Written by: Rose Anding on June 21, 2017

The tragedies of my yesterdays are now the sermons I preach, the lessons I share, and the memories that have caused me to lay down the stones that I used to carry.

– Rose Anding

 Life and Background of Anding

Rose Maria “Simmons McCarthy” Anding, a visionary, teacher, biblical counselor, chaplain. Evangelist, Author, of High Heels, Honey Lips, and White Powder, was born January 15, 1938 in rural Magnolia, Pike County Mississippi, the seventh child of a dairy farmer and a stay-at-home mother. She is a wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, great grandmother. She has lived in Chicago, Washington, DC, and North Carolina, and is now back on the forgiving soil of Mississippi.

Anding’s mother was a storyteller, and she shared Bible stories with her children. Ordinary men of courage were used by Jehovah to right wrongs, conquer kingdoms, enforce justice, and change the course of history: Daniel, Joseph, Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Moses, Abraham, Samuel, and the prophets. They were men of faith who found strength in weakness. Anding’s mother used their stories to instill faith, hope, and knowledge in her children so their lives would not be controlled by circumstances. She taught them to live by principles and be true to their word: Faith was established at an early age. Anding was literally reared within the four walls of the church. She hated the rules and regulations that controlled her life, the frustration of religion was real to her. Somehow, she knew it wasn’t about church, but something deeper. Maybe it was the religious behavior, rituals, tradition, and activities of her parents’ lives.

Her father became a minister and a pastor of three churches he established. They stand today as prominent churches in their respective communities. Because of her mother’s teaching and storytelling and her father’s strength, courage, and God-given vision, Anding’s faith in God was strong from an early age.

Anding grasped every word her parents told the children; therefore, as a child, she always believed that her faith would carry her through any situation. She developed a positive approach for reviewing situations and became the family encourager—telling everyone, “Don’t give up, we can make it.” She teaches her grandchildren how to believe in God the same way her mother had taught her. Often she would hold hands, pray, and they would come in agreement and make their request known to God.

Father’s Legacy and Family Impact: Anding, her parents and older brothers and sisters  all walked  two-and-a-half-mile journey twice a day to the small little schoolhouse on State-line road. For several generations, the Kelly School had provided the only educational opportunity in her community for people of color. Those two years began Anding’s education.

Since the father didn’t want his daughters to go away to high school, so he bought a wooden school bus coach and mounted it on the frame of an old two-and-a-half-ton pulpwood truck. He then contracted with other parents to bus their children to the nearest high school outside of the community. The daily contract fee was fifteen cents per child, per day. September 1947 was a landmark period in their community. Black boys and girls, previously without opportunity, were now going to Rose Hill high school in southeast Magnolia, Mississippi, which provided education for students from kindergarten to 12^th grade. Anding attended that school and completed the 11th grade. Then her parents moved from rural Magnolia to small-town McComb, Mississippi. In 1957, Anding was the homecoming queen, girlfriend of the captain of the football team, honor student, and graduated top of her class at Burglund High School.

On October 13, 1957, Anding married her pastor’s son, Daniel McCarthy, in Chicago Illinois at the age of 19, and became the mother of two wonderful children, Daniel Lamar and Tamela Marietta. She was a Sunday school teacher and worker in the church.

The period from 1969 to 2006, captured in Anding’s 2010 memoirs published, represents the thirty-seven years of her life when she was without God. There, she shares the introduction and development of her newfound love with Jesus and her commitment to Him. The result: Jesus came home to live with her and saved her life.

Ministry Experience

Jesus commissioned Anding to win souls for Christ in later 2007; on December 2011, she was ordained gospel minster, and became an evangelist of the church, preaching and teaching the word of God. While reaching out to the lost and leading souls to Christ, some of her activities included visiting the prisons, hospitals, and the sick. She has worked within communities to establish a substance-abuse center and others as needed.

Anding’s passion and vision is to help men and women who are bound by substance abuse and other human entanglements. Her ultimate goal is to please God and offer her gifts to others, wherever people are hurting: the underprivileged, the poor and needy, the spiritually bankrupt.

Business Experience:

Anding received a BS in Computer Science from the University of DC, Washington, D.C., with a minor in Accounting / Marketing in 1980, Anding has over thirty-five years of business experience in management, system design and analysis. She has worked as a consultant for various branches of the Federal government in Washington in design, management, financial and inventory systems. She spent several years as an upper-level manager with the Boeing and McDonnell Douglass  Aircraft Corporations setting up various projects.

One of her major projects was with the US Postal Services managing ongoing analysis and implementation of the Zip+4 system. She has also been a loan broker, sales manager of an apartment complex, retail-store owner, and business consultant. She has written business plans, loan packages, grant proposals, set up 501c(3) corporations, and helped countless individuals step into their visions. Anding received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2012 from AGAPE BIBLE COLLEGE, Jacksonville, North Carolina for her work in the Ambassador for Christ Program

Anding’s education:

The past nine years have been her preparation for answering the call from God. She has been working on the plans for planting an outreach ministry while studying and receiving the proper training at Liberty Theological Seminary and Graduate School. What began as a single goal of completing a Master of Arts in Religion, “Evangelism and Church Planting”—earned in 2012—has become a new kind of outreach ministry. At the end of that goal, the Holy Spirit urged her on, revealing the need for Biblical counseling; therefore, her second goal was completing a Master of Divinity in chaplaincy, which was earned in 2014. This consisted of biblical counseling/chaplaincy, and it gave her the advantages of being a chaplain, which enhanced her prison and hospital ministries. In May of 2016, she will have earned a Master of Arts in Human Services Counseling: Addictions and Recovery, which will aid in working with the drug culture. In 2015, she was accepted by George Fox Evangelical Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry program. This education will enhance her as founder and visionary of the model ministry of the Restoration City Missional, and serving God’s people as a servant leader.

Anding’s family says:

She has a great love for family and is a very giving person. Anding’s family believes that she will continue to stand like the mighty oak and the lowly elm and lift her arms toward heaven with the strength that comes from God!

I am prepared to face the harshness of winter

While I wait for the promise of my spring

–Rose Anding

Family reunion photo

About the Author

Rose Anding

Rose Maria “Simmons McCarthy” Anding, a Visionary, Teacher,Evangelist, Biblical Counselor/ Chaplain and Author, of High Heels, Honey Lips, and White Powder. She is a widower, mother, stepmother, grandmother, great grandmother of Denver James, the greater joy of her life. She has lived in Chicago, Washington, DC, and North Carolina, and is now back on the forgiving soil of Mississippi.

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