Rev Roland Ludlam
Assistant Superintendant
Roland Ludlam pastors the Church of the Rock in St. Albans, Vermont. He and his wife Suzanne have served this congregation
for the past 26 years. They have three children and seven grand children. The Ludlams came to the NNED in 1982 after being
baptized in the Holy Spirit on the mission field while serving in another denomination. Roland has served as presbyter for
the NW Section for a number of years, and Suzanne has served as WM rep and recording secretary for the district. In addition,
Roland is a trainer for the Church Planter Profile assessment process and a facilitator at church planting boot camps.
No Plan B!
What do tonsils, wisdom teeth and the appendix have in common? At one time or another these parts of the body have been
considered unnecessary. I grew up in a time when it was common practice to have your tonsils out. Somehow or other my tonsils
survived, and I was never relegated to that “ice cream” only diet that my school friends ate following their surgeries.
Having your wisdom teeth out is still a rite of passage for many young people. I don’t know where ice cream fits in that ordeal.
But surely the award for the most “useless” organ goes to the lowly appendix.
The appendix has been described as “a slimy, dead-end sac that hangs between the small and large intestines. It’s about a half
inch in diameter and three inches long.” (Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience’s Bad Medicine Columnist, 30 May 2006) And that’s not
the worst of it. Charles Darwin regarded it as a vestigial organ designed to aid in the eating of tree bark. For the next 150
years the appendix was written off as of no purpose other than getting itself inflamed and needing to be surgically removed.
