"How Great Thou Art"

On Thursday, September 27, Peter and a good friend of his, Clair Bixler, left at 5:00 a.m. for a 2:00 appointment with the manager of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina. For the past six months Peter had been designing a mammoth, 400 pound carved wall décor rendition of the hymn “How Great Thou Art” and he wanted the folks at the Billy Graham Library to be the first ones to see it, recognizing the impact that hymn had on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association by George Beverly Shea’s singing.

Measuring seven feet in width and six feet in diameter, it was a feat just to get the piece loaded into the truck for the trip down. Before it was loaded, however, Peter insisted on a 7:45 a.m. photo shoot in front of LeAnna’s landscaping. The hymn was carved out of cherry, after which it was mounted onto a frame composed of multiple layers of molding carefully mitered, stained, sealed, hand sanded, and top coated twice.

The manager of the Billy Graham Library, Wayne Atcheson, was overwhelmed by the majesty of the piece. Operations manager Cheryl Bradbury was equally impressed. They requested a jpeg of the piece which they were then going to forward to Franklin Graham after which they hoped to install one just like it in the library.

Cheryl most graciously took Clair and Peter on a tour of the Library, showing us Billy Graham’s childhood home constructed on the site, and the final resting place of Ruth Bell Graham on the Library property.

Peter was moved, in part due to the fact that Ruth Bell Graham was also born in China and grew up in China the child of missionaries.

Peter Dunn

P. Graham Dunn