“Make a decision to follow Jesus and stay close to Him,” advised Alton Ming. “That’s what it’s all about. This world was created by Him for Him, and we were created by Him and for Him. I personally think it would be really hard to make it through this life if I didn’t know that Jesus had me.”
Faith has always been important to Alton Ming, and he has been able to make it through many situations by depending on God. Looking back, he feels blessed that he was able to come to know Christ at a young age.
“Bro. Grady Crowell and I grew up in the same community in Winston County until I was 10. He preached the sermon the night I was saved. He was going to school in the seminary at New Orleans, and we grew up in the same church. He and my first cousin came and did a revival at my home church, Murphy Creek in Winston County, and that was when I got saved,” recalled Alton. “I had the opportunity to remind Bro. Grady of that just a couple years ago. We ran into him down here at the laundromat. I recognized him, but I was probably only 10 years old the last time he’d seen me. I got to tell him about it, and that was awesome to me.”
While he learned how to be dependent on the Lord growing up, he also learned how important it is to work hard. His daily scheduled was filled with hard work, but he was blessed to be able to learn from and work alongside his dad.
“I grew up in Noxubee County and lived on a dairy farm. When I was in high school, we had 250 cows to milk twice a day,” Alton reminisced. “I’d get up in the morning at about 4:30 and go to the patch to get the cows and bring them to the barn. I’d help my dad get the barn set up and ready and started milking. Then, I’d go home to clean up, get ready for school, eat breakfast, catch the bus, and go to school. I’d get back home that afternoon at about 4:00 and change clothes, grab a snack, and then go back to the barn to help my dad finish milking at night. Of course in the summertime I’d help him more on milking. It was a good way to grow up. I wouldn’t change it. I love it. I got to work with my dad every day.”
When he first graduated, he immediately began working in different positions before choosing to continue his education. Although it was no longer on the farm, he was even blessed to work alongside his father again for a little while.
“I graduated from Noxubee High School in 1967. After I graduated from high school, I did different things. I managed service stations and was a produce manager at a grocery store. When I started running a service station, my dad came up and worked with me. He had retired by then and came up and worked with me, so I was blessed to work with my dad most of the time growing up,” remembered Alton. “After I’d been out of high school for about 10 years, I went back to what was then East Mississippi Junior College. From there, I went to Mississippi College and graduated in 1979.”
It was while he was working as manager of the convenient stores that he managed to meet and fall in love with the woman who would become his wife, Judy Ming.
“I worked at a convenient store for about two weeks when I got robbed,” proclaimed Judy. “If I had quit when we got robbed that time, we would’ve never met. He came down to manage that convenient store after I had worked there for about six months.”
He didn’t stay in his management positions, however. Instead, Alton ended up finding a career that he truly loved where he could help those who needed it most.
“The last 25 years, I worked at the Salvation Army in Columbus. My daily job was maintenance. I took care of all their vehicles, buildings, and yards in Columbus. I did disaster services work. I primarily covered the southeastern part of the country. I would go to where major disasters were, like hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and stuff like that,” explained Alton. “I really enjoyed that. I never knew what I was going to see or what the people I was serving would need. We basically carried a canteen and served meals. We were seeing people at the worst time of their life when they’ve lost everything and just tried to reach out and help them get their life back to normal. I got to work with people from all over the country and some from out of the country. I’ve worked with someone from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.”
He developed multiple amazing memories of helping others while working with the Salvation Army.
“I remember one time I was in South Florida, and this lady had just lost her house to a fire the year before, and she lost everything she had in a hurricane. Her son was in the final stages of AIDS, and she couldn’t find a place for him. She’d given up. She was just going to go home and die,” expressed Alton. “I managed to get her to take both of them a meal and was able to put her in contact with the Salvation Army. They found a place for her son. That’s the kind of things you have to do in a situation like that, and that was amazing. I got more out of it than the people we were helping did.”
Although he loved his job, he eventually realized that he would have to retire because he simply couldn’t do everything that he felt he needed to do.
“I turned 70 on February 24, 2018, and my last day with the Salvation Army was February 28, 2018,” said Alton. “My health had just gotten where I couldn’t do the physical work that I needed to do up there.”
With his retirement, he and Judy decided the time had come to move to Clarke County where they could be closer to their grandchildren. What they didn’t realize was that moving would end up being a huge blessing for his health.
“We moved down here on May 28, 2018, and he had open heart surgery on March 18, 2019. They said he wouldn’t live through 2019 if he didn’t have that surgery,” declared Judy. “They had told him in Columbus that he just had a little heart murmur and that there was nothing to worry about. When we came down here, he had to go to the doctor again because he was having problems with his heart. They said his heart valve was closing up and that it was only the size of a pencil eraser when it’s supposed to be the size of a silver dollar. Thankfully, he got there when he did, and it’s a good thing we moved down here.”
Alton gives all the credit to God’s perfect timing, and it isn’t the only time in his life where he has been able to witness God doing things to help him. In fact, he is able to look at things in his life that most would find as completely negative and see where it is actually a blessing from God.
“My hearing is really bad. I never complained about it because I graduated high school in 1967. It was the height of the Vietnam War. I got my draft notice in February of 1968,” proclaimed Alton. “I would’ve been in Vietnam at the worst possible time had I passed my physical. I didn’t pass the physical because of my hearing and problems with my chest, so it kept me out of Vietnam. I lost a lot of friends in Vietnam. Both my brothers-in-law died of Agent Orange poisoning. Several of my friends came back from Vietnam and were never the same. I appreciate the fact that I didn’t have to go to Vietnam.”
Now that he has retired, Alton enjoys being able to just spend time with his family. He has different hobbies, including photography, drawing, reading, and just being outside.
Alton loves nature, and he primarily takes photographs of different things in nature. While he started out using what is now considered antique cameras, he now has an up-to-date high quality camera that he frequently tries to shoot wildlife photos with.
“I started out with my mom’s box camera. The best picture I ever took was with one of those and it was a picture of my dad. A long time ago, I had one of those little disk cameras,” stated Alton. “I really don’t have a long enough lens to do wildlife photography, but I get lucky every now and then. I took a picture of an osprey in Columbus. He suddenly folded up his wings and did a dive and went all the way under the water. I got him just as he hit the water. He came back out of the water with a catfish, and I got that.”
He is also a fantastic artist and using drawing as another way to relax; however, when he was younger, his love of drawing would get him in some trouble.
“I enjoy drawing. That’s always been my relaxation,” said Alton. “I used to get in trouble in school for doodling while the teacher was teaching.”
No matter what each day may bring, Alton will continue to praise the Lord and be an inspiration for those he meets. Despite being retired, his heart of gold still allows him to help others through encouragement and prayer.
If you would like to nominate someone for Person of the Week, contact Brittney Mangum at 601-776-3726
