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My father, Chaplain Lt. Col. (RT) Calvin McCarter, the founder of Each1 Feed1 International, went to heaven on Saturday, March 24th. I believe you will find the life of my father fascinating.
In 1965 while stationed in Vietnam, my father had a defining moment after witnessing the hopelessness of children plagued with leprosy. Dad would never be the same. He lost part of his hearing from being on the flight line. He spent his time off from the mortuary, where he wrote letters back home to those surviving, reaching out to the Montagnard indigenous people.
As a response to the plight of the children, he and my mother, (fondly known as Mama Linda) founded Each1 Feed1, International. Since then, Each1 Feed1 has been committed to finding creative answers for physical, mental, and spiritual hunger. After years of ministering throughout the world, God directed them to focus on two countries, Kenya and India.
In 1984 my parents moved to Kenya where my father taught at the Methodist University in the town of Meru. Just outside Meru were the Tharakan people, a forgotten poor people who were experiencing a cholera epidemic. His students were not showing up for class because their families were dying. My father did not just sit and wait for those that survived to return. He left the university and drove to Tharaka, picking up people on the sides of the road and carrying them to the hospitals far away.
At the end of the day, he would burn everything left in the truck to prevent the spread of this lethal disease. He then began importing injectable tetracycline, which was the only cure. Drought was an issue at the same time and the people were starving, so he brought a used shipping container down to Tharaka and parked it at the Thiiti primary school, filled it with food, and began feeding the people. He did not wait. He just got it done.
My dad then bought a small plot of land by the Thanantu River and put the shipping container on it. He and my mother along with my brother, Jeff and sister, Kelly moved back to the USA. Victoria and I then moved to Tharaka and built the Faith Thanantu Medical Clinic and that was the beginning of what exists today, a clinic serving 15,000 people, a K-8 school, and a children’s home. He just got it done.
Four years ago a young man offered to drive me back to the mission after I finished visiting the Catholic priest in Mukothima town near us. I wondered why he was being so kind. On the way back he explained. When he was a young child my father picked him up on the side of the road and took him to the hospital. He was dying of meningitis but here he was, happy, healthy, and grateful for what my father had done for him. My father just got it done.
One time my dad was given a dentist chair in the US. He took the chair apart piece by piece, put it in duffle bags, and carried it to Kenya as his luggage. Not an easy task. That chair is still being used today in the clinic. Thousands of teeth have been pulled in that chair. He just got it done.
Another time the old Landrover quit with a group of guests and pastors visiting Tharaka. My father took a coke can and made points for the distributor. Off they went with the team in amazement. He just got it done.
Our home was always full of visitors, so much that my Dad bought another house to hold all the men that were recently redeemed. A family who was homeless from a fire, redeemed drug addicts, abused children, women in trouble, it was always full. He started a painting company for them to earn a living. Dad told me they painted most houses twice in order to get it right.
In Washington DC my father was the pastor of a larger denominational church. He joined up with Arthur Blessitt from Hollywood, California and started a rock band, Eternal Rush East. He received permission to play on the parking lots of all the Marriott Hot Shot offee shops. They would play hard rock music. All the hippies, mostly stoned, would gather around, and then my father or another evangelist would step up and deliver the Gospel message.
They came forward. God changed them completely. No more drugs, a totally changed life. One problem was that these longhaired, braless, smelly hippies started coming to his church. The church did not renew his contract. Too many undesirables.The same year my father was named the “Man of the Year” in Washington, DC and asked to run for congress, which he turned down.
Dad’s next venture was to start a new church on his own. He worked with one of the elders as a plumber mostly re-working HUD low-income houses that had been destroyed. I learned from him. I ran the hand crank snake to clean out the sewer lines. It was a messy lesson I would never forget. There is only one real plumber in Tharaka today, the one my father taught.
Dad’s next church assignment was a small church in Pryor and then Muskogee,OK. I asked a man named Allan how he started coming to my Dad’s church. He had visited one Sunday. The next week my father came to his house. Allan was under his car fixing it. My dad laid down on the ground, scooted under the car, and helped him fix it. Little did Allan know he could fix anything. Allan made dad’s church his home.
Even though my father suffered from dementia for the last eight years there was one thing he was quick to do any time of day and that was pray. You had to be quick if you wanted to pray for him or he would beat you to it. It did not matter where you were, at a restaurant, in a store, anywhere. Every time I called him he was so excited to speak to me and told me how much he loved me and missed me. With dementia every day is a new day and that is not necessarily a bad way to live.
My father’s instant and unlimited generosity throughout his life is his legacy. He could have made lots of money, but he saw hurting hungry children. He could have been elected to many high positions, but he saw sick and hurting children. He could have caught more fish (he was an awesome fisherman), but he saw orphaned, abandoned, and abused children and he got it done.
In remembrance of my father and his legacy of sacrificial service to the poor, we are starting a new library in Tharaka, the Calvin McCarter Library and Technology Center for our children and the community. All of your tax-deductible contributions will go to set up this library/technology center to bring the modern world to the rural area of Tharaka.
Won’t you help us “get it done?” Give Here May God bless you this Easter season. Christ is indeed risen.
Kyle McCarter
Senator Kyle McCarter
As always, your online gift is secure and tax-deductible.
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