Eulogy Albert Pritchett 2018

Eulogy Albert Pritchard By Rick Gillespie- Mobley

November 17, 2018 Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 John 14:1-6

While World War II was raging in Europe, and The Japanese were conquering the nations along the western Pacific Ocean, God wanted to do something special for the world on October 26th, 1943, and God decided to complete the work in the womb of Beulene Pritchett .

God gave Willie and Beulene a double blessing with the gift of twins, Alberta and Albert Pritchard. God probably took a step back and looked at them, and said," this is good, very good.” God had a plan for Alberta and God had a plan for Albert. Today we look at the life and death of Albert.

When God created Albert, I believe God was determined to fill him with a capacity to love others and to enjoy music."

And that little infant baby from Wetumpka, Alabama, grew to be a boy, who grew to be a man who grew to be a child of God. And after 75 years, God was once again delighted to have that same gift return to him again. For the scriptures boldly proclaim, in Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.

Today, we often think death is something to be avoided at all cost, but for the believer in Jesus Christ, death is merely the passing from one form of service to God to another. You see Albert Pritchart decided to die a long time ago, when he made the decision to follow Jesus Christ. He took Jesus at his word, when Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; Last Sunday Albert Pritchart made it to church as one of the great cloud of witnesses who has gone on before us cheering us on in the faith.

Albert had the privilege of being part of a large family. His parents Willie and Beaulene took seriously the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, and as a result they had ten children. If they had of had just two more, we could speak of the 12 tribes from Wetumpka, Al.

Believe it or not, in 1845 Wetumpka lost by just a few votes to Montgomery to become the state capital of Alabama. If Wetumpka had of won the vote, we would have been talking about the Wetumpka Bus boycott instead of the Montgomery Bus Boycott with Rosa Parks.

Albert knew the pain and suffering of racism and Jim Crow laws having been born in the deep South of Alabama. He knew what it was like to see the bathroom signs, Men, Women, and Colored. He tasted the water from the Colored water fountain. If he got on a bus, he knew he had to go to the rear of the bus to have a seat. He knew what it was like to be judged simply by the color of his skin rather than the content of his character.

He knew what it was like to grow up in poverty in terms of material possessions, yet still be rich in the things that really mattered such as a love of family, of Friends and most important of all, the love of God.

The triplets of poverty, racism and prejudice could not keep him from developing a song in his heart to sing to the Lord or to encourage others, nor could they keep him from becoming a person with a generous and a quick smile.

The discrimination he faced in the world , caused Albert to develop a compassion for people. We always have a choice to allow evil to make us bitter or better. He chose to become better. His neice described him as the uncle who would always come and get her out of whatever trouble she found herself in. Her mother knew he would stay calm when he went to get her. He would tell her, “now you know when you get home you’re going to get a whipping.” She said yes, but he was never the one who gave her the whipping.”

Albert had a great sense of humor. He enjoyed seeing you laugh and he loved to make you laugh. He enjoyed the presence of people. God gave him a certain twinkle in his eye when he got excited. I’m told that he was quite a dancer. One of the favorite things he likee to do was eat. When I asked what was his favorite food, his family responded food. But then they said he was partial to greens, chicken and dressing. Give him a pepsi cola to go with it and he was a happy man.

Life was not always easy for Albert, and people didn’t always treat him with the utmost of respect, but he would tell you in a minute, it didn’t matter to him because he had God on his side