SPRINGFIELD, OH — My name is Gerald Fitch, I am 61 years old, and I have been the primary driver of the First Community Church 12-passenger van since the spring of 2009, when Pastor Dave asked if I “wouldn’t mind doing it just once.”

I have done it 847 times.

In those seventeen years I have transported 214 distinct youth group members to camps, retreats, lock-ins, and one corn maze that I will not discuss. I have picked up eleven missionaries from Columbus International Airport at hours that should not legally exist. I have driven the senior ladies’ quilting circle to Branson, Missouri and back, which is a sentence I once believed would never describe my life.

“I am not complaining. I want to be very clear about that. I am simply documenting, for the record, that this ministry exists and that it is me.”

Marcus Webb, 34, who serves on the church hospitality committee, confirmed that Gerald’s name appears on no official volunteer roster, no prayer bulletin, and no ministry report presented at the annual meeting. “We should probably look into that,” Webb said.

The van has 84,217 miles on it. I know because I watch the odometer. I watch it the way a man watches something that is the only evidence he was ever there.

There is a French fry under the third-row seat that has been there since the 2021 winter retreat. I have chosen to leave it as a memorial.

I will drive again this Saturday. Airport run. 4:45 a.m. Nobody asked if I was available. They already knew.

At press time, Gerald had been added to the church prayer list under “miscellaneous transportation needs.”