Farewell

By Thomas C. Hanson Sr.

PASADENA—After 25 and a half years, my employment with the WCG will come to an end in a couple of months, and I wanted to take this time to say good-bye.

I will pass on my duties to Mike Morrison, who will become WCG Today editor beginning with the April issue. I wish Mike well in his endeavors.

When I started editing The Worldwide News (forerunner to WCG Today) on a daily basis at age 25 on June 2, 1980, I soon realized that I needed to leave most of the writing to others as I focused on copyediting and other duties to get the publication out the door.

Please bear with me then as I take a few column inches to say good-bye. Unlike many others in the WCG who wear many hats, my job responsibilities have remained virtually the same over my WCG career, though in addition to editing, I write, take photos and now serve as the art director after the departure of Ron Grove, with whom I worked for most of those 25 years.

I actually started work on The Worldwide News at age 20 in 1975 as a photographer, when I was an Ambassador student in Big Sandy. All told, out of my 51 years of life, I have given 27 of those years to this publication. I write this on my final “deadline Friday.”

The past few years have been especially exciting for me, as so many of you have written about the ministries you perform in your passion and love for Jesus Christ. My definition of the WCG is: “People who love Jesus and perform an endless variety of ministries to serve others and glorify his name.”

It has been my great joy to share with others these ministries in the pages of WCG Today, but of course no publication would be large enough to share all the things you do.

So please accept my apologies when I was unable to include your articles or when I perhaps over-edited the ones we did publish. To this day, my lingering fear is running into moms whose babies we did not feature as our coupon baby.

Some of you I have met face to face, including Randy Bloom, central district superintendent, whom I’ve known since 1974, and others I know only by e-mail, letter and the telephone, such as Leith Cunningham of Fife Lake, Michigan, Forrestine Gray, of Jackson, Tennessee, and countless others.

I especially appreciate the love, prayers, affection and advice expressed to our family as we battle the autism of our son, my pride and joy, Tom Jr. The struggle is severe, especially for my darling wife, Tina.

As any of you parents with disabled children know, we fear those days when we are gone and our children must live without us, yet we know that our God will never leave us nor forsake us.

In the coming months we plan to load our van and head to the Southeast from California, seeking good schools for Tom Jr., and our daughter, Elizabeth, who never ceases to impress me with her love for Christ and others. We know that the Lord has gifted her in special ways for ministry to him.

I will post updated contact information in the “contact me” section of my personal and portfolio website at www.thomashanson.com

Our family would appreciate your prayers that the Lord would lead us in how and where he wants us to serve him.