Franciscans know him. A couple of you who read this blog might, but mostly not. But all I [Melanie] can say is that that is a shame and a loss.
One of my first strong memories of John Welty is when he volunteered in our high school youth group. But I knew who he was before then. It's almost impossible not to if you go to my church. And it's not because he's exceptionally extroverted or because he's always on stage. It's because he never stopped serving in almost every conceivable way.
John Welty was a handyman. Now, handyman to me implies a pretty broad range of talents. Maybe it does to you too. He was more talented than that. If something went wrong around the house he could fix it, whatever it was. He's the one who replaced our not-so-great built-in tub in our upstairs bathroom with a new shower and all the fixings. He had to get the old thing out with a jackhammer and carry the heavy pieces down our horrible rickety stairs which I think still didn't have a bannister. He essentially rebuilt the whole shower wall and retiled the bathroom. He put in a fan which runs on a timer which we use whenever we shower. The bathroom looked a lot better when he was done with it, that's for sure.
John Welty used those skills to help pretty much anyone in the church who needed it. That's just the kind of man he was.
When people were arriving at church, John Welty was always the first one out there to greet them. Every week he asked how I was doing, if he wasn't already too busy talking to someone else. I've said it's not that he was incredibly extroverted. He wasn't. But he was incredibly caring, and he volunteered to greet people because it was an important thing that needed doing. He was good at spotting those.
Volunteering at the high school youth group was out of his comfort zone. He was pretty open about that. Sometimes he talked about how he had never really thought kids could relate to "an old guy like me." But he came every week and he led us in our groups and he shared insights from a life well lived.
When I went on the Jamaica missions trip with my high school youth group, John Welty went too. There I got to see still more of his servant's heart, and most of all, his boldness to share the gospel.
I heard that he led people to the Lord in the hospital. I'm not surprised at all.
He had cancer; but the news was relatively recent, and I for one thought he had more time. He had surgery near the beginning of June. An infection put him back in the hospital and led to his death. Throughout his last couple months of life, he never stopped serving. He didn't stop greeting people outside the church, except for the Sundays when he was actually in the hospital, which wasn't most of them. People asked how he was doing, of course, but if they didn't ask, you wouldn't have heard a word from him about being diagnosed with cancer, only a continuing interest in everyone else's lives. I think my last conversation with him was about my job offer from Intel. Had I not known, I would never have guessed he was anything less than in perfect health.
He always spoke deliberately, with just a trace of that slow drawl I would associate with the South, though I don't think he was from the South. Come to think of it, I don't know. It was just the way John Welty talked; he was himself; he was a pillar of our church. He wasn't someone who spoke rapidly and blithely. He wasn't someone who used a host of fine words and rhetorical technique. But when words needed to be spoken, he spoke them. He spoke the plain truth, and he had a way of getting to the heart of things. He was in communion with the Spirit of God.
His daughter sang in the church choir next to me. His grandson, who grew up in the same house as him, is my age and a friend of mine; we grew up in the church together. I am sure they will be hurting and need prayer. But unlike many men, it's not just his family who will be hurting. John Welty was a servant of the church. Our former children's pastor, who is moving to a new situation this coming week, says she considered him a father, and that's far from an unusual feeling. Widows knew they could count on him. Poor people knew they had a handyman who would help them. Everyone knew they had someone who would be concerned about their lives, who could speak wisdom into their lives in plain, unvarnished words. Everyone in our church knew John Welty, because John Welty served the church.
I know you didn't know him. I write this tribute because I need to write it. I write this tribute because I already miss him. I write this tribute because my church needs prayer. I write this tribute because he is worthy of honor - and because God is worthy of honor for what He did in John Welty's life, a life given over to Him. And I write this tribute to remind us all how important it is to get out there and serve.
I'm the sort of person who thinks of a lot of cool things to do but lets them rest if they seem too difficult or embarrassing; I'm the sort of person who thinks of things but forgets promptly that I meant to do them. John Welty did them. He did everything his hand found to do. He did what needed to be done whether he was on the face of it the man for the job or not.
John Welty was irreplaceable.
He was tireless; he never slowed; he never took time off from service of one sort or another. Now he will enter the rest of God. Let us, like God's servant John Welty, be diligent to enter that rest.
John Welty was irreplaceable; but let us aspire to be like him nonetheless. To do what needs doing, and no matter whether we feel comfortable there or not. To come before God in humility and listen to His voice. To give our skills away to people who need them. Never to complain, though often to admit weakness. If we are hospitalized, to lead others to Christ in the hospital.
He will be missed.
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Since I finished writing this post, I've been to church and listened to people talk about him. I knew he had done a ton, but he had done more than I knew. He did a lot of things quietly, behind the scenes. Our pastor said that John Welty was a mentor to him when he was growing up. (Our pastor grew up in our church.) He also said that this past Mother's Day, it was John Welty who cut roses from his own garden and made sure that every mother got one. John Welty also helped out in the woodshop class at our church's middle school. So many stories. Everyone has another one. And this is before I've even been to the funeral.
One of the youth group leaders posted a group of pictures she has of him. Here are a couple of my favorites, a couple which go with some of my best memories of him:
John Welty sharing his faith in Jamaica
Jamaica team photo. That's John Welty's grandson Nate crouching in the front.
