Proclaimers of Peace CAMILLE ANDING The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 reverberated around the globe and into a group of young college students rehearsing for a choral concert. Jack Glaze, a Pelahatchie native, was one of those students enrolled in Millsaps College and still, at age ninety-four, recalls the somber mood that quickly fell on the rehearsal after the disturbing news. The choir director told the group that this would be their last concert with the same group because many would soon be fighting in the war. His last words to the group were, “Let’s go out and sing for peace.” However it was another song earlier in Glaze’s college days that set his lifetime path in motion. As a member of this same choral group, Glaze was at FBC in Jackson joining his group in providing the special music for an army chaplain who was to speak and sing. During the chaplain’s message, he began singing, “beautifully,” as Glaze recalls. Suddenly in the middle of the song, the chaplain forgot the words and abruptly stopped singing. An awkward silence fell over the audience as the message in song halted. That’s when a voice that only spoke to Glaze asked, “How can they hear unless they are told?” From that point, Glaze dedicated his life to God and the proclamation of the Gospel. In 1943, Glaze joined the army and after infantry training was sent to Italy to join forces in the war. A chaplain in his unit had lost his driver in a land mine and asked for a volunteer replacement. Glaze volunteered and began driving for the chaplain. Death is a close companion in war, and Glaze learned that firsthand. A lieutenant colonel asked Glaze to be his driver to the advanced observation several miles away but in close range of the German army. Glaze had studied the surrounding terrain and was familiar with the accuracy of the Germans’ artillery. The distance to their destination had alternating plots of forestry and farm land. The trek would be dangerous since they would be within range of the enemy’s artillery. When Glaze accelerated the jeep, he shouted, “Hold on!” After a short distance, Glaze stopped and after a brief pause accelerated the jeep again. While Glaze was pacing his own stop and go trek to their destination, the colonel kept yelling, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Glaze ignored the colonel, following his own pattern while the enemy’s mortar shells fell either in front or behind the jeep. When they arrived safely at the observation point, the lieutenant colonel asked Glaze if he knew what it meant to disobey and the consequences involved. Glaze said that he did, and the colonel would just have to do what he had to do. Instead of considering a court martial, the officer chose Glaze for his driver. After almost four years in North Africa and Europe, Glaze returned home and finished his degree at Mississippi College. From there it was on to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he met Jean Johnson, a freshman at the Woman’s Missionary Training School during his sophomore year. Glaze said, “I thought she needed someone to show her around.” They were married a little over a year later in 1949. Glaze describes his bride of sixty-nine years as the “one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.” That commitment to one another continues today as they share life in Clinton at Brookdale Senior Living while still celebrating their four children, twelve grandchildren and seventeen great grands. Their accomplishments for God, family, friends, and students are beyond exemplary. They served as foreign missionaries in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for twenty-seven years. From 1967-75 Jack was a professor of Old Testament and president of the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Argentina. He’s written several books, and when the couple returned stateside, they continued their teaching at Mississippi College and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary until 1994. Even though Jack Glaze knew God’s call on his life before WWII, the experience of being in war affirmed his calling. He said, “I realized true peace only comes through Jesus Christ,” and the Glaze couple have invested their lives to the proclamation of that peace. “By the way,” Missionary Glaze said as we were leaving the interview, “I was the sole survivor of my army unit because I was reassigned as the chaplain’s driver.” l 16 • May 2018
“ I realized true peace only comes through Jesus Christ. ” Hometown Clinton • 17
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