Natomas Cares: Man Reunited With Bible

Mitchell Stewart and his Bible – reunited.

BY BRANDY TUZON BOYD
THE NATOMAS BUZZ | @natomasbuzz

Today in church, Mitchell Stewart held something in his hands that he’d been missing for months. His Bible.

“It’s a lifelong journey and everyday you get a new revelation, insight, on what the scriptures are telling you,” the Natomas resident explained, flipping through the well-worn pages. “I like to look back at how much I have learned.”

Using one of his wife’s Bibles the past four months, he said, had not been the same.

Stewart flips through his Bible.

His own parallel Bible features Old King James scriptures alongside New International Version interpretations. Many verses have been highlighted by Stewart over the years.

“Someone once returned a Bible of mine after I had left it in the hospital,” said Pastor Ann Myrick, who yesterday reunited Stewart with the holy book he lost back in December.

Stewart said he got the Bible sometime in the mid 1980s or early 1990s. Over time, the cover wore out and the binding split, but he still used it. Then, a few years ago, his wife Andrena surprised Stewart for his birthday by having the Bible rebound and the cover engraved with his name.

It was the engraving that caught the eye of the passerby who found Stewart’s Bible in the road after he had accidentally left it atop his car getting ready to go to church one day. And it was the engraving that helped Myrick, with some help from THE NATOMAS BUZZ and Natomas Park Homeowners Association, return the beloved tome to its owner.

Rozina Hayes said she was driving northbound on Natomas Boulevard when she saw a book with letters on the cover lying in the middle of the road. She stopped her car, put it in reverse and picked it up.

“The letters were glowing,” she described via telephone to Stewart. “I didn’t know what it was.”

Hayes, a parishioner at Cornerstone of Faith in Natomas, gave the Bible to Myrick and asked her to help find its owner. Meanwhile, the Stewarts had posted fliers on neighborhood mailboxes and checked at The Club to see whether anyone had turned in the Bible – with no luck.

“We just figured someone needed it more than us,” said Stewart.

Talking to Rozina Hayes, the woman who found Stewart’s Bible in December.

At about the same time, Myrick said she was searching Google, Facebook and other nearby churches. After giving up the search for a while, she started looking again. Myrick said she saw listings for lost and found pets on THE NATOMAS BUZZ and thought, “Why not a Bible?”

Myrick met Andrena and Mitchell Saturday, April 14 at The Club where they chatted with Hayes via telephone, exchanged hugs and the Bible which Stewart clutched close to his chest.

Andrena and Mitchell Stewart with Pastor Ann Myrick.