Oldham County Day
La
Grange’s Bill and Holly Fischer
take Oldham Day theme to heart
By
Helen E. McKinney
Contributing Writer
LA GRANGE, Ky. (July 2005) – The Oldham County
Day theme, “Reaching Out to Others,” is a motto Bill and Holly
Fischer have lived their lives by. This Oldham County couple has devoted
their time and talents to faithfully serving the Lord in many ways in
the community and beyond.
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July
2005 |
Chosen as this year’s grand marshals of the Oldham
County Day Parade, the couple has been nominated many times in the past.
“They are very humble people,” said Project Guild Publicity
Chairperson Betty Miller. “They are a giving couple; always on
the go and doing for others.”
“The whole church is very important to their life,” said Keith
Mahurin, who has known the couple for 13 years. Mahurin and the Fischers
are members of the same church, Buckner Baptist Church.
The Fischers are an extremely humble couple who have taken many mission
and disaster relief trips to aid those in need. “They are very
faithful people; extremely faithful to the work of the Lord,” said
Mahurin.
Holly, 67, joined Buckner Baptist Church at age 17. Two years later,
she married Bill, now 80. For the first 11 years of their married life,
they lived on a farm off of New Moody Lane but sold out in 1967. Bill
tried carpentry work for a year and a half before beginning a lifelong
career as a stonemason.
Bill was 4 years old when his family moved to Oldham County from Louisville.
The couple celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary on April 6. Holly
remembers Bill as a “bashful” young boy the first time they
met.
Bill visited Buckner Baptist, and when he went out the door after services,
Holly said she “never thought a lot about it.”
But she did give Bill another thought, and they eventually got married.
What began as an innocent introduction developed into a strong marriage,
and their involvement in church activities together has held them close
together and endeared them to the community. Taking youth trips with
the church sparked an interest in foreign missions.
In 1985, Arnold Collins, a lumber salesman for Bolin Malony, motivated
Bill to further become involved in missions. Bill had run into Collins
on a job site in the wintertime, and Collins asked him, “Why have
you never been on a mission trip?”
Bill’s answer was, “No one ever asked me.” So Collins
invited him to go on a mission trip, and Bill had only one more reservation.
“I have to ask my wife and brother-in-law,” he said.
Bill was in business with his brother-in-law, Jim Stoess, at the time.
Holly gave her consent, and from that time on, Bill was hooked on helping
build homes and churches for others, working locally and abroad through
Baptist Builders.
He has been on 16 trips to Honduras. Holly has accompanied him on 13
of them. Rick Lucas, director of missions for the Oldham-Trimble Baptist
Association, has gone on three trips to Honduras with Bill and one trip
to Russia. Lucas has known the Fischers since 1975.
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Photo by Don Ward Bill
and Holly Fischer will be honored |
“They are willing to do whatever is necessary,”
said Lucas. The Fischers accomplish those “thankless jobs”
that no one else is willing to do, he said. “They are willing to
do what is necessary to see that the work goes forward. And they do
it with a lot of joy.”
A trip to Russia was made in 1997 to aid in the construction of a new
church, said Lucas. Bill remembers thinking at the time that he “never
dreamed a country boy from Kentucky would walk freely down Red Square
in Moscow. It was quite something.”
The couple has learned many things from their various mission and disaster
relief trips, mainly “how blessed we are in America,” said
Bill.
Bill has a vast network of contacts, said Mahurin, when it comes to
rounding up volunteers for a mission trip. He accompanied Fischer and
a group of volunteers from a local Methodist church on a trip to Costa
Rica. The group was assigned the task of refurbishing a seminary on
the outskirts of Costa Rica. They set about upgrading the old facility.
The Fischers did take a brief hiatus from their mission and disaster
relief trips when they remained at home to care for Bill’s ailing
father for a brief spell. The couple traveled to New York one week after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Bill has been to Virginia, North
Carolina, Florida among many in-state mission trips.
The idea that 10 to 30 people can come together for a brief time with
no arguing, working peaceably for a common good, makes these trips a
joy for Holly. Helping someone less fortunate gives her a sense that
“God is working through us,” she said.
Bill has been a deacon in the church and was treasurer of the Oldham-Trimble
Baptist Association for 30 years. He also worked in Planning and Zoning
for 12 years. Age is not slowing this couple down. Both he and Holly
currently teach Sunday School classes at Buckner Baptist.
“Bill is always available,” said Mahurin. “When called
to do something that’s not convenient, Bill works it in. He drops
what he’s doing and goes. He’s always been that way.”
The association, comprised of 21 Baptist churches, organized the Baptist
Builder’s group 15 years ago.
The group works on constructing Good News Homes for those who need a
home fairly quickly. It is currently working on a home in Bedford. Usually
50 to 75 men from the association’s churches come together to construct
a home within a week.
For Holly and Bill the mission trips are addictive. “It gets in
your blood,” said Holly. “You feel good about helping someone
else.”
In her spare time, Holly likes to do beadwork and can vegetables from
her expansive garden. She puts up and gives away 1,000 to 1,200 quarts
of food a year.
“Bill is a farmer,” said Mahurin. “He could feed the
county.” In one day alone, the Fischers canned 70 quarts of sauerkraut.
By providing food, clothing and shelter, the Fischers have helped numerous
people, said County Clerk and Project Guild Secretary Ann Brown. “You
never know that they do the deeds they do,” said Brown, who has
known the Fischers for 30 years.
The couple possesses a sincerity in helping humanity, which is a rare
quality in this day and age, said Brown. “They are a tribute to
Oldham County.”
In Lucas’s opinion, the Fischers are “the best kind of choice”
for grand marshals of the Oldham County Day Parade. Their names don’t
usually appear in print, he said, “But they are the bed-rock foundation
for our county.”
• The Project Guild will honor the Fischers during a noon luncheon
on July 12 at the John W. Black Community Center in Buckner. Tickets
are $10. To reserve, call (502) 222-9311 or (502) 222-0023.