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One of the greatest men I’ve ever known is BA Carlin, a pastor who went home to be with the Lord.  The one word I would use to describe him?  Kind!  He was kind, gentle, thoughtful - a very, very classy man.  I will miss him.  My Dad did the funeral, thought I’d post this story and picture.  He concludes the way we all should.

REFLECTIONS FROM THE LIFE OF ONE OF GOD’S SERVANTS:  REV. B. A. CARLIN, BUNA, TEXAS, JUNE 23, 1922 - DECEMBER 7, 2009

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE LIFE OF REV. B. A. CARLIN

During the past few years I have been concerned about sharing with my friends something of the lives of people who have deeply influenced my life.  One of the men that influenced my life the earliest was a man by the name of Rev. Burl Adam Carlin, better known by AB. A., who went to be with the Lord on December 7, 2009 from his home in Buna, Texas.@ I had the honor of bringing the message at his memorial service that was conducted at the First Baptist Church of Buna, where he served as pastor for twenty two years. Joining me in participating in the service was, Chaplain David Cross of the Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas; Rev.Jerry Redkey, Director of Missions for the Sabine Neches Baptist Area and Jerry Clark, Lay minister and CEO of the Sabine River Authority.

Bro. B. A. Carlin was born June 23, 1922 in Jenerette, Louisiana. During the early years of his life he lived with his family on a houseboat on the Jenerette Canal. His grandfather immigrated to America from Nova Scotia, and his grandmother from France. His grandfather was a fisherman, and had begun a fishing business shipping fish from Louisiana back to New York. So,  Bro. Carlin lived on the river in the boat house helping his father who worked with his grandfather in the fishing business.

Bro. Carlin’s father had wanted him to go to a Baptist church, but at that time there was not a Baptist Church in Jenerette. However, there was a Methodist Church that he attended, where there was a Baptist lady who taught Sunday School in the Methodist church, because there was no Baptist Church in town for her to affiliate with. Therefore, Bro. Carlin’s first identification with the church was in the Methodist church, attending a Sunday School Class by a dear Baptist lady. However, sometime later a minister by the name of Rev. Ira Mark came to Jenerette and began preaching in the City Hall. He formed a Baptist Church, and Bro. Carlin’s Sunday School teacher left the Methodist church, and became identified with the new Baptist Church, where she now taught Sunday School.  Bro. Carlin followed her to this new Baptist Church. Bro. Carlin attended church with a great personal problem. He had few clothes but would borrow his uncle’s dress clothes to wear to church on Sunday, since his uncle was about his same size. It was sometime later at the age of 13 that he felt deep conviction in his heart and soul and one Sunday night was gloriously saved. Sometime after his conversion his Uncle Bill, on his fathers side was also saved and shortly afterwards was called to preach. He and Bro. Carlin formed a team, where his uncle would preach and Bro. Carlin would sing. His uncle could not read, so, Bro. Carlin, who at that time had only gone through the third grade, could read and thus he would read the passages of scripture for his uncle to preach about.
As time went by, Bro. Carlin met the daughter of his pastor, Rev. Ira Mark, and they became interested in one another. As Bro. Carlin later shared with his pastor that God was calling him to preach, the pastor took a definite interest in him. Since Bro. Carlin had only a third grade education, the pastor encouraged him to get back in school. Bro. Carlin shared with him that he had no money to go to school, but Pastor Ira Mark assured him that he would help him get back in school. At that time the Arcadia Baptist Academy had been formed near Eunice, Louisiana to help young people like Bro. Carlin to complete their education. However, he had a problem. His father did not want him to leave home and go away to school. Bro. Carlin talked to his pastor, Bro. Ira Mark about his problem, and he gave him some good advice. He told him that since he was under his father’s jurisdiction that he should not go against his father’s advice but pray that the Lord would change his father’s mind. Bro. Carlin prayed fervently and daily that God would do exactly that. He prayed to the Lord and pleaded with his father. Finally, his father told him, that if he wanted to go to school that bad, that he could go. So. Bro. Ira Mark helped him to get enrolled in the Arcadia Baptist Academy through a work program. He would go to school each day from 8:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. and then work on the campus doing whatever they needed him to do to help maintain the school. He stayed at this school for five years, where he was able to complete his high school education and received some credit toward his education in something like a Junior College.

While at Arcadia Baptist Academy Bro. Carlin met a young lady by the name of Virginia Fowler, who was at the academy for the same purpose he was. She felt the Lord had called her to be a missionary in China, but she too needed to complete her high school education. She had come there from North Carolina to do exactly that. Though they were in school together they never took interest in one another until some three years after they were there at the academy. One Christmas she was unable to go home and he had a preaching engagement and could not go and, and so being together through that Christmas season, they were drawn together and began to have a real fondness and love for one another,  and in June of 1943 they consummated that love in marriage.  In the years that followed they were blessed with three children: Ken, Cliff and Becky who gave to them six grandchildren.
After leaving the Academy Bro. and Mrs. Carlin moved near Leesville,  Louisiana, where he became pastor of the Canaan Baptist Church. He enrolled in Louisiana Baptist College located in Pineville, Louisiana to continue his education. After about a year at Canaan Baptist Church he resigned to become pastor of the Holloway Prairie Baptist Church, which was closer to Pineville and the college. Later he became pastor of the Wardville Baptist Church, while continuing his education at Louisiana Baptist College.  He resigned Wardville Baptist Church to move to Texas where he became pastor of the Central Baptist Church of Voth, Texas, which is now a part of Beaumont, Texas. It was at this pastorate that I came to know Bro.  and Mrs. Carlin. This was the church I grew up in as a child and where I was baptized after my conversion. My father and I had a service station in Voth, and we serviced Bro. Carlin=s old black and maroon Dodge automobile. It was during this time through my relationship with him in the church and at our station that I came to know him. I saw him struggling financially to rear his family, while seeking to remain faithful to his calling. I saw his dedication and listened to him preach as a young person. His wife, Virginia, was equally dedicated and devoted and was often credited by the church and community for preparing his messages. While she was fully capable , the rumor was never true. While as a senior at Beaumont High School, God called me to preach. It was a most dramatic call that God gave me with dreams and visions of the world coming to an end. They kept coming. I felt I knew what was going on, but I went to Bro. Carlin for advise. He listened, but never rushed to encourage me to preach. I asked him, “Bro. Carlin, do you think God is calling me to preach?” He said, “I don’t know Bro. Bobby, but if He is. He will let you know.” I thought sure, he would say, “Bro. Bobby, there is no doubt about it,”  but he didn’t and I have lived to be grateful that he did not,  because in the fifty seven years that I have preached, I have never once questioned my call to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I knew my call was from the Lord and not my pastor, Bro. B. A. Carlin.

It was December 1952 that I made my commitment to Christ. It was only months later that Bro. Carlin resigned to become pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Pt. Acres, Texas, where he served as pastor for the next ten years. He then moved to Beaumont to become pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church, and later to the First Baptist Church of Buna where he retired after twenty three years. Following his retirement, he and his wife Virginia became pastor of the Fairdale Baptist Church of Hemphill, Texas for some two to three years. He and Virginia’s health began to diminish, and he resigned to just do interim and supply work. One of his last ministries was with the Old Laurel Baptist Mission, just out of Buna, Texas. He and his son Ken, who led the music for him,  were able to help organize the mission church into a fully organized church.

