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The following is a speech given by Nick Liston, FCS social studies teacher, at the retirement party for Dr. Raymond Meyer. Dr. Meyer served for 36 years in roles including pastor, teacher, Biblical integration specialist, and FCS secondary campus principal. Parts of the speech were edited for clarity and brevity.

Ray and I accepted teaching positions at Fremont Christian School just weeks apart in the summer of 1989. 1989 was a very different time from today—no cell phones, no internet. FCS had yet to discover air conditioning. Students did not have to wear uniforms, but teachers were required to wear ties. We complained when the price of gas crept over a dollar a gallon. A hamburger at McDonald’s ran about fifty cents, which may explain why we were starting to have trouble fitting into a pair of Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans, which were selling at just under $20. 

On November 9, the people of East and West Germany rose up and tore down the Berlin Wall, one of the most repressive symbols of the Cold War that had gripped the world for over 40 years. And while Ray constantly tells me “Correlation is not causation,” I find it very hard to believe that the addition of two such stellar intellects to the faculty of Fremont Christian had nothing to do with the downfall of Communism just ten weeks hence.

Now, 37 years later, I am reminded of the words of another icon from the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, who once said of the armed forces, “Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.” I would argue the same could be said of teachers. And I would say that is especially true of the man we honor here today.

Throughout our teaching careers, Ray and I have shared a lot. On numerous occasions, our classrooms have had an adjoining wall. We often taught the same grade levels: one decade teaching junior highers, another decade juniors and seniors. We have shared complaints. “How many more days until spring break?” “The copier is jammed…again.” And year after year, we have parroted the musical Bye-Bye Birdie in asking “What’s the matter with these kids today?"

We’ve also shared the unique experience of teaching one another’s children. You can learn a lot about a person when you teach their kids. Having taught Jake in both eighth and twelfth grade as well as coaching him in soccer, I got to inspect Ray’s parenting skills up close. They are impressive. Jake’s curiosity and work ethic in the classroom, his warm personality, his leadership as a captain of the soccer team—which came within one goal of a section title—were clear reflections of the home that Ray and Tricia had created.

On the flip side, Ray also taught all four of my children. I would like to say…I’m sorry. We tried. There were just too many of them.

Two memories come to mind right away. The first was the Sunday that Ray asked my son Isaac to play piano at the church where he was a pastor. My entire family attended First Baptist that week, sitting in the second row. When Ray wrapped up the sermon, I leaned over to my daughter and whispered, “What a great sermon.” “Yeah,” she said. “We had that lesson in class last week.”

Ray’s double-dipping aside, that moment reminded me how fortunate we were to have our kids in Ray’s Bible class, to have their faith shaped, stretched, and deepened five days a week by someone who truly knows Scripture and knows how to teach it.

The second memory involves my eldest son, Isaiah. Following his freshman year of college, Isaiah took a missions trip to the interior of Tanzania. His team of 12 college students traveled from village to village, meeting with the few Christians who lived there and often holding a short worship service followed by a message for these makeshift congregations.

The third day in, the group leader came over to Isaiah about halfway through the worship service and whispered, “Greg was supposed to do the sermon tonight, but he’s sick. Can you cover? You’re on in twenty minutes.” Isaiah just smiled. “Dad,” he would later tell me, “I had been throwing together devotionals in Dr. Meyer’s class in way less than twenty minutes. I grabbed a scrap of paper, jotted down my three points, and then gave those people some Jesus.”

So maybe Ray and I didn’t cause the Berlin Wall to be torn down back in 1989. But I do know the impact Ray has had on my children—and the thousands of other students who have sat in the pews of his classroom.

And while some people may wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference, Ray won’t have that problem. Because Ray is a teacher. Ray is a great, great teacher.