2023-09-14 04:27:51
Influential pastor Tony Evans announced to the church where he works his engagement four years after the death of his first wife, to whom he was married for almost 50 years.
Alongside his children, the pastor celebrated his 74th birthday, and remembered his late wife when announcing his engagement to Carla Crummie: “As we reach the fourth year of the loss of Lois, my wife of 49 and a half years, it is a delicate moment. There are reminders everywhere of her life and of her influence on me, my family and this ministry.”
Tony Evans is the founder and pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship church in Dallas, Texas (USA). On December 30, 2019, he lost his wife after a tough fight against biliary cancer.
“We are a very close-knit family, and everything that has happened in my life, family, church, projects, books, tapes, everything, has been defined by [Lois]so we had these four years of ups and downs and a rollercoaster of emotions”, commented the pastor.
Evans thanked his congregation for grieving alongside him and his family over the past few years, stating that the loss of his wife was “out of our hands,” which showed them the fragility of life: “We had to put him in the hands of a sovereign God.”
“As I went through the ups and downs of life as a widower, God, in His sovereignty, brought someone into my life,” Evans told the congregation as they erupted in applause. “This someone walked a similar path. Carla Crummie and her husband were on their way to Lois’ funeral when her husband died,” the pastor revealed.
“Since I have tried to share the ups and downs of my life with you, I wanted to share this and give you the opportunity to meet my new bride, Miss. Carla Crummie,” added Evans, to effusive applause from the church for revealing the engagement.
His reaction was to ask that the congregation be more restrained out of respect for those who were still mourning the loss of his first wife: “It is a delicate moment. During a time like this, you also remember the loss. And so I want sensitivity from her as you pray for me as we walk through this journey, as she goes through the pain that she has had to go through.”
The Evans family has suffered many losses in recent years, with the pastor losing his brother, sister, brother-in-law, a niece, his father and his wife in succession. Some deaths occurred a year apart, while his father and his wife died a month apart, according to information from the portal The Christian Post.
His new bride also suffered back-to-back losses, with her mother and husband dying within a year of each other. “Just pray for us […] The one thing I appreciated about Carla is that she valued Lois Evans by honoring her legacy here.”
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