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It’s funny how attached humans get to inanimate objects. A toddler loves her doll, a third grader totes his favorite backpack, and in high school, my daughter Lydia (now 29) won a newspaper contest with her love of “Red Chairs.”

I’d like your help to buy chairs someone might love, but first, here’s Lydia’s high school article...

“Visitors often exclaim over our home’s vibrant inside décor. My mom painted our walls bright yellow, green, and blue, and it fits my family. I’m the second of six kids, ages 6 to 19, the offspring of lively and loving parents, so there’s no boredom in our home. The colors reflect our life. And of all the colorful furniture in our house, the ones I love best are the red chairs...”

The red dining room chairs. “At our huge dining room table sit ten retro, sparkly red vinyl chairs that give off a 50’s diner feel. Mom found them in a Target, but there were only two in stock. So on my dad’s many travels, she sent him to Targets in multiple states until we had ten to go around the table.”

“Whether hosting big parties or welcoming everyday visitors, hundreds of people have sat in these chairs to share a meal, play a game, or discuss life’s trials. ‘Pull up a chair and tell me about yourself.’ When it was time to sweep the floor, my little brothers used to line them up and turn them into a sparkling red train that they conducted exuberantly to give their stuffed animals rides. These are the first of the red chairs.”

The little red kid chairs. “In another corner of the dining room sit two little sparkling red chairs at a kid-sized Formica table. They belonged to my great-grandmother Bessie, and when Bessie died, my mother had to outbid the neighbors at the auction of Bessie’s belongings to bring them home! Because the little red chairs are only a foot off the ground, they’re often used as stepstools, but I loved this darling place to sit. As a kid, the table and chairs were just my size for holding tea parties, caring for dolls, and eating with playmates.”

“I quickly outgrew them. (No one over the age of 8 can sit in them comfortably.) But today, 6-year-old Caroline has her own tea parties there with friends who come to play. These are the second of the red chairs.” Matt’s note: When a large group of preachers once gathered at our house to eat, filling all the sitting spots, I found well-known preacher Bob Russell in one of these little red chairs, paper plate in hand, talking to my 6-year-old son at the “kid table.”

Inanimate chairs can animate powerful memories, and Lydia shared a few more...

The red barstools. “A large island separates our kitchen from our dining room, and under the island counter, five red barstools always attract children. (Again, my mom found them in Target, and again, my father hauled them home in his Honda from all over.) Their best feature? They spin fast, and a lever under the seat changes the height. Kids flock to these fun perches, laughter filling the air. These are the third of the red chairs.”

The red mushroom chair. "The center of the living room boasts a plush red chair with pillows. It easily fits more than one person, and the enormous, round mushroom chair beckons little ones to run and leap into its soft embrace. It used to spin 360 degrees...until it beckoned a large college boy to leap (less than gracefully) into its embrace, breaking the base. But it’s still the favorite living room chair—the coveted seat on family movie nights, with the best pillows for ammunition at slumber parties. These are the fourth of the red chairs.”

The last red chairs. “But the last red chairs are my favorite. They are simple, upholstered swivel rockers, next to large windows that overlook our big, tree-filled front yard. They don’t have a long family heritage, or sparkle and shine, or have extra playful features like the barstools or the mushroom chair. But for me, they hold the most memories.”

Can chairs really find a place in a human heart? Read the end of Lydia’s article...

“It was these red chairs I sat in to watch the driveway for my dad’s car to come home from work. It was these chairs I fumed in when my parents told me I wasn’t allowed to date the boy I thought I loved. It was these chairs I cried in when I was scared after we got the news of my mom’s cancer, and these chairs where I awaited every phone call following her appointments and surgeries.”

“It was these chairs I waved from when my big brother left for Africa for the summer. It was these chairs where I prayed with a dear friend whose family was beginning to crumble. It is these chairs I come home from school every day to dump my backpack in, to have a snack in, or to read a book to my littlest sister in.”

“To a stranger, the red chairs in my house may not be worth a second thought. But sometimes, in the course of life, we form a kind of unseen bond to objects that found us at the right time. To me, the red chairs tell a story: strangers who became friends, friends who became family, and a colorful family that made a colorful house their home.”

Chairs can help make a house a home...and we need your help to do that at OCC.

Here’s the good news: OCC’s student body is growing! For the first time in 20 years, we welcomed over 800 students this fall, and the campus is teeming with young men and women training for Christian service. Chapel, cafeteria, library, classrooms: they’re all full.

That means we need more places to sit. Specifically, we’d like to tackle two projects this fall that expand and improve our “chairs” around campus:

· We’d like to replace the dorm lobby furniture in Mabee Hall. It’s time to replace the furniture in this women’s dorm (where Lydia once lived) with new lobby couches and chairs. There, students can find a comfy spot to play games, pray, have a movie night, hold dorm devotions, and build lifelong friendships. The cost for the new lobby chairs and couches is $20,000.

· We’d like to provide more outdoor picnic tables around campus. We have a few outdoor picnic tables where students study, debate Chick-fil-A vs. Raising Cane’s chicken, have deeper conversations with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or lie on the bench for a sunny afternoon nap. We’d like to provide 12 more tables—galvanized steel—and concrete pads for $16,000.

The two projects together total $36,000.

I don’t think any of the new seating will be red. (The picnic tables will be Ozark blue, and the new Mabee furniture will match the current lobby decor—which is not really Crayola primary colors.) But like Lydia’s “red chairs,” I think these sitting spots might make their way into a few hearts...

I just started my 30 year at OCC, and I now see my former students returning to campus to enroll their own children. And sometimes, I overhear the conversations with their kids:

· “My buddies and I used to eat at this table every day. This was our spot. Oh man, we laughed so much...”

· “It was on a couch in this lobby where I first kissed your mother.”

· “I was praying on this bench when I finally surrendered to God’s call to ministry.”

It’s funny how attached humans get to inanimate objects. But sometimes, in the course of life, we form a kind of unseen bond—even to things like chairs—that find us at just the right time. And they become holy ground.

In 2 Kings 4, the Shunammite woman made her house a home for Elisha, building a room with a bed, table, and chair. Your gift to our general fund will provide chairs to help make OCC a home for students. Thanks for considering this, and someday, if you visit campus, I hope to welcome you: “Pull up a chair and tell me about yourself.”

Yours in Christ,
Matt Proctor
President

P.S. For your calendar: Join us December 4-7 for OCC’s musical production of A Christmas Carol. Watch for info at —we’d love to save you a seat!

Your gift is a sacred trust. We promise to honor your generosity by using your gift in the most effective way to train men and women for Christian service. The project described here reflects OCC’s ministry needs at the time of writing. Your gift will go to the general fund to be used where it is needed most when received to prepare students to take the gospel to the world.