{"id":23814,"date":"2025-01-25T16:55:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T23:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hero-worship-jimmy-carter-and-us\/"},"modified":"2025-01-25T23:55:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T23:55:50","slug":"hero-worship-jimmy-carter-and-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hero-worship-jimmy-carter-and-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Hero worship: Jimmy Carter and us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=444be12e-8a22-5663-a3c7-8a0120a780ac&#038;function=cover&#038;type=preview&#038;source=false&#038;width=2000\" width=\"1628\" height=\"931\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I was on a Baptist mission trip in Southeast Asia in 1976 when a newspaper appeared at my motel door proclaiming Jimmy Carter as winner of the U.S. presidential election. Local people asked if I was happy a Baptist had won. What? my young adult self gasped! In America, we don\u2019t vote by religious affiliation. We vote for democracy and religious freedom.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, I didn\u2019t follow Carter\u2019s politics much. But later, I came to admire his humanitarian work around the world. My husband, Ed, and I visited Americus and Plains, Georgia, a couple of times \u2013 The Carter Center, his boyhood home, a little caf\u00e9 in Plains and especially Habitat for Humanity International\u2019s Global Village.<\/p>\n<p>We both read \u201cAn Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood,\u201d by Carter.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I loved \u201cJust Peace, a Message of Hope,\u201d by Mattie JT Stepanek with Carter.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, Ed was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, the same kind of brain cancer as Carter. Our admiration became part of a shared journey. I wrote to the Carters asking for a birthday greeting for Ed in August 2020. First, we received the standard best wishes. Then, the personal note came:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo Ed, Rosalynn and I were concerned to learn of your recent illness. Please know that you are in our thoughts and prayers, and we hope that your faith and courage will continue to sustain you during this difficult time. We send you our warm best wishes and hope to hear of our complete and speedy recovery. Sincerely, Jimmy Carter\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his illness, Ed maintained a relationship with Hospice of Mercy, which officially embraced him with care for his final weekend in May 2022. He was 76. Carter lived on, under hospice care, to age 100, dying on Dec. 29, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>President Jimmy Carter, I didn\u2019t vote for you for your church affiliation in 1976.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m voting now for your faith \u2013 in justice, hope and peace, for all humanity, for all the Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Pray for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonnie Simons<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-963c690f06d8e2b245201a6975a50d68\">Durango<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was on a Baptist mission trip in Southeast Asia in 1976 when a newspaper appeared at my motel door proclaiming Jimmy Carter as winner of the U.S. presidential election. Local people asked if I was happy a Baptist had won. What? my young adult self gasped! In America, we don\u2019t vote by religious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23814"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}