Texas Woman Honors ‘WMU husband’ For His Years Serving in the Background

Elaine Mason remembers vividly the moment all the older WMU ladies fell in love with her husband. It was the night they saw him playing a game with the younger WMU ladies’ kids while bouncing a baby on each hip.

He was a hero that night, she said. The women were holding an associational WMU training, and Ronn Mason was the last-minute, emergency childcare.

“They thought that was the most wonderful thing any man had ever done,” Elaine said. “It meant the difference in whether or not those moms could come.”

And she realized she had something special — a WMU husband.

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Over the years, he’s taught Royal Ambassadors (RAs), but he’s also done pretty much anything needed for Girls in Action (GAs) too, like cut shapes out of wood or cardboard for the crafts.

When the Masons’ children were small, he helped with Mission Friends and led the Mission Friends choir. When their daughter grew into GAs, he helped her with her projects too.

“I’m so very grateful God gave me Ronn,” she said. “He has been a wonderful WMU partner. I tease him that he’s become my private secretary.”

In a way, it’s a miracle they ever ended up together, she jokes. Long before Elaine was throwing tasks as him, she was throwing something else — dirt.

“I grew up in New Mexico, and after church on Sundays, all the kids would take turns going to play at someone else’s house,” she said.

At one of those houses, a little blond boy showed up and kept trying to interrupt a game a house that Elaine and her friend Mary were playing.

“Finally, we realized the only way we were going to get rid of him was to be mean to him and throw dirt clods at him,” Elaine said.

Their plan was successful. But years later in college in Texas, a mutual friend realized they were both from New Mexico and decided to introduce them. It wasn’t long before they put the pieces together and remembered the dirt clod incident.

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“He had grown up in a non-Baptist church, but he was so impressed with the way we supported our missionaries,” Elaine said. “He just thought it was wonderful that we all banded together through the Cooperative Program to do that. He wasn’t raised in RAs either, and he wanted to be a part of that kind of missions education.”

The couple married and has served in a variety of ways at First Baptist Church of Texas City, Texas. Ronn was always supportive, and for that reason, Elaine honored her “WMU husband” with a brick in the Walk of Faith brick garden on New Hope Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama.

“He has just been the background person all these years, quietly serving, and I’m so thankful,” Elaine said.

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For more information about the Walk of Faith or to purchase a brick in someone’s memory or honor, visit wmufoundation.com/walkoffaith.

Written by Grace Thornton.