I will never forget my very first encounter with Dr. Oates. I was a very green M.Div. student having just arrived on the Louisville campus that August day in 1972, and in desperate need of a job. I have a B.S. in nursing and had had experience in psychiatric nursing. Grady Nutt had told me that Dr. Oates might be able to point me in the right direction in looking for a psychiatric nursing job. I spotted him standing down the hall from me in Norton Hall. I was a bit intimidated to ask the great Dr. Oates about a secular job, but donned my courage and approached him. When I told him who I was and that Grady had suggested that I ask him for a lead on a good place to do nursing, he looked at me and smiled. In that deep, profound voice he announced, "Come with me."

I followed him to his office where we chatted for a few moments about who I was, from whence I had come and my utter confusion about where all this combination of nursing and theology might lead me. He was delightful and my fears vanished almost immediately. I was shocked to feel so comfortable and to be considered a colleague so quickly. He picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number. He asked to speak to a specific person and then proceeded to say, "I am sending you a psychiatric nurse. Hire her." He then gave me the directions to the old Norton Hospital and told me who to see. I had a perfunctory interview that afternoon and had a job right then and there. I was amazed.

My amazement of Dr. Oates never ceased. He was so delightful and taught me so many things in so many ways. He made me want to learn. He brought Pastoral Care and Pastoral Counseling alive to me. It was that first encounter with him and then contact with him in classrooms and around the campus that helped make it clear to me that Pastoral Care and Counseling was the direction of my ministry. I began to see how God was using my nursing, my psychological bent, and my theological studies to lead me into a specific calling -- to bring these worlds together into a ministry that focuses on the whole person. I am so indebted to him for his guidance and leadership.

Years later when he came to a city where I was doing Pastoral Counseling to do a seminar for pastors, he affirmed me in the way that he affirmed so many of us in our ministry. He told the pastors that he would feel very good about sending one of his loved ones to me. I have cherished that in my heart all these years and am grateful for a man who was willing to call out my gifts, and help me to see how God was blessing them by blessing them himself.

He was a friend to many women in ministry. He never questioned our calling or our quality because of our gender. He affirmed and blessed us and helped us to believe in ourselves and the ministry to which we had been called. There are so many of us who have for years and will continue for ages to come to rise up and call him blessed. I will miss him terribly, but every remembrance of him will bring a smile to my heart, a story to share with someone who didn't get to know him, and a song of gratitude to God for his life and work among us. Thanks be to God!!