Car parade held for pastor battling Stage 4 lymphoma
Draped and decorated in balloons and banners, cars rolled down Hoon Road with horns honking and well-wishers cheering this afternoon.
In and out of windows, homemade signs conveyed expressions of love, homage and support for the subject of the cacophonous cavalcade.
Bob Huber — better known to congregants as “Pastor Bob” or “PB,” short for the same moniker — watched in disbelief and delight at the spectacle while seated and sheltered from the rain in his own vehicle parked at the end of the driveway at his Oakland Township home.
Pastor of the North Street Christian Church in Butler for the past 41 years, the beloved Huber is battling stage 4 lymphoma. But to make matters worse, his battle comes in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — a strange time of self-isolation and social distancing.
And all that was the reason behind Sunday's parade of 50 or so vehicles.
“I thought it would show him how much we love him without endangering his health,” said church member Terri Collins of Meridian, who came up with the idea that was intended to surprise Huber. “This was our way of giving him a virtual hug.”
It worked.
“I was surprised, absolutely,” Huber said after the last vehicle had passed. “I'm slain.”
Fighting back tears, he tried putting his feelings into words.
“That what the love of the Lord does. It makes people family,” he said. “I just can't describe it. What a day.”
Huber's world, and that of both his home and church families, was turned on its head beginning in September. While on a family vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, he noticed a marble-sized lump on the side of his neck. It grew.
“We were all concerned,” said Sonya Kremer of Slippery Rock, the oldest of three adopted children of Bob and Kathi Huber.
The couple has fostered about 30 children in their 47 years of marriage.
This is an excerpt from a larger article that will appear in Monday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read the full article on Monday.
