Glad for a chaplain's visit

Motor Racing Outreach has done a tremendous job for NASCAR teams as well as the sport’s fans since it’s inception in 1988.

It conducts regular Bible studies for drivers and team members, on-track prayer with teams and during opening ceremonies, organizes and conducts chapel services at each track before races and has outreachs at the tracks to the fans.

My encounter with MRO came a couple of years ago when I was hospitalized in Charlotte before the All-Star Challenge.

My friends here in Huntington contacted MRO in North Carolina, and one of it’s volunteer chaplains visited me in Northeast Medical Center.

On Sunday, MRO’s founder, Max Helton, 67, died of brain cancer at home in Huntersville, N.C.

Although I never had the privilege on earth to meet him, I know I will someday and tell him how much that chaplain’s visit meant to a girl five hours from home, who only knew two people in town who were involved in a very young, very busy ministry and working a couple of full-time secular jobs each.

Helton is one of those folks who will find out in Heaven exactly how many lives he touched through that ministry.

The story is that in 1988 working at a Glendora, Calif., church, he met Darrell and Stevie Waltrip and told them he believed God had a ministry for him in racing. The rest, as they say, is history.

My thoughts are like the song says, “Thank you for giving to the Lord, I am so glad you gave.”