Do you ever have those days when someone just keeps popping into your head? Years ago I finally started to act on these things. This is how I developed a very close and loving relationship with my Uncle James. As kids growing up for one reason or another we didn't get together much with Uncle James and his family. I so long to go back and change that. So instead I started e-mailing him and would go and visit everyone once and a while not nearly enough. I grew to love this man of wisdom you just can't explain. And his writing was wonderful. It would form a picture in your head as if you were there. He and my Aunt Shirley (his wife) would send me e-mails along the way encouraging to keep going. In the early 90's he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I am not sure when he developed a website to inspire people to never quit. Between e-mails and talks with him I was fortunate to realize what a great man we had in our family. He touched so many people's lives everywhere he went. He had a stay at my hospital last fall and the nurses fell in love with him. He was on a different unit than I worked and so later when he was released I saw a thank you note he had written to the nurses and the staff there. Talking to one of the nurses that cared for him I shared with her that he was my Uncle. She gushed and gushed about how wonderful he was and what an inspiration he was to everyone. What it must be like to be that kind of a person. He was so tuned to what the Lord wanted him to do and he just did it. I went through my e-mails tonight some of them as old as 2006. As I read them I realized how much he was like my grandfather and how much those e-mails meant to me then but even more now. This is just one of many e-mails he sent to me.
Dear Heather,
We just want you to know how much we admire your tenacity. You have been a shining example for your children and really for all of us. No wonder the kids are all doing so well. We have watched you on occasion these last few years and have just been amazed that you could even come close to accomplishing all you have. We are so proud of you for this great accomplishment so you can minister to others now and as well as provide a livelihood for your family. I see that “don’t quit” Hollars’ family in action again.
You are truly a remarkable woman and mother.
Thank you for sharing with us about the kids. They are truly blessed.
May the Lord Bless You Indeed,
Aunt Shirley and Uncle James
I don't know if I could ever due him justice or truly put on paper how I feel. I still hear the conversations of the last visit to their house and hate that I only took 2 kids with me. He sang and played his guitar that day. Retaught my kids a song he had played several years earlier at a family reunion. It was the same verse over and over. It is a song he made up about a farmer they lived by when my mom was a teenager. Every once and a while my kids will sing that song. If you can't tell he passed On March 15th of this year. I spent some time up there before he died. But when it came time to his passing I couldn't bring myself to go up there and be with him and my cousins and Aunt (my mom and Stephanie went). I had the awesome opportunity to be with my grandfather in November of last year when he passed and I just wanted to remember my Uncle as smiling.
And now in my head that is how I remember him. Him smiling and being so wonderful with my aunt. If you have a moment check out his website. It will truly change your life. www.didntquit.com
The following articles were written about my Uncle and I wanted to add them for personal keepsake. I had saved one of them to our family website and I was glad I did. The Fort Worth Cats update their website so often I couldn't find it on their archives. I am hoping by putting them where I found them that the author's of the articles will be fine with me putting them her for our family history. They wrote it so much better than I could have ever written it.
This is taken from the Fort Worth Cats website after his passing.
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Jim Hollars 1939-2008
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Jim Hollars passes away
Cats’ team chaplain Jim Hollars, whose valiant fight against illness served as an inspiration to all he touched, died on Saturday. He was 68.
Hollars, who battled Parkinson’s disease for several years, had been hospitalized recently because of aspiration pneumonia.
“The Fort Worth Cats and all other baseball organizations have lost a dear friend and a spiritual leader in Jim Hollars. Jim has shown in the past year a strong faith in his fight against his illness and a true dedication to focusing not on his own difficulties but focusing on the minds and spiritual well-being of our players, coaches and fans,” said Cats’ owner Carl Bell.
“The Cats would like to send our thoughts and prayers to Jim’s wife Shirley and the rest of their family. Jim will always be a treasured as a member of the Fort Worth Cats family.”
Hollars joined the Cats in 2002 as the team chaplain after spending three seasons with the Toledo Mud Hens. He was a native Texan who graduated from Texas Tech and Southwestern Baptist Seminary.
After Hollars was hospitalized last September, he summoned the strength to make it to LaGrave Field to witness the final part of Game 5 of the championship series and sing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch, just minutes before Jordan Foster’s go-ahead home run propelled the Cats’ to their third straight championship.
In his final days, Hollars continued to wear his 2005 and 2006 Cats’ championship rings.
“Jim was an inspiration for our entire organization – from our chairman Carl Bell down to the batboys. Every person in our organization who knew Jim Hollars was inspired by him,” said Cats’ president John Dittrich.
He is survived by his wife Shirley,five daughters, seven granddaughters and one grandson.
A memorial service was held at Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth on Tuesday. Cards and other expressions of condolence may be sent to:
Here is another article written about My Uncle James!
Posted: 9/19/03
Ballpark preacher for the Fort Worth Cats
By Ken Camp
Texas Baptist Communications
FORT WORTH--Some might say life threw Jim Hollars a curve ball when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. But the church starter-turned-baseball chaplain just saw it as a change-up and adjusted his swing.
The West Texas native served 30 years as a minister of music and youth before he was called on to fill in temporarily as pastor of a storefront church in Ohio. "I started preaching and never looked back," he said.
Chaplain Jim Hollars talks with catcher Brian Moon prior to a Fort Worth Cats game at LaGrave Field.( David Clanton/Standard Photo)
In 1994, Hollars started a church in Toledo and before long also started working part-time as a chaplain with a minor league baseball team, the Mudhens. But after a couple of years, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
Eventually, the degenerative neurological ailment left his voice weak and raspy, and he no longer was physically able to stand for a half-hour at a time in the pulpit preaching.
Hollars and his wife, Shirley, retired and moved to Fort Worth to be near their grandchildren. But they were convinced God still had a place of ministry for them.
Today, they serve as Mission Service Corps volunteers and ministers of missions at Point of Hope Church, a mission of Lamar Baptist Church of Arlington. And Hollars expands his ministry beyond Point of Hope Church by working as a chaplain with the Fort Worth Cats, a minor league team in the independent Central Baseball League.
"I don't belong with these professional athletes. I'm too old and too crippled," Hollars said. "I tremble and can't speak plainly sometimes. But God uses my weaknesses."
The Baptist General Convention of Texas recognizes Point of Hope as a missional "key church," meaning it intentionally seeks to allow missions to permeate every aspect of church life. Texas Baptists provide support for the key church and Mission Service Corps programs through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions.
Until Point of Hope Church moved its worship services from Sunday morning to Saturday night, Hollars sometimes had to leave church early to head to LaGrave Field for pre-game chapel services. But he slipped out of the services with Pastor Darren Whitehead's blessings.
"At Point of Hope, it's all about building God's kingdom, not building our own kingdom," Hollars said. "Serving with Baseball Chapel really is an extension of my ministry at the church. The congregation prays for us, and they're very supportive."
During the 96-game regular minor league season, Hollars typically holds three chapel services before each home game--one for the Cats, one for their opponents and one for the umpires.
Jim and Shirley Hollars hold a lunchtime Bible study for the Cats each week at their home in Southwest Fort Worth. A typical Bible study begins not only with prayer requests like health for ill family members and hope for spiritually lost friends, but also healing for injured players and jobs for the off-season.
In part, the players are drawn to the Bible study by the desire for Christian fellowship and a hunger to learn more about Scripture. But Hollars acknowledges they're also drawn by hunger for his wife's cooking.
"The home-cooked meal is a big attraction," he said. "These guys eat at McDonald's a lot."
Hollars leads a home Bible study attended by Fort Worth Cats players Brian Moon, Jim Essian and Chris Cumberland.
Baseball Chapel is an international ministry recognized by Major League Baseball and the various minor league systems.
"A lot of guys on the teams will tell you they got saved in Baseball Chapel," Hollars said.
Brian Moon, catcher with the Fort Worth Cats, came to faith in Christ through the ministry of Baseball Chapel in 1999 when he was playing in Wisconsin.
"Every Sunday, he'd come into the locker room for chapel, so one day I went out to lunch with the chapel guy," Moon recalled. "I got saved that afternoon."
Jim Essian Jr., center fielder for the Cats and a regular participant in Hollars' Bible studies, has a strong family connection to Baseball Chapel. "My dad got saved in Baseball Chapel back in 1978, when he was with the Oakland A's."
Almost without exception, players express appreciation for the presence of a chaplain, Hollars said. But that doesn't mean every player attends services.
"A lot of guys are scared to try it. They know they're missing something, but they're afraid they would have to change their lifestyles. It's definitely not easy to walk the walk," said Chris Cumberland, closing pitcher for the Cats, who has played baseball professionally 11 years.
Cumberland understands the baseball lifestyle, having grown up around the game. His father, John Cumberland, was in the major leagues from 1968 to 1974, pitching for the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and California Angels, and now is pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals.
"The baseball life is not like anything else," he said. "You're constantly going from city to city. You're out late at night. It makes you grow up fast."
Ministering in that kind of environment has provided a sense of missionary fulfillment for Hollars, and it has given him the opportunity to minister not only to players and officials, but also groundskeepers, ushers and vendors.
"I've been amazed at how well-received Baseball Chapel is and how we're able to go into a totally secular environment and talk about Jesus so openly," Hollars said. "It's an opportunity to practice being the presence of Christ in a secular environment, every time I enter the ballpark."
Chaplain Jim Hollars talks with catcher Brian Moon prior to a Fort Worth Cats game at LaGrave Field. Below, Hollars leads a home Bible study attended by Fort Worth Cats players Brian Moon, Jim Essian and Chris Cumberland.
David Clanton/Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
**** Here is another blog about James.
http://www.blogofages.net/
This is copy and pasted from http://www.blogofages.net
This was a friend of his that blogged on his passing.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Designated hitter -- James Hollars
It started Sunday morning. I began to notice a cluster of hits from the midwest on this blog site. But the people who Googled weren’t looking for me. It was Jim Hollars they wanted to know about. Jim, the Mystery Woman, and I were high school pals and graduated together with the Lubbock Monterey High Class of ’57.
My first reaction was: trouble with the law? Some of my buddies were shady.
Not Jim. He was a retired minister, choir director and baseball chaplain. He was living with the ravages of Parkinson’s.
In my heart, I knew what had happened. Jim had died.
I had not seen Jim in nearly 50 years when he popped up at our book signing in Arlington, Texas, a couple of years back. I would not have recognized Jim until he opened his mouth. He was completely bald and a little unsteady on his feet. That’s when I learned of his battle with Parkinson’s.
And I learned more of Jim’s courage and sweet disposition on his website.
We became close again over the next two years. Because of Jim and his association with the Ft. Worth Cats and the Toledo Mud Hens, the Mystery Woman and I went to see the St.Paul Saints play and laughed with the crowd at the Norman Rockwell kinda schtick. I mean – a pig mascot named Garrison Squealor.
Jim was a writer, too. We gently encouraged each other, the three of us.
I don’t know enough of Jim’s life over the past 50 years to write a full obit, but – thanks to the Internet—his words will live forever. That’s neat.
Until I read his obituary, I never knew Jim was a preacher of the Baptist persuasion. And he never knew I am an atheist. Jim loved his Lord. I don’t happen to. But I loved Jim.
And that’s close enough.
Posted by George Phenix at 7:37 AM 1 comments
Labels: James Hollars, minor league baseball, obituary
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