Dear Friend,
Last evening we received news that Mr. Lyle Hopper had gone home to be with the Lord. There are few men who impacted HYC as much as Mr. Hopper did.
While he never spoke from the platform, sang any solos or counseled any kids, his impact on the ministry of HYC was enormous. There was rarely a time that my dad needed help with some mechanical, electrical or plumbing issue on the grounds where Mr. Hopper wasn’t there to fix it. And while I mentioned that he never preached a sermon he did teach me several things throughout the course of the 40 plus years that I knew him.
First - “speed kills.” I never saw Mr. Hopper do anything fast. But while I never saw him do anything unbelievably fast I did see him undertake pretty big jobs with a slow, steady, methodical approach that in the end got the job done the right way.
Second - “work hard.” When I was a kid my dad would tell me about Mr. and Mrs. Hopper shoveling snow off the Miracle Building roof and because of that I always think of them whenever snow comes our way. My company here in Southgate does snow removal and on several occasions when I’ve been out at 3 or 4 in the morning shoveling, complaining to myself about it, I’ll actually say out loud “why don’t you just work as hard as Mr. Hopper did?”
Third - “speak less.” If the average guy speaks 10,000 words a day, I’m going to venture a guess that Mr. Hopper cut that in half. While I thought about that fact I then asked myself the question, how many times did you hear Mr. Hopper complain? How many times did you hear Mr. Hopper talking bad about someone else? Except for the occasional snarky comment about his daughter Joy not putting enough chocolate chips in the pancakes at camp from time to time, the answer would be zero. The man never complained.
No one with the exception of perhaps Mr. Montague (who built them) knew the ins and outs of every building, water line and electric hook up around HYC like Mr. Hopper did.
There are few men who have done more “unseen” work around the grounds than Mr. Hopper - digging, building, plumbing, snaking, shoveling, removing, cutting, and a hundred other jobs. His commitment to Christ and using his talents for the Kingdom was a powerful and important testimony throughout the decades.
On behalf of Hiawatha and the thousands of lives changed for Christ that you played a part in, thank you Mr. Hopper. You truly made an enormous impact for this ministry.
Sincerely,
Craig