Mancil Burns
One of the things that I love about being the pastor at Virginia Hills is I’ve had the opportunity to minister to families over the long haul. I’ve been able to marry couples, baptize their kids, bury their parents, and visit them in the hospital over the course of many years. This past Saturday I had the privilege of officiating the graveside service of Mancil Burns.
Mancil and his first wife, Evie were long time members at Virginia Hills. They joined the congregation on May 5th, 1974. When I came to the church in 1987 Evie was in the final stages of emphysema. When she died, I officiated her service. It’s hard to believe that was 28 years ago.
I remember the day we buried Evie. It was a cold, wet, rainy day. I officiated the service with Mike Allen, who was the Burn’s neighbor and the pastor at Baptist Temple Church in Alexandria. We drove from the church to the cemetery in a driving rainstorm, and I remember the funeral representative telling us we could do the graveside service in the Mausoleum. But we would have to be brief because another service was coming in right behind us.
In the Mausoleum I started out with a scripture reading and prayer, and then turned it over to Mike. (Who was not the most short-winded pastor I’ve ever met.) He told story after story of living next door to the Burns. As I looked out the front door of the Mausoleum, I saw the hearse for the next service pull in leading a large processional. And they had no place to go! Between the Burns service, the rain, the second service, and the long-winded Baptist pastor, it was total chaos!
A few months later, when we were having trouble with our phone at the house, my wife called Mancil and asked for some help. Mancil had spent several years working for ATT. He drove up in a white corvette and stepped out of the car wearing his white tennis outfit. The man had style! It took him about 20 seconds to fix our phone problem and was back on the road going to the local tennis club where he played almost every day.
A few years later Mancil married his second wife, Charlotte. She became active in our church, sang in the choir, and even served as our accompanist for a while. Later, they moved to Fredericksburg.
Mancil was a character. He was quick with a smile, the first one to offer help when you were in trouble, and the last person you wanted to make mad. (Which I managed to do a couple of times.) He was also one of the last remaining members of an age gone by. So many of the members who were here when I arrived are gone now. We only have about 10 left from when I started.
A lot has changed over the course of many years, but the Mancil Burns’ of our church hardwired a certain kind of atmosphere into our congregation. It is a part of our DNA. It’s an atmosphere that has nothing to do with a building or individual members. It’s a loving, friendly, family atmosphere where people can meet and serve Jesus, community, and one another.
