Amiable Baptist Church was 175 years old Saturday, September 6, 2003 Amiable Baptist Church was organized by Rev. Joseph Willis on September 6, 1828, near Glenmora, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Louisiana Baptist historian, W. E. Paxton, wrote of Rev. Joseph Willis: "…he was a simple-hearted Christian, glowing with the love of Jesus and an effective speaker." His youngest son, Aimuewell Willis, said before his own death in 1937 "the secret of his father's success was personal work." He also said that "as a boy he saw his father go to a man in the field, hold his hand and then witness to him until he surrendered to Christ." One grandchild said he would be reading the Bible and talking to them. A few of them would slip away and he would say "children you can slip away from me, but not from God." Joseph constituted a church called Calvary at Bayou Chicot, Louisiana on November 13, 1812. Calvary Baptist Church is still active today. Louisiana had been a state barely seven-months and was in a state of turmoil. Great Britain did not consider the Louisiana Purchase legally valid and Congress had declared war on Great Britain the past June; The War of 1812. Once when he was traveling and preaching, he stayed at an Inn. There were several other men staying there. One of these men was sick and Joseph read the Bible to him, prayed with him and witnessed to him about Christ. The next morning all of the men were gone very early except the man who was sick. He told Joseph that the night before he had overheard the men talking about Joseph and that they had gone ahead to ambush him. He told him about another road too take and Joseph’s life was spared. According to Paxton: "Joseph was never ‘daunted’ for his was a high calling, a single-mindedness of purpose." Those who loved him called Joseph Willis the "Apostle to the Opelousas" and "Father Willis." According to family tradition, strong determination and profound faith were his shields. He would often work barefooted, walking great distances too visit and preach to small groups. He rode logs in order to cross streams or travel downstream. He would sometimes return home from a mission tour as late as one o'clock in the morning and awaken his wife to prepare clothes that he might leave again a few hours later. Paxton wrote "The zeal of Father Willis, as he came to be called by the affectionate people among whom he labored, could not be bounded by the narrow limits of his own home, but he traveled far and wide." By 1818, when Joseph and others founded the Louisiana Baptist Association at Cheneyville, he had been instrumental in founding all five charter member churches. They were Calvary, 1812; Beulah, 1816; Vermillion, 1817; Aimwell, 1817 (also called Debourn); and Plaquemine, 1817. Aimwell was about five-miles southeast of Oberlin, Beulah at Cheneyville, Calvary at Bayou Chicot, Vermillion at Lafayette, and Plaquemine near Branch. In 1824 he helped establish Zion Hill Church at Beaver Dam along with William Wilbourn and Isham Nettles. He went "far and wide" establishing a church October 21, 1827, just seventeen-miles from Orange, Texas, and the Texas State line near Edgerly, Louisiana named Antioch Primitive Baptist Church. Joseph kept a diary. These notes were arranged in 1841 by W. P. Ford and copied by Paxton in 1858. Paxton admits most of his facts concerning Central Louisiana Baptists are from this manuscript and Louisiana Association Minutes. This manuscript is lost today. Mr. Ford also made remarks in this manuscript. One of Ford's observations made in 1834 is recorded by Paxton and is very revealing concerning Joseph: "Nearly all the churches now left in the association were gathered either directly or indirectly by the labors of Mr. Willis. Mr. Ford remarks of this effort: ‘It was truly affecting to hear him speak of them as his children; and with all the affection of a father allude to some schisms and divisions that had arisen in the past and to warn them against the occurrence of anything of the kind in the future. But when he spoke of the fact that two or three of them had already become extinct, his voice failed and he was compelled to give utterance to his feelings by his tears; and surely the heart must have been hard that could not be melted by the manifestation of so much affection, for he wept not alone." Baptist historian John T. Christian wrote in his book "A History of Baptist of Louisiana" (1923): "It must steadily be borne in mind that in no other state of the Union have Baptists been compelled to face such overwhelming odds; and such long and sustained opposition...The wonder is not that at first the Baptists made slow progress, but that they made any at all." Because of Joseph’s failing health, his son Lemuel went and got him and took him to his home in Oakdale, where he lived the remainder of his life. On a bed, in an ox wagon used for an ambulance, he sang as the wagon rolled along to Lemuel’s home. Lemuel had two men with him too help and Joseph witnessed to them while lying in the back of the wagon. He preached to his last breath, either from a chair in the church or from his bed at the home. See http://www.randywillis.org for more on Rev. Joseph Willis. Randy Willis