Giving Back

Much of Will and Carol Sawyer’s retirement has been devoted to helping people. The Bent Mountain residents have shared their gifts of teaching and music respectively with local folks, as well as in other countries. And they’ve loved every minute of it.

“Retirement is not a time to sit around and do nothing,” says Will, who retired from Exxon at the age of 57. Carol was a stay-at-home mom and raised the couple’s four children.

Early on as retirees, the Sawyers took seminary courses in Texas and had plans to be missionaries in China. But the protests at Tiananmen Square halted that trip. After moving to Bent Mountain in 1993, they became involved with Biblical Education by Extension (now Entrust), which helps train young men in Eastern European countries to become pastors.

“Two or three times a year, we would travel to Romania,” Will says. The program “was a great way to give those men theological education.”

These days, the Sawyers travel less often, content with the activities they can enjoy locally. When they moved to their “retirement headquarters in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” as Will describes their home,” Carol decided to try her hand at the cello, which she had played as a child. She took lessons and now plays with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Blacksburg Community Strings and at her church, First Baptist in Roanoke.

“I have a love affair with the cello,” she says. “I had wondered if I could learn again, and it’s been a wonderful experience. Had he (Will) not been my encourager, I might not have tried it again.”

Will teaches Sunday School at First Baptist, as well as four Bible-based courses at Ebenezer Baptist Church for the Washington Bible College Equip Program. Together, he and Carol visit assisted living facilities and nursing homes every week; she plays music and he tells Bible stories to the residents. Once a month, they are joined by other friends and sing hymns with the residents.

“We’ve had a good life,” Will says. When he reaches the pearly gates, he says he wants to hear, “well done, you’ve been a good and faithful servant.