Rev. Herron Wilson knew from a young age that he had a gift for public speaking.
Growing up in the rural Caile community, near the southern tip of Sunflower County, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to speak to large crowds, but the pastor and now director of Indianola-based Delta Missions, made the best of his surroundings.
“When I was growing up in Caile, as a small kid, I would sit in front of the dresser with the newspaper, and I would pretend to be Peter Jennings, and I would read the news every evening,” Wilson, who was voted by The Enterprise-Tocsin’s readers last month as Sunflower County’s Man of the Year, said. “And I would go down to the lake bank every Saturday, and I would stand there next to the edge of the water, and I would preach to the water every Saturday morning.”
Wilson said that he would even leave the church door unlocked after services or Sunday School so that he could come back multiple times during the week and practice speaking from the pulpit.
Years later, after graduating from Gentry High School, Wilson’s gift for reporting the news and preaching would intersect.
He attended Tougaloo College out of high school, majoring in political science, with thoughts of going to law school.
No matter what happened, he knew that he would come back to the Delta to work.
“Somehow I knew I would return to the Delta,” Wilson said. “I didn’t know exactly what that picture would look like. Somehow, I knew even in college that I would live in the Delta. This is where my heart is. That tug has always been there.”
When he graduated from college, Wilson did return home, this time to Indianola where his mother had moved to after his freshman year at Tougaloo.
“I was watching Channel 6 news one day after I finished college, and I kept saying to myself, ‘I can do that,’” Wilson said.
Wilson soon found himself on television, reporting for then WABG out of Greenwood.
He would eventually anchor the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news for the station for three years.
One week, as a reporter, he was assigned to cover the E.B. Hill Crusade at Mississippi Delta Community College.
When he arrived, he was stunned to see Black people and white people of the Delta worshiping together and committing their lives to Jesus Christ.
Wilson said he reported on the first night objectively, but after the camera stopped rolling he couldn’t help but feel a sense of unbelief at what he had witnessed.
“Beyond that, I sort of mocked it, because I saw whites and Blacks together, and I said ‘This can’t be real,’” Wilson admitted.
He went back to cover the event for a second night in a row, and he said that is when his life was changed in a profound way.
“I don’t know how I left the camera where I was seated, but I realized I was standing down in front of the altar, and I surrendered my life to Christ,” Wilson said. “I forgot how many folks were there, who was looking, I forgot about my job title. I forgot my camera was back in my seat. The tears were streaming…Shortly thereafter, there was an inescapable urge to prepare for ministry.”
Wilson said that he tried to resist that urge, often driving around at night, “negotiating” with God.
“It was inescapable,” he said. “And I couldn’t get away from it.”
Wilson said that a short time later, he was covering the local Junior Auxiliary chapter, and he felt the call to share his testimony with the ladies.
One of the ladies was a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenwood.
She shared Wilson’s story with her pastor and the congregation.
“I went to Reformed Theological Seminary, and I completed my Master of Divinity, and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenwood provided me a scholarship for three solid years,” Wilson said.
While Wilson was attending seminary, he was asked to volunteer one summer with a group called The Sonflowers, a mission focused primarily in the town of Sunflower that led Vacation Bible School camps there.
“I volunteered two summers, and I really liked what I saw,” Wilson said. “I saw kids who were hungry and thirsty to learn God’s Word…I saw this ministry group, their heart and their passion to really reach people for Christ.”
After finishing his degree, Wilson returned to Indianola to the Southgate community.
He saw a need for a mission there, and he was looking to replicate the mission he had worked at in Sunflower.
“I have to give God all the credit for this. I can’t take credit. One day, I noticed that the Bethune Center was sitting there in the middle of what I thought was some 200 homes,” Wilson said.
He noticed the building was not being utilized and was in a state of disrepair.
He asked the executive director of South Delta Housing at the time if he could use it to start a Vacation Bible School camp.
“The executive director not only gave us permission to use it, he didn’t charge a nickel,” Wilson said.
The first VBS was in the summer of 1995.
“Scores of kids came out. In fact, there were more kids than volunteers. We were slightly overwhelmed,” Wilson said.
Wilson said over 100 kids were there, and when the week had finished out, he began to plan for the following summer.
But God had other plans.
The parents of the kids in Southgate called Wilson and wanted to meet the following Saturday.
“The kids kept nagging, and the parents kept calling and inquiring,” he said. “What started out as a one-time Vacation Bible School camp turned into an every Saturday meeting with the kids for Bible study, recreation, arts and crafts, and occasionally we’d take a trip.”
That ministry would soon become Delta Missions, which this summer, will start its 30th year in Indianola.
The mission has grown from VBS to serving senior citizens and other adults, as well as teenagers. The mission also operates a clothing closet for those in need of clothes.
“All of those things grew out of the needs of the children and their families,” Wilson said. “It’s hard to minister to people without ministering to the whole person. When a child is coming to a Vacation Bible School camp and doesn’t have a coat for the winter, you can’t ignore that.”
Over the years, scores of kids have walked through the doors of the Johnson Street church, some admittedly rough around the edges, but they all knew they would feel loved under Wilson’s watch.
Wilson said many of the kids he’s seeing now are the children of the first group that came through in the mid-to-late-1990s.
He encounters many of those first kids in the stores in Indianola. There was one he met not too long ago while he was grocery shopping.
“He told me that I had been like a father to him, all of those years that he had come to Delta Missions,” Wilson said. “I just broke down and cried. He told me that he had given his life to Christ, he was in the church now and he was a Sunday School teacher.”
Through the decades, Wilson has also forged relationships with other pastors, churches and businesses within the community.
“When I look at Delta Missions’ 29 years of ministry, it would not be possible without support from across racial and cultural lines,” he said. “If this community (and others) did not pray for Delta Missions, did not support Delta Missions or did not come to volunteer at Delta Missions, we would have had to have closed the doors many years ago. In some sense, it’s the community’s mission and ministry.”
Wilson said that he hopes others, particularly those who have been touched by Delta Missions over the last three decades, will be ready to continue the ministry in Indianola.
“I pray that they’ll somehow be equipped and trained to take the baton when my time comes and run on with it and continue to do the work that has been done for the last 30 years,” he said.
When he is not serving the community at Delta Missions, Wilson is serving his congregates at Stranger’s Home Baptist Church and Pilgrim’s Rest Baptist Church, both in Shaw, where he has pastored over the last 30 years.
Rev. Herron Wilson has gone from broadcasting the news of the day to spreading the Good News of God’s Kingdom in Indianola.
His ability to speak in front of crowds and audiences has led to the transformation of lives in his community.
“That’s the talent God gave me,” Wilson said. “I feel very comfortable when I use it. I’m in my element when I use it. I thoroughly enjoy it, and I get to see results when I use it.”
