Goodbye Greenleaf Drive
We met my freshman year at Berry College when I was “church shopping” in our small college town of Rome, Georgia. One Sunday morning I attended a church near campus with a friend. I was promised a fun Sunday School class and a dynamic worship service, but the promise I most remember had to do with homemade cinnamon rolls. Apparently, the couple teaching the college students’ Sunday School class at this church always brought homemade cinnamon rolls. And that was enough to get me out of bed.
It turned out my friend wasn’t lying. The Sunday School class was fun, the couple that taught it was super cool, and the cinnamon rolls were outstanding. And that Sunday morning many moons ago, thanks to my friend’s invite and those warm cinnamon rolls, the Lord put me on a beautiful path that would define the next decade of my life.
Randy and Kathryn Nobles, the couple teaching the college students’ Sunday School class at Calvary Baptist Church, were incredibly easy to get to know. Randy was a middle school teacher at a local school, and Kathryn was a music teacher at Berry, where I attended. They were both friendly and easy to talk to, and the lessons they taught each Sunday were pulled straight from Scripture. Plus, as I’ve mentioned, Kathryn made some seriously delicious cinnamon rolls. That same Sunday, my first Sunday visiting Calvary, the Nobles invited me to come over after church for lunch. Of course, since free food was involved, I accepted and went.
That Sunday afternoon, eating lunch at the Noble’s home on Greenleaf Drive, I learned several things: Kathryn wasn’t just good at baking cinnamon rolls. She was good at cooking pretty much everything; after church lunch on Sundays was a big deal at the Noble’s house. Their whole family (4 kids) plus several college students regularly filled the large dining table. The homemade food was always amazing, and strangely, despite the large crowd, there was always enough. Plus, their washer and dryer were open and available for me to do laundry after lunch.
Given these new discoveries, it’s easy to see why Sunday afternoons on Greenleaf Drive quickly became a weekly routine for me. Sundays were my favorite day of each week during my college years, not just because Calvary Baptist soon became my church family and I had a homemade lunch to look forward to, but also because I thoroughly enjoyed spending time in the Nobles’ home. Hours spent there were always simple. Uncluttered. Peaceful. Which is a funny way to describe it because there were always 4 kids running around, dishes to wash and laundry to do, but still… their home enveloped visitors with a warm sense of acceptance and calmness. It’s hard to describe but easy to detect the minute you walk in.
Maybe it was Kathryn’s unstressed and joyful hospitality, or Randy’s easy and open conversation, or the family’s unspoken commitment to slow down and chill out on the Sabbath… whatever it was, it drew me in. The more Sundays I spent there, the more I learned from Kathryn, the more I respected Randy, and the more I grew to love their kids.
My senior year at Berry, I was hired as the part-time Director of Student Ministries at Calvary Baptist, which turned into a full-time job after graduation. As I transitioned into a single adult working full time and living on my own (in an apartment just minutes from the Nobles’ house), I started eating dinner at the Nobles’ home several times each week. After dinner dishes were done, Kathryn and I would walk several miles in the neighborhood or Randy and I would stand in the driveway talking, solving the world’s problems.
The Nobles would be the first of a handful of Calvary Baptist families that accepted and cared for me then and still impact me now. I could write thousands of words about each of those families - the fun teens they raised into incredible adults, the kindness they showed me, the patience they had with me, and the way they shared their families and homes with me. None of these families was or is perfect, but the way they modeled honest life-on-life discipleship changed my life. It sounds trite, but it’s true. They showed me that there is no better way to teach someone how to love like Jesus than to show them, to give them up-close and personal, real-life examples of what Jesus-following looks like in the middle of the daily grind. And all these families at Calvary did this for me, but it all started with the Nobles family in their home on Greenleaf Drive.
And today, twenty-five years later, I stopped by Greenleaf Drive after church for one final time. The Nobles kids are now grown and doing responsible, adultish things on their own. Randy and Kathryn have purchased a nearby fixer-upper and are moving. Soon, their house on Greenleaf Drive will become home for another family. Walking through that familiar front door for the last time and seeing those friends who are now more like family made my heart smile. But the thing that made me a bit teary-eyed was seeing Kathryn’s glass cookie jar sitting on the kitchen counter.
I’m not sure how old that cookie jar is, but it was there back in my college days. It was ALWAYS stocked with homemade chocolate chip cookies. And today, seeing that cookie jar sitting in the exact same spot with three cookies left in it, made me feel all the feels. Not only does that cookie jar still hold some of the world’s best cookies, but it also contains what the Nobles family generously gave me and many other college students over the years - smiles, comfort, and provision. A home away from home. A warm meal and a laundry room when you needed it most. An entertaining conversation, wise advice or a listening ear. And a constant reminder that real Jesus-followers love others in small but significant ways - by serving them, feeding them, or inviting them into their homes.
I left Greenleaf Drive today feeling full, not of cookies but of appreciation. On my drive home, I thanked God for putting the Nobles in my life and me in theirs. I thanked God for Calvary Baptist Church and all the families that showed me Jesus’ love. And I prayed that I would never forget how much impact small, selfless acts of service can make in the lives of others.
