The rich baritone voice mingled with the tiny voices of tots filtered into the office from the St. Tim’s multipurpose room, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
E. David Basinger Jr., St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church’s “Father Dave,” loves the 22 pre-schoolers that attend the church’s program and he loves his new community.
Basinger, 63, says he and his wife Linda almost missed making Athens their new community 14 months ago.
“I had interviewed at another church — actually three churches in two days and we liked them all — and we were headed back down Interstate 65 and the bishop called and asked me to stop into St. Timothy’s since I was so close to Athens,” he said.
“We stopped in and talked to them and went downtown and ate at an Italian restaurant, walked around the square, and we liked it. We said, hopefully it will work out.”
Basinger, a California native, retired from the Air Force after 27 years in 1993 and headed for Sewanee, Tenn., to enroll in seminary.
“I retired early to go to seminary,” he said. “I had been fighting it for 15 years. The Lord was shaking me and telling me.”
He said while still in the military he and his wife lived in Savannah, where he became involved in community service, including a soup kitchen.
“There are awards for community involvement in the military, but there was this constant, still, small voice calling me and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.”
When Basinger graduated from seminary in 1996 he headed back to the diocese for Georgia. He served in the Georgia diocese, in Alabama and most recently in Louisiana where he served the Office of Disaster Response for Hurricane Katrina.
“That was a life-changing and ministry-changing experience,” he said. “It clarified what I believed because I had to convince people that things would be OK.”
He said there are still areas of New Orleans that look as though they haven’t been touched in the more than four years since Katrina struck.
“The money just ran out,” he said. “I’m not pointing fingers at the local or federal government or insurance companies. We just weren’t prepared to deal with something of that magnitude.”
In Athens, he said he has been delighted by the warm welcome he has received and how they respond when they know there is a need.
“See those heaters stacked in the corner? When I made it known that I was concerned about some people in the community not having adequate heating, Sarah Chadwell (Executive Director of the Family Resource Center) called me and provided me with 15 heaters with the freezing weather approaching,” he said. “Those are all I have left. It was just a wonderful thing to do. People here have such warmth and the people of this community are so responsive.”
He praised the work of local public service agencies.
“There are several agencies here that are just doing a great job, such as the Limestone County Churches Involved Food Pantry. They do the best they can with what they have, but I guess that’s just a Band-Aid on a cancer,” he said. “We need more awareness, contributions and volunteers.”
Basinger said he is particularly gratified by the turnout at the English As Second Language classes the church offers every Monday and Wednesday.
“These people are motivated, energetic and industrious — everything you’d look for in a person these people demonstrate,” he said. “When I was in Southeast Asia I gained a real appreciation of the loneliness and feeling of isolation when you don’t know the language.”
