Which is where we caught up with him and followed his journey throughout the day, stopping with him to enjoy lunch at Paducah’s Community Kitchen. The Kitchen is his normal lunch spot. He walks, or takes the Paducah Transit bus, there just about every day. He told me that he has food at home but enjoys the company at the Kitchen. Plus, it gives him the opportunity to help some people there who maybe cannot make it from the food line to their table without assistance. “Some people have canes or wheelchairs,” he told me. That is another theme of Elliott’s life — ministry. He was, after all, raised by career missionaries, who brought up Elliott and his siblings in Kenya while sharing the love of Jesus. “I wouldn’t have the friends that I have from church if I didn’t know what church was all about,” he says. “And I wouldn’t know what it was all about if I hadn’t grown up in a church and had the parents that I had so I could see what their life was like.” “In other words, I had good examples.” Nowadays, after graduating from the Moody Bible Institute himself in Chicago after his family came home from Africa, Elliott is a valued member of Grace Fellowship Church, where Pastor Kevin Gaunce makes sure that Elliott can make it to services by picking him up himself. “Elliott’s attitude is very sunny, not Pollyanna, but he definitely has an attitude of gratitude,” Kevin said. “He’s just so thankful, truly, for his upbringing, for the friends he has here, for the Kitchen, and for our church. And he’s very verbal about sharing it.” “I bet I hear that every other week as we’re driving to church,” he says. “It’s genuine because he really feels like God has blessed him immensely well.” Several years ago, Kevin and the Grace Fellowship Family celebrated Elliott with a special night devoted just to him, where he brought old family photos and shared his story and testimony with the attendees. “It was so great,” he said. “There was one picture of him as a toddler standing literally on the foot of an elephant. As a kid, he could look out his front door and see Mount Kilimanjaro.” “I mean, it’s just like, wow, he’s just lived a life that’s so intriguing and so different from anybody else.” His life, now that he has been widowed for about 13 years by his wife, Barbara, who led the family back to Paducah, is still as full as it ever has been. Elliott spends his days walking to the bus, sharing his love at church and the Kitchen, and believe it or not, doing yardwork, both on his own lawn and for a family friend (who is 94) in Lone Oak. It’s somewhat ironic that, while Kevin and his church family seem to spend a lot of time honoring Elliott, he’s busy passing those blessings straight onto others. “He’s very respected by the church,” Kevin said. “People love him because of his attitude. He’s friendly and he’s very thankful for everything he gets.” “In James, we are called to take care of widows and orphans in their distress. It doesn’t say the elderly, but that’s kind of another category of people that maybe have either been forgotten by society or their circumstances have made them needy.” “They are the ones that God has a special heart for and has called us as a church and as a people to really try to reach out to minister and take care of and they can sometimes be forgotten in society.” “All of that makes me want to just serve Elliott and love Elliott.” But, letting Elliott have the last word here gives him the chance to say the most Elliott thing ever. “I’ve lived a blessed life,” he says. Gratitude AN ATTITUDE OF Walmart Supercenter Community Kitchen Elliott’s Home 86 JULY 2025 | INTHEVUE.COM
