TYLER, Texas (BP) – Generations of kindergarteners have memorized Bible verses and learned about Jesus’ love for them in Pat and Charles White’s Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Tyler.
The church recently recognized the couple for their decades of service to preschoolers and children. The beginning of the school year marks 50 years Pat White has taught the kindergarten Sunday school class.
But the couple’s involvement in ministry to children actually began a few years earlier, when her husband was teaching a fifth-grade Sunday school class and she taught 3-year-olds at First Baptist Tyler.
Since one boy in the 3-year-old class was deaf, she learned enough American Sign Language to teach him each week’s Scripture memory verse and the Bible lesson.
“I graduated with him, teaching the 4-year-olds the next year and then the 5-year-olds,” she said.
When the boy’s family moved from Tyler to Austin, she settled into teaching the kindergarten class. After about 10 years with the fifth graders, her husband joined her.
“It got to the point where those fifth-grade kids were getting too smart for me. I came down to kindergarten to help Pat, where the kids were more on my level,” he said with a grin.
‘Felt called to teach kids’
For Pat White, the hours spent in preparation, outreach and instruction for kindergarten Sunday school class became a passion project.
“I fell in love with it,” she said. “I felt called to teach kids.”
In fact, after several years teaching professionally at higher levels, she went back to school to earn her master’s degree in early childhood education.
Her last few years in public school classrooms were spent teaching English-as-a-Second-Language to children in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
Teaching kindergarteners means providing multiple learning stations each Sunday. Pat White enjoys exercising creativity in developing a variety of crafts, games and activities designed to reinforce concepts presented in the Bible lesson.
“God gives me ideas,” she said.
“She’s the thinker and the organizer,” her husband commented. “I handle the snacks.”
“And the kindergarten class is known for its snacks,” Katie Goodrum, director of preschool ministry at First Baptist Tyler, interjected.
Charles White grew up attending First Baptist Tyler until he left to study accounting at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. His work for an oil company took him and his wife to New Orleans and Pittsburgh before moving back to Tyler in 1969. On two occasions, he served on the church staff as business manager.
He doesn’t recall any men who served in the preschool area and few who worked with children when he was growing up. He has been glad to be able to correct that deficiency for the last several decades.
“I think it’s good to have a man in the classroom at this age level,” he said. “It’s good for the kids to see a man here.”
He especially enjoys seeing how much the kindergartners “grow and mature” from the time they enter class in August until they move up to the first-grade class a year later.
Teaching kindergarteners to do good to others
The Whites particularly like to involve the kindergarteners in activities that benefit others, such as assembling sacks of food for families at Thanksgiving or sending cards to homebound church members.
“We want them to recognize the need to do something for other people,” Pat White said.
In addition to the hours spent preparing hands-on learning activities and the Sunday mornings spent interacting with the children, she also mails a letter on Monday or Tuesday each week to every child in her Sunday school class.
“I’ve mailed letters to 311 students since I started doing it in 2008,” she said. “If a child visits the class and I get an address, they’ll get a letter from me each week unless a parent asks me to stop.”
Each letter reinforces a key idea from the previous lesson and introduces the next week’s Bible story. It also presents a question about the upcoming lesson, along with the Bible verse where the child can find the answer.
“The letters mean a lot to the children,” she said, noting some children have told her years later how much they looked forward to getting mail from her each week.
‘Generations have been blessed’
The Whites noted it is satisfying to see children they taught in their kindergarten class make a profession of faith in Christ and be baptized when they are older.
They also have the satisfaction of teaching kindergarteners in recent years whose parents they taught decades earlier.
“When I think of Charles and Pat, I think of years of faithful service, loving children and welcoming them into the church with grace and joy every Sunday,” said Casey Cockrell, minister of discipleship at First Baptist Church in Tyler.
“Their dedication, not just in the visible aspects of their service, but also in the countless hours of behind-the-scenes work, is a testament to their love for Christ and others.
“Generations have been blessed by their faithful service, and it’s a joy to see my two daughters and others stand to celebrate the Whites.”
In October, Charles White will turn 90, and his wife will turn 85. If they even raise the question of whether it’s time to step down from teaching, Goodrum shakes her head firmly and says, “No.”
“They are rock stars as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “To have this kind of consistency in the preschool area, we are so blessed.
“I don’t have to scramble on Sunday morning. I have the easy job. I get to sit back and watch the kids learn.”
This story was originally published by the Baptist Standard.
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