A Word about Joan Thatcher
There are some but very few people in the world who just about know everyone and everything. We all can benefit from someone like that because it’s the source for information before Wikipedia and Google. Joan Thatcher is one of those rare resourceful people who knew things especially about Who’s Who in ABC life. As a reporter for TAB, the old American Baptist magazine and probably for the Crusader, she was at heart an inquisitive investigator. We sure need more Joan Thatchers today in Washington DC. I can still remember the time when she was on a cruise and the ship ran aground but Joan was reporting in eyewitness news!
Like many of us here, we have known Joan across many years. When ABCW changed before our eyes, Joan was resistant and persistent and developed and nurtured a new institution known by us as BLT-Baptist Lunching Together. When one receives an invitation to speak at one of the monthly BLTs, it’s an honor and a privilege because you have received the approval of Joan Thatcher. And like a mother hen, she would have a special place for you at the Grand Lake Garden’s dining room making sure that you’ll be introduced properly and to receive her grace. But there were never any time to chit and chat because keeping on time was one of her gifts.
When Roy Medley, the former General Secretary of the ABCUSA heard of Joan’s passing, he said, A lioness in ABC life, she will be missed by so many of us. Though her ways often brought a wry smile to the faces of us who knew her, she nonetheless endeared herself to us through her uncompromising commitment to the life of ABC and her fierce loyalty to her friends. I can but imagine the conversation she is having with Rasmussen. We know that Joan was insistent until she is satisfied with a response. Like many of you, I can’t count the number of times she would call me when I was in Valley Forge seeking some answer or insight on what may have just happened.
I would describe Joan Thatcher as a mixed metaphor. She was both a mother hen liked described in Luke 13:34 who gathers her brood under her wings and like the angel in Revelations 10:3 shouting like a lion roaring leading to seven thunders sounded. As a mother hen, she protected and gathered a disparate and often ragtag group of disenfranchised American Baptists in Northern California together in the BLT and as a roaring lioness, she called out injustices and modeled for us what courage is like in this post-modern time.
At times like this, we dream and hope for that time in the future when God ushers in the Peaceful Kingdom as depicted in Isaiah 11. Isaiah spoke of the calf and the lion together and that the lion shall eat straw like the ox. But he doesn’t say anything about chickens. But we believe that on that day, some day in God’s time, we “will not hurt or destroy on all of God’s holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” On the day when God’s child, Joan Thatcher returned to God’s mountain in heaven, both the hen and the lion got together and Jesus said, “Thank you, Joan Thatcher for being my worthy and faithful child!”
Don Ng, May 10, 2017