Alice and Wilfred Fisher were my neighbors. They had a profound impact upon my life and upon the lives of many others. Alice and Wilfred Fisher modeled lives of complete trust in God.
Alice and Wilfred had graduated from a Bible College in Oregon, then enrolled Asbury College. While completing their degrees at Asbury in the Fall of 1939, Rev. Lela McConnell approached the Fishers. Rev. McConnell had founded a fledgling ministry of churches and schools in the hills of East Kentucky. She called it the Kentucky Mountain Holiness Association. On July 5 of that year, the startup Bible institute she had founded eight years earlier was destroyed in a flash flood. Lives were lost. McConnell found herself leading a grief-stricken, short-handed organization.
McConnell, desperate to keep the Bible institute afloat, approached Wilfred and Alice. Her request was simple, direct, and astonishing. “Come help me finish the school year at Kentucky Mountain Bible Institute.” She offered no salary, only a humble place to live and even humbler provisions. The Fishers, inspired by McConnell’s vision agreed to finish out the school year at KMBI.
Wilfred and Alice arrived on the newly rebuilt KMBI campus in December, 1939. One building was under construction. After the flood, land had been donated to KMBI by the Fletcher family. Raymond Swauger and his team of young men, desperate to reopen the Bible institute, rapidly constructed the first building. It stands today. When Wilfred and Alice moved in, there were no doors hung on the rooms in the building, only sheets to serve as modesty dividers. That is, there were no doors except on the humble dorm room that the only married couple on the hilltop would call home.
The Fishers had trusted God and His leading to join McConnell in a temporary arrangement. That six month agreement spanned 71 years for Alice, until her death in 2010. Wilfred died in November, 2014, shortly after he turned 100 years old.
Trials, triumphs, and tragedies filled those years of service to Christ as full-time volunteers in a “temporary arrangement.” Alice birthed three children in those years. She and Wilfred buried two of those children. Steve died tragically in a bulldozer accident. Frances succumbed to long-term illness.
Yet, Alice and Wilfred Fisher trusted God. Alice taught at KMBC and served as registrar. She was a counselor to many, myself included. Wilfred founded WMTC radio which is still going strong! Wilfred was a well-known camp-meeting evangelist who traveled the world in evangelism. He often returned his revival and camp-meeting offerings to WMTC in order to help pay the bills.
Daily, for many years, Beth and I would see Alice walking around the tennis court between her house and our own. We could watch from our kitchen window while washing dishes or preparing an evening meal. Alice carried 3x5 cards, and was memorizing scripture. She continued this practice as long as she could walk, which was well into her nineties.
Next to my own parents, Wilfred and Alice Fisher are among the Godliest people I have ever known. Service was never about self. It was always about the Savior and the mission to which God had called them. Life was never easy for them, but they walked with God with such a grace and intimacy that I wanted to be like them. They simply trusted God.
Jesus is often asking us this simple question, “Will you trust me?” If we will, we have much to gain.
Isaiah 26:3-4 “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength.”
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