Then tragedy came. In 1996 Bro. Carlin’s dear wife Virginia passed away and he grieved for the next three years. Then a dear godly, Christian lady by the name of Dorothy McGilbery, better known to all of us as “Dot”, was brought into his life. Dot and her husband had, in earlier years, operated a business in Buna and were members of the First Baptist Church, where Bro. Carlin was the pastor. They later sold their business in Buna and moved to their farm in San Augustine, Texas. Dot later lost her husband in death in San Augustine and had been alone herself for several years. Both had vowed to never marry again. However, obviously God had other plans, and so they were brought into one another’s lives and later were married in 1999. They have now enjoyed ten wonderful years together. Dot brought laughter and joy back into Bro. Carlin=s life and gave him the encouragement that he needed to keep on going and serving the Lord with what he had left. Bro. Carlin was 87 years of age at the time that Gay and I visited he and Dot in their home in Buna and sat for a couple of hours as he shared his life story with us. Gay and I shall never forget July 7, 2009, the day our hearts were deeply moved and blessed by his wonderful story. It was both a joyous and spiritual experience for all four of us. We all were blessed when we left, for having listened to Bro. Carlin sharing his life with us, and answering some of my questions I had long wanted to ask.
We were there that day because in recent months life had not been easy for Bro. Carlin and Dot.  Bro. Carlin’s prostate cancer returned. Bone Cancer made an invasion into his life. A broken hip that required hip surgery was performed, and stress on the heart put him back in the hospital, where he was for more than a month with little possibility of coming out. I went to Belize, Central America, to do a crusade, with my cell phone always in my pocket, expecting to be called home at any moment. However, God intervened and Dot stayed by his side constantly in that hospital, and he was able to return to his home in Buna, Texas, where they resided. Dot herself was not without her own problems, but you would never have known it. She was practically blind, but able to continue to care for Bro. Carlin in their home with the help of their children. Bro. Carlin has a daughter by the name of Becky, who lives in Buna.  His son Ken and his wife Barbara stayed in their home with them, until Bro. Carlin and Dot were able to care for themselves. It was during this reprieve, while at his home in Buna that Gay and I spent that unforgettable Tuesday morning.

It is so amazing how close we can be to someone and yet not know so many wonderful things about their lives.  Bro. Carlin and I have been and were close to the end. He is my Father in the ministry. A few years ago I had the wonderful privilege of having him to accompany me on one of trips to Belize. In one of my seminars, he came and stood by me. My son in the ministry in Belize, Pastor Arlington Anthony, came and stood by the two of us. Then Pastor Anthony’s son in the ministry came and stood by the three of us. As the four of us stood there I was able to also inform them there was another that could stand there with us and that was my son Bob. Jr., who is pastor of a church and mission organization in Fort Worth, Texas. As the four of us stood there in the Ramada Hotel Banquet room that summer day, I stood in awe and overcome. All the pastors along with us stood in awe. I still stand in awe as I think of it. Now, even as I write this article I sit in awe and overcome. Just to think, it all started on a river boat on the Jenerette Canal in Jenerette, Louisiana 87 years ago.

Who would have believed that a young boy; who lived in a boat house on a river; who borrowed his uncle’s clothes to go to church in on Sunday; who would come to know Jesus as his saviour; who would hear and heed the call to preach the Gospel, who would take the two pair of pants he had and put them in a paper sack and go farther from home than he had ever been with a third grade education to enroll in a Bible Academy to begin preparation for the ministry; who would stay there five years to complete his high school education to enable him to go to Louisiana Bible College in Pineville, La.; who would keep on studying in the years to come until he would earn his B.A. Degree and Doctor of Ministry of Degree at the age of 75 and live to rehearse all of this with my wife Gay and his wife Dot on that rainy July 7, 2009, morning. Yes, my dear friends GOD IS GOOD. It is reflected in the life of one of his servants, Rev. Burl “B.A”  Carlin.

To me one of the greatest miracles is not that Jesus could turn water into wine, but that he could take a young lad with a third grade education and turn him into a leader among people and a pastor to more than ten churches and we could be blessed by his life.

COMPILED BY DR. BOB ROBERTS, SR., A SON OF HIS IN THE MINISTRY