Family, friends remember the many contributions of the Rev. Dr. Alice Winters

LOUISVILLE — On Saturday, family members and her many friends remembered former PC(USA) mission co-worker the Rev. Dr. Alice Winters for her decades of dedicated work educating pastors and accompanying people in Colombia through their struggle for human rights.

Image

Winters died May 1 at age 82. Her service, which can be viewed here, was held at North Creek Presbyterian Church in Mill Creek, Washington, which “had the distinct privilege and honor” of having Winters worship there during the last few years of her life, said the Rev. Dr. Kurt Helmcke, North Creek’s senior pastor. Online tributes can be read here.

“Did Alice have a favorite scripture? She used to say ‘all of it,’ which is not a surprise for someone who read her Bible cover to cover many times,” Helmcke said. Scripture passages read on Saturday were Psalm 23 and John 14:1-3 and 25-27.

While reading the many tributes ahead of Saturday’s service, Helmcke observed that Winters “developed a concept of putting the Bible into action through the action of accompaniment. There is something powerful about that ministry and the witness of accompaniment, especially to those who are poor or oppressed, or in places of danger and faced with the threat of violence,” Helmcke said. “To know they are not alone makes all the difference.”

That gave Helmcke a fresh look at the well-loved psalm, “seeing in Psalm 23 the great accompaniment of the Lord, who is our shepherd,” he said. “It’s about the shepherd who draws near to us, who brings the abundance of his blessings to us, or leads us on a path where we might experience those.”

Psalm 23 “reminds us that the accompanying love of God is inclusive, and includes us,” he said. “We matter to God, and everyone in the flock matters as well.”

Winters “accompanied people who faced the threat of violence and death, and who grieved loved ones who lost their lives,” Helmcke said. “Alice helped us to remember this, that many lived their existence in the shadow of death. … Psalm 23 begins to fuel in us a vision that the accompaniment of the Lord might not end at the end of our earthly life.”

The accompaniment Jesus offers in John 14 “brings us full circle, the reminder that we have hope, the hope of an unbroken relationship with the God who created us,” Helmcke said. “May we sense this even as we recall how Alice taught us about the accompaniment of the Lord.”

Winters was trained as a lawyer and spent five years as a tax law specialist in the Internal Revenue Service before answering God’s call to attend seminary. In 1983, she joined the faculty of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Colombia, serving as president there from 1987-92.

“Rest assured that we will be better prepared to face the challenges that arise because of the analytical tools you gave us in your theology and Bible classes, which have been and will continue to be the foundation for our ongoing formation and that of new generations,” wrote Diego Higuita of Uraba Presbytery in Colombia.

The Rev. Ellen Sherby, manager of International Ecumenical Liaisons in the Interim Unified Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), called Winters a “humble and insightful teacher, bringing keen theological understanding to biblical texts, especially the Hebrew Scriptures.”

“We are grateful for Alice, and for the many ways in which she taught and learned theology in her teaching ministry with the people of Colombia, in partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Colombia,” Sherby wrote in a tribute to Winters’ dedicated work.

In a prayer, the Rev. Mark Koenig thanked God “for her beautiful service to the church, her ministry in Colombia, her fierce commitment to justice, her passion for education, for all in Alice that was good and kind and faithful.”

“May memories prove blessings. May her example stir us to show kindness more frequently, pursue justice more fervently, and follow Jesus more faithfully, as we walk with you,” Koenig wrote.

Her sister Julie said Winters “always was amazing,” starting college at age 16. The year before, Julie recalled attending a birthday party where there was dancing, which Free Methodists didn’t do.

“I came home and I was troubled by this. Was I a bad person?” she said. Her sister explained to her about “perfect good and perfect evil and all the shades in between. It’s hard to say where you draw the line,” Alice told her sister, “but the important thing is you have a line.”

Julie went to see her sister in Colombia at the time of Alice’s retirement. “It was wonderful to see how much the people there loved her, and how much she loved and cared for them,” she said. When the sisters worked to clear out Alice’s apartment there, “she wouldn’t let me throw anything out. She knew it would be valuable to a poor person in Colombia.”

Linda Roundhill, co-leader of the women’s Bible study at North Creek, recalled the day Winters first attended in 2022. “We asked her to tell us about herself, and she said, ‘I was a missionary in Colombia for a while.’”

“Alice didn’t say a lot, but when she did, you paid attention,” Roundhill said, describing Winters as “someone who spent her entire life serving her Savior and sharing the Word of God.”

Bible study Co-Leader Liz Marshall recalled a recent idea to share palm fronds with people who couldn’t attend Palm Sunday worship in person. Her father helped her to deliver them, and they left one along with a note on Alice’s bed, since she wasn’t there to receive it in person.

“Somebody at the care center asked her about the palm, and she had her last opportunity to give a sermon and personal testimony,” Marshall said